The volume brings together the papers read at the international conference on Romance Objects organized by the Linguistics Department of the Roma Tre University. It is characterized by a striking uniformity of approach, which is functional, and of methodology.

The various case studies regarding the object focus on the syntax/semantics and syntax/pragmatics interfaces. The common denominator of the ten enquiries is the identification of the object category, the DO in particular, in Romance languages; at the same time some of the contributors relate the specific topic to more general questions of linguistic typology. Some of the essays are based on the analysis of data from a corpus and present a diachronic picture of the evolution of the specific topic investigated.

Thus this volume is addressed not only to scholars interested in the Romance languages but also all those who study the object category in a cross-linguistic perspective.

Michela Cennamo: (In)transitivity and object marking: some current issues.