Clitic Clusters Research Articles

The dynamics of the PF interface: Negation and clitic clusters

In this article we take into account the different development of Italian and French with respect to the Jespersen cycle of negation: both languages started with a similar system, but are nowadays rather different. We argue that several different factors are involved in the activation of the cycle, which is the result of a general economy strategy. We claim that Jespersen's cycle can be blocked if speakers have access to any kind of evidence that the negative marker is complex. Here we provide evidence that the cycle is blocked when the preverbal negative marker is morphologically complex (i.e. at least bi-morphemic). We investigate several Italo-Romance varieties (both old and modern) and show that the alternation between two forms of the preverbal negative marker which depends on the presence of object clitics can either be a syntactic process or a phonological one, (although still sensitive to syntactic information). We argue that these morpho-phonological phenomena block the activation of the cycle as they make the bi-morphemic nature of the negative marker recognizable by the speakers. In addition, the data we present can shed light on the more general principles that map the PF interface.

Spanish clitic clusters

This paper deals with a small set of data from clusters of three clitics in Spanish that questions the empirical adequacy and scope of previous analyses of clitic clusters in Romance. It is shown that the output of the Spurious se Rule is not identical to genuine se, at some level that is relevant for linearization of clitics within a cluster. A proposal is presented to capture the neglected data, and this is done in a way that illuminates the debate on the division of labour in clitic phenomena between phonology, morphology and syntax. Central questions in morphology, such as ordering of operations, syncretisms, linearization principles and consequences of lexical insertion are addressed and re-examined.

Reanalysis of negatives as polarity markers? The last 400 years of decline of the French preverbal negative clitic

Typically, the evolution of negation involves an intermediate stage where a post-verbal negator doubles a preverbal marker. The decline of the preverbal marker is generally understood as a form of weakening, through mechanisms that remain rather vague in the literature. A precise hypothesis is proposed by Anne Breitbarth in her analysis of the negative cycle in Germanic (2009). She claims that the acquisition of negative status by the post-verbal item causes the preverbal item to become a polarity marker. The marker should therefore increasingly display a preponderance of uses in non-negative environments. Whether the predictions made by this dual reanalysis hypothesis are supported by the history of French negation is assessed in this paper. Data from 17th and 18th century vernacular French texts (Textes français privés des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles), as well as from the contemporary vernacular (Corpus de français parlé parisien des années 2000), show that the French preverbal negative contradicts the predictions of the dual reanalysis hypothesis in being increasingly used in negative environments. The causes of the decline of the preverbal negative in French are proposed to relate to its membership of a clitic cluster that is susceptible to phonological reductions.

Floating Agreement in American Spanish Leísta Dialects

In this paper I link ‘floating features’ in clitic clusters with two third-person participants to a split object marking system, indicative of a language change in progress. Both clitics are undergoing concurrent reanalysis processes affecting them differentially, i.e. they are located at different stages in the process. Whereas standard varieties draw a clear distinction between direct and indirect object, American Spanish Leísta dialects move to a distinction between primary and secondary object. Clitic cluster agreement in those dialects is triggered by a loss of case restrictions on the third-person clitics resulting in a tendency to mark the primary object.

Slavic clitics: a typology

AbstractThe paper offers a description of Slavic word order systems from the viewpoint of formal typology based on notions such as syntactic type, parametric settings, basic and derived order, linearization constraints, constituency, movement, spell-out, cliticity, clitic clusters, syntax-prosody interface, and grammaticalization.The aim is to classify Slavic word order systems with clitics on the basis of syntactic constraints without dependence on hypotheses about language-specific properties of prosodically deficient elements and to provide a viable typological classification, which can be verified by data from other world’s languages.

Standard Modern and Pontic Greek Person Restrictions: A Feature-Free Dynamic Account

AbstractIn this paper, using new evidence from Pontic Greek (PG) in addition to Standard Modern Greek, we argue that the Person Case Constraint (PCC), generally presumed to be an irreducible morphosyntactic constraint on clitic pronoun combinations and argued by several to provide evidence of feature-driven syntactic operations, is a direct consequence of processing considerations, these new data being inexplicable under any of the current feature-driven analyses (Anagnostopoulou 2003, 2005; Béjar & Rezac 2003; Bianchi 2006; Adger & Harbour 2007; Nevins 2007; Pescarini 2010 among others). Adopting the Dynamic Syntax (DS) perspective of Cann et al. (2005), in which syntax is defined as the monotonic incremental growth of semantic structure, with structural underspecification and update as the core syntactic notion, we argue that the PCC is wholly due to restrictions on tree-growth imposed by the logic of finite trees: that these should underpin observed gaps in possible clitic combinations is due to clitics being calcified reflexes of previously available tree-growth update-sequences whose variability is the source of word order variation. More specifically, we argue that PCC effects, including the problematic PG data, are the consequence of a tree-logic restriction that only one unfixed node can be present in a tree at any stage in the tree growth process. PG, a dialect in which no 3rd person clitic clusters are allowed, provides strong evidence for such a feature-free account. Contrary to current feature-based analyses, which would preclude such data, the analysis presented here is shown to directly predict the Pontic Greek data, thus pointing towards a feature-free account of the PCC.

