This ‘a’ that escapes us: is it really a Castilianism?

PalmaHas it ever happened to you that, when someone told you they had greeted ‘a la veïna’ [the neighbor] or that on the radio they had interviewed ‘a aquella escriptora tan famosa’ [that famous writer], you wondered if that ‘a’ should be there? The question is quite common and, if we only take the regulations into account, the answer is simple: no. We should say ‘he saludat la veïna’ or ‘han entrevistat aquella escriptora’. In Spanish, however, the preposition would indeed be necessary: it would be appropriate to say ‘he saludado a mi vecina’ or ‘han entrevistado a la escritora’, and that is why it is easy to think that, when we use it in Catalan, we have let ourselves be carried away by the neighboring language.

However, languages are rarely explained by such a simple rule. In Catalan, the ‘a’ also appears (and can even be necessary) before certain direct objects. Furthermore, if we look at the history of the language, we discover that this construction is already documented in medieval Catalan, long before the social pressure of Spanish reached the intensity we know. To understand what is happening, however, it is convenient to start by clarifying what a direct object is and why, sometimes, it can be preceded by a preposition.

When we say ‘he comprat un llibre’ [I bought a book] or ‘he vist en Pol’ [I saw Pol], the phrases that follow the verb perform the same syntactic function: they are direct objects, that is, they indicate who or what the event mentioned by the verb falls upon. In Catalan, this function is generally not introduced by any preposition, even if the complement refers to a person. The indirect object, on the other hand, usually carries one: in ‘he regalat el llibre al meu nebot’ [I gave the book to my nephew], ‘el llibre’ is what we are giving and ‘al meu nebot’ indicates who receives it.

Differential object marking

This distinction seems clear, but things get complicated when we enter certain contexts. Not all direct objects behave the same way, and languages have resources to indicate what function each element performs within a sentence. One of these resources is what linguists call 'differential object marking' or, simply, DOM.

The term may seem complex, but the idea is simple: in certain languages, some direct objects carry a mark that distinguishes them from other objects. In Catalan and Spanish, this mark can be the preposition 'a', although in other languages it may function in different ways. This mark, however, is not placed before all direct objects: its presence depends on factors such as whether they designate a person, whether they are defined, or whether we can clearly identify who or what we are talking about.

In Catalan, the regulations establish specific limits for the use of this 'a'. In general, it is not used, but there are contexts where it can appear, such as before certain strong personal pronouns ('I have seen you') or when it helps to avoid ambiguity. For example, 'A qui ha vist en Miquel?' does not mean the same as 'Qui ha vist en Miquel?': in the first case, we are asking who was seen by Miquel; in the second, who performed the action of seeing him.

There are also constructions in which the direct object appears separated from its usual position and is resumed with a weak pronoun. In these cases, in Majorcan Catalan, it is even possible to mark inanimate objects, as in 'I don't have space to put them, all these books'. This makes us think that it is not enough to say that the 'a' appears before people, but that we must also look at how the sentence is constructed.

If the issue were only grammatical, it would probably not generate so many doubts. However, in the case of Catalan, the use of the preposition before human direct objects must also be considered in relation to contact with Spanish, a language in which the use of the 'a' before human direct objects is much more generalized. As we have said, however, the similarity between two forms is not enough, by itself, to explain their origin.

The studies by linguist Anna Pineda on the evolution of differential object marking in Catalan show that this construction is not a novelty of recent years. The analysis of ancient texts allows its use to be documented as early as Medieval Catalan, which proves that it is not a structure completely foreign to the history of Catalan, but rather a resource that was already part of the language's usage in previous eras.

Influence of Spanish

However, the fact that a construction appears in medieval texts does not mean that the influence of Spanish has played no role. In fact, the historical data analyzed by Pineda indicate that differential object marking increases notably from the 16th century onwards and reaches high percentages in certain types of complements and in some texts from the 17th century. This coincides precisely with a period in which contact with Spanish is increasingly relevant (at least in written documentation), so the influence of this language may have contributed to extending the construction. Thus, the history that these data draw is more complex than a simple opposition between a genuine form and an imported form.

In short, when we ask ourselves whether in Catalan we say ‘han convidat l’escriptora’ or ‘han convidat a l’escriptora’, we are actually mixing two questions. If what we want is to follow the general rules of standard Catalan, the recommended form is ‘he saludat la veïna’. However, if what we want is to understand why many speakers use the preposition in this context, we must take into account more factors, such as contact with Spanish, linguistic variation, and the history of the language.