Resumen de The Influence of Animacy, Givenness and Focus on Object Order in Croatian Ditransitives

Marta Velnić

• This study aims to investigate how animacy, givenness, and focus influence object order preference (direct‐indirect, indirect‐direct) in Croatian ditransitive structures. An online survey testing acceptability judgement of four target word orders in various contexts was conducted on 82 native speakers of Croatian. We found that all three factors have an effect on word order preference. The study revealed a preference for DO‐IO orders once animacy was neutralized, and found that focus influences object order more strongly than a simple given/new contrast. The word order with the widest contextual applicability is verb‐direct‐indirect, thus indicating the potential underlying status of this structure