Enclitic Subject Pronouns in the Romance Languages

Abstract

Abstract On the basis of these and other syntactic facts, he claims that in French, subject pronouns are phonological clitics: in the syntax they occur in subject position and are therefore in complementary distribution with lexical subjects (cf. (2b,c)); when lexical and pronominal subjects apparently co-occur, as in (2a), the lexical subject is in reality left dislocated, and only the pronoun occupies the subject position. Thus, in the case of DPs that cannot be left dislocated (e.g., some negative quantifiers), the co-occurrence of lexical and pronominal subject is barred (cf. (2d,e)). Furthermore, Rizzi claims that in the Northern Italian dialects considered here, the subject pronouns are syntactic clitics: they are generated as part of Inflection and can freely co-occur with a lexical subject in subject position (cf. (1 a,d)); as part of the verbal inflection, their expression is obligatory (lb,e), but they represent a strong agreement type, so the subject position may remain unfilled (lc).