Although differential object marking (DOM) is generally based on hierarchies reflecting certain characteristics of an object (such as animacy, topicality, definiteness; see UT010), there are also languages that use DOM to convey aspectual nuances, e.g., perfectivity vs. imperfectivity (Malchukov and de Hoop 2011). In Estonian, the genitive object tends to receive a perfective/bounded interpretation (1a), whereas the partitive object gets an imperfcetive/unbounded interpretation (1b).

(1) Estonian

a. Anne ostis jalgratta**
Anne ost-is jalgratta
Anne buy-PST.3SG bicycle.GEN
‘Anne bought a bicycle’

b. Anne ostis jalgratast**
Anne ost-is jalgratas-t
Anne buy-PST.3SG bicycle-PRT
‘Anne was buying a bicycle’

Coding

The value is '1' if differences in direct object marking are based on differences in conveying aspectual information. The answer is '1' even if there are some restrictions, e.g., in Erzya, the definite conjugation can be associated with perfectivity/future and the indefinite conjugation with imperfectivity/present, although this does not apply to verbs expressing state and perception. When answering the question, only finite clauses were considered.