Elsewhere in Romance: Evidence from Clitic Clusters

This article focuses on sequences of Romance clitics wherein a pronominal form is replaced by another clitic exponent, which is prima facie morphologically unmotivated. Bonet (1991) and Harris (1994) among others have argued that these synthetic clusters can be due to the insertion of an elsewhere clitic: a default, nonspecified item that is inserted as a last resort whenever the insertion of other clitics is ruled out. In this article, independent pieces of evidence gathered from Italian and Italian dialects are shown to support this hypothesis.

The pragmatic functionality of atonic double-object clitic clusters in fourteenth-century Florentine

Throughout the thirteenth century in the dialect of Florence the order of clitic pronouns in double-object clusters in which the dat ( ive ) was first- or secondperson singular or plural was acc ( usative )– dat . During the fourteenth century variation in the order arose so that both the acc – dat and the dat – acc order were possible. By the fifteenth century, however, the variation was resolved in favor of dat – acc , the pattern found today in Standard Italian, derived essentially from late Medieval Florentine. Expanding upon Aski (forthcoming), this article offers a pragmatic-driven account of the order of double-object proclitic clusters found in fourteenth-century Florentine texts of a variety of genres, which were collected from the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano (OVI) on-line database. The results of our analysis confirm Aski's (forthcoming) observation that the primary factor governing the order alternation is topicality of the referent of the first clitic, but additional structural and semantic factors were found to be operative as well. Although this is an exhaustive textual examination of a medieval morphosyntactic phenomenon, the conclusions remain tentative, since pragmatic properties are always co-determined by contextual and situational factors that are difficult if not impossible to reconstruct.

Processing Clitic Pronouns in Bulgarian — Evidence from Normal and Agrammatic Comprehension

Clitic clusters display a complicated interaction of prosodic and syntactic properties which de) termines their word order and stress patterns. In Bulgarian, short pronouns appear as unstressed verbal enclitics in positive utterances. Proclitic negation attracts the pronouns and forms with them a prosodic unit stressed on the second syllable, the pronoun. Theoretical linguistics charac) terizes the behaviour of object clitics in terms of “non)trivial chains” (Boskovic 2001) containing copies. The overt realisation of a higher or lower copy depends on phonological constraints like enclitisation requirements. In line with the slow)syntax)hypothesis (Burkhardt et al. 2008) and with the assumption that prosody)related processes may also compete for the same limited proc) essing resources of Broca’s aphasics (Avrutin et al. 1999), we test sensitivity to the phono) syntactic constraints negation imposes on the word order of personal and reflexive clitics. Results suggest that the pattern of agrammatic processing of clitic clusters resembles normal comprehen) sion but proceeds in a protracted manner. Employing a self)paced reading task and an experimen) tal design which reduces discourse)related interpretation processes, we also show that the syntac) tic functions of personal object clitics as syntactic object agreement markers in Bulgarian are relatively preserved in the aphasic group.

The clitics mechanism in French and Italian

The article concentrates on the question of the composition, the internal or- dering and the placement of clitic-clusters (C-clusters) in French and Ital- ian, though clitic data from other languages are drawn in occasionally. The system proposed is top-down transformational, in the terms of Semantic Syntax (Seuren 1996). Clitics are taken to originate in underlying structure as canoni- cal argument terms or adverbial constituents of clauses. During the process of transformation from to surface form, nonfocus, nonsubject, pronom- inal argument terms are assigned values for the features of animacy ((±an)), dative status ((±dat)) and reflexivity ((±refl)). On the basis of these, the rule featurecm� , inducing clitic movement, is assigned or withheld. Plus- values increase, and minus-values reduce, the semantic weight of the clitics in question. Pronouns without the featurecmare not cliticised and stay in their canonical term position in their full phonological form. Pronouns with the featurecmare attached to the nearest verb form giving rise to clitic clusters, which accounts for the composition of well-formed C-clusters. The attachment of clitics to a cluster occurs in a fixed order, which accounts for the ordering of clitics in well-formed clusters. Branching directionality, together with a theory of complementation, accounts for the placement of C- clusters. Clitics often take on a reduced phonological form. It is argued that, in French and Italian, which are languages with a right-branching syntax and a left-branching flectional morphology, postverbal clitics, or enclitics, are part of left-branching structures and hence fit naturally into the morphology. They are best categorised as affixes. Occasionally, as in Italian glielo, dative clitics (e.g., gli) turn preceding lighter clitics (e.g., lo) into affixes, resulting in the left- branching structure glielo ,w here-lo is an affix. In a brief Intermezzo, instances are shown of the irregular but revealing lui-le-lui phenomenon in French, and its much less frequent analog in Italian. On these assumptions, supported by

Greek object clitic pronouns: a typological survey of their grammatical properties

In this paper, we review the basic morphosyntactic and phonological properties of object clitic pronouns in Standard Greek. More specifically, we discuss the constraints on the combinatorial properties of clitic clusters and present evidence in support of the out-of-cycle adjunct status of clitic-doubled DP-objects. We then account for the distribution of object clitics with respect to the verb by means of a cliticization movement rule. Finally, we show that there is an asymmetry in the way object clitics are prosodically organized, depending on their position in relation to the verb. Being always a part of the phonological word of their verbal host, enclitics choose to incorporate to it whereas proclitics opt for prosodic adjunction.

Towards a typology of Austronesian pronominal clisis

This paper reports ongoing work on the following aspects of Austronesian clisis: the relative ordering of multiple clitics, the position of the clitic cluster.

Comparative Syntax of Balkan Languages (review)

Reviewed by: Comparative syntax of Balkan languages ed. by María Luisa Rivero, Angela Ralli Catherine Rudin Comparative syntax of Balkan languages. Ed. by María Luisa Rivero and Angela Ralli. (Oxford studies in comparative syntax.) New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. 234. Cloth $55.00, paper $37.50. The languages of the Balkan peninsula (Modern Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Romanian) have long interested linguists because of a set of characteristics shared by this areal group but not necessarily by their nearest genetic relatives, the other Slavic or Romance languages or earlier stages of Greek. These ‘Balkanisms’ include a number of syntactic features, among them replacement of the infinitive by a finite or quasifinite construction introduced by a subjunctive/modal particle; lack of morphological case; relatively ‘free’ constituent order (determined by topic/focus rather than grammatical relations); a suffixal definite article; clitic clusters within both clause and NP; and clitic doubling constructions similar but not identical to those in Western Romance languages. In the last fifteen years, an explosion of generative work on Balkan languages has led to significant results of interest beyond the narrow field of Balkan linguistics, including typological comparisons with non-Balkan languages. This collection presents a group of papers from a 1996 workshop on Balkan syntax held in conjunction with the Generative Linguistics in the Old World (GLOW) Colloquium in Athens. It is not a survey of Balkan syntax but a fascinating snapshot of several important issues, especially the properties of the infinitive-replacing ‘subjunctive’ construction and the proper treatment of various types of functional heads within the minimalist framework. The volume contains seven articles, an introduction, and two indexes. The editors’ useful introduction summarizes and lays groundwork for each of the articles, giving overviews of related earlier work, clarifying the theoretical issues involved, and drawing connections to similar phenomena outside the Balkans; for instance, a discussion of finiteness effects in Romance nicely leads into several papers on the Balkan infinitive-replacing construction, showing why the construction is problematic for finiteness-based accounts. This unusually meaty introduction will be especially appreciated by students, general linguists, typologists, and others who are not Balkan specialists. Following the introduction is a broadly philosophical article by Brian Joseph, ‘Is Balkan comparative syntax possible?’. This seems like an odd question, as he notes himself, in a collection of papers on Balkan comparative syntax. It turns out Joseph makes a distinction between ‘comparative Balkan syntax’ and ‘comparative syntax of the Balkan languages’, the former concerned with the evolution of unique syntactic features of the Balkan Sprachbund through intensive language contact, the latter with typological features of Balkan languages regardless of their history or geographical restriction. All the other papers in the volume (like most recent work in Balkan linguistics) are of the second, broadly comparative, type which Joseph appears to regard with some unease, repeatedly using terms like ‘problematic’ for studies of the syntax of Balkan languages not directly rooted in language contact and approving labels like ‘true comparative Balkan syntax’ for those which are so rooted. However, he does concede that both approaches are valid (though with different aims) and provides interesting case studies of Balkan negation from both points of view. A study of the parallel range of functions of negation markers with m-, with emphasis on how this parallelism arose through calquing in a context of widespread imperfect bilingualism, illustrates ‘comparative Balkan syntax’. A study of the fusing of negative particles with verbs, a process which occurs in several Balkan languages but also in many non-Balkan ones, illustrates ‘comparative syntax of the Balkan languages’. The remaining articles each deal with a specific issue or construction in at least two Balkan languages, often with reference to languages outside the Balkans as well. Three chapters form [End Page 423] a closely related group—Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, ‘Head-to-head merge in Balkan subjunctives and locality’; Anna Roussou, ‘Control and raising in and out of subjunctive complements’; and Iliyana Krapova, ‘Subjunctives in Bulgarian and Modern Greek’—all taking a minimalist approach to the Balkan infinitive-replacing construction. I found this the most worthwhile part of the book, partly because the...

Advances in Roumanian Linguistics

1. Introduction (by Cinque, Guglielmo) 2. Rumanian Genitive Constructions (by Cornilescu, Alexandra) 3. Clitic Clusters in Rumanian: Deriving Linear Order from Hierachical Structure (by Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen) 4. Agreement and Pronominal Reference (by Farkas, Donka F.) 5. Heads and Modifiers among Determiners: Evidence from Rumanian (by Giusti, Giuliana) 6. Free Relatives with Missing Prepositions in Rumanian and Universal Grammar (by Grosu, Alexander) 7. NP-Movement from Finite Clauses in Rumanian (by Motapanyane, Virginia) 8. Index

Spelling out clitics in Kambera

This paper presents a case study in the positional properties of a complex set of clitics: the mood, pronominal, and clausal-aspect clitics in the Austronesian language Kambera. The clitics of this language may form a cluster of maximally nine clitics. The positional properties of the clitics can be distinguished into two distinct categories: (a) the position of the clitic cluster as a whole with respect to its host, and (b) the position of the clitics within the cluster with reference to each other. The aim of this paper is to present an account of both these aspects of Kambera clitic placement. The placement of the cluster as a whole will be characterized syntactically, while the ordering of the clitics within the cluster has the characteristics of inflectional morphology. I argue that the placement of the Kambera clitics with respect to each other is the result neither of the syntactic manipulation of terminal elements of functional categories, nor of lexical word-formation rules or position-class morphology, nor is it determined by the phonological properties of the language alone. Instead, it is the result of the morphological spell-out of morphosyntactic feature bundles (Anderson 1992) at the end of the syntactic derivation, at the interface between syntax and prosody: the postlexical level

The Balkan Slavic clausal clitics

The constituency and the behavior of the clausal clitics in Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian are analyzed. It is argued that, while in Serbo-Croatian the clausal clitics are moved to CP and the cluster is formed in a node that is right-adjoined to C°, in Macedonian and Bulgarian the clitics are base-derived in IP, and the cluster is formed to the immediate left of V. The movement of the clitics to CP reflects the propensity of the clitics in Common Slavic to occur in clitic-second or Wackernagel position. Nevertheless, this propensity is overruled to the extent to which the verb forms a local domain with the clitics. In Macedonian, where the verb does form a local domain with the clitics, the clitic cluster is formed in IP, to the immediately left of the finite verb, so that, when the verb moves, the cluster trails along (piggy-backing). In contrast, in Serbo-Croatian, the verb does not form a local domain with the clitics and the clitic cluster is formed in reference to a specified syntactic position (the complementizer, in this case), rather than with reference to a specified syntactic category. In Bulgarian, where the verb and the clitics are weakly tied, the clitic cluster is formed in IP, but there is a discrepancy between syntactic and phonological ‘allegiance’. Since the restriction on multiple adjunction in the specifiers to the left of C° follows from the clustering of the clitics in it, while the clitics cluster in C° if they do not form a local domain with the finite verb of their clause, we may conclude that the Wackernagel Effect indirectly depends on whether or not the clitics form a local domain with that verb. The discrepancy between the syntactic and phonological behavior of the Bulgarian clitics can be explained by the fact that the propensity of the Bulgarian finite verb to form a local domain with the clitics is still weak, so that, while their syntactic properties have changed, the phonological properties of the Bulgarian clitics reflect those of their common Slavic ancestor.

La projecció sintaxi-fonologia en els clítics del català i de l'espanyol

This article covers Spanish and Catalan clitic pronouns according to the fundamental theoretical principles of Distributed Morphology. The author postulates that the syntax-phonology mapping of clitics consists of two sub­ mappings, the first from syntax to morphology and the second from morphology to phonology. In this second mapping, the clitics may suffer the effect of various morphological rules, specifically, the structural operations of Impoverishment, Adjunction, Fusion and Fission. The author proves that the complex and quirky behaviour of clitics and clitic clusters in Spanish and Barceloni can be easily explained by taking into account that these four operations act on the clitics' syntactical terminals in a morphological component which is intermediate between phonology and syntax.

Participle movement and second position cliticization in Serbo-Croatian

In this paper I show that the facts concerning participle movement in Serbo-Croatian provide evidence that there is no structurally fixed second position for clitic clusters in Serbo-Croatian, which in turn suggests that the second position effect is a result of PF rather than syntactic requirements. I also show that Serbo-Croatian constructions involving participle movement across auxiliary clitics, which have previously been argued to provide evidence for the existence of long head movement, involve participle adjunction to Aux