On the setting of scales in the diachrony of differential object marking

International audience; The focus of this paper is a generally ignored counterexample to animacy/person scales (Hale 1972, Silverstein 1976, Aissen 2003, a.o.), which are often assumed to be universal (Kiparsky 2008, a.o.). Drawing from Old Romance differential object marking (DOM) data, we analyse various scale reversals in Old Catalan and Old Romanian. We notice that, contrary to what the scales would predict, i) 3 rd person pronouns surface with DOM to the exclusion of 1 st and 2 nd persons, and ii) proper names take DOM to the exclusion of pronouns. We propose to derive these unexpected patterns by evaluating i) micro-parameters in the composition of Romance DPs and pronouns, and ii) the presence of more than one licensing strategy for arguments. Scale reversals result from the introduction of a novel argumentlicensing strategy based on animacy in languages where an older strategy for 1 st /2 nd persons was still active.