dualmarked

Dualmarked is a term used in linguistics to describe a property of certain languages in which grammatical marking encodes information about more than one participant in a transitive clause. In a dualmarked system, the core arguments of a clause—the subject and the object—may be explicitly marked, either on the verb through cross-referencing morphology or on the noun phrases via case or agreement markers. This results in a higher density of information on a single form compared to languages that mark only one participant or rely primarily on word order for argument relations.

The marking can take several shapes. In some languages, verbs carry complex cross-reference affixes that indicate both subject and object person and number. In others, nouns or pronouns bear parallel markers that align with the verb or with each other across the clause. Dual marking can appear as a combination of affixes, clitics, or separate particles, and it may interact with other grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, or mood. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with concepts like double marking or double agreement, though terminology varies among researchers.

Distribution and function vary cross-linguistically. Dualmarked systems are commonly discussed in the study of agreement in polysynthetic languages and in certain nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive alignment patterns, where explicit cross-reference helps signal argument structure. The term is not universally standardized; some scholars distinguish dual marking from other forms of cross-referencing by specifying whether both arguments are marked on a single element (such as the verb) or independently on multiple elements.

See also: grammatical marking, agreement, cross-reference, polysynthetic languages, ergativity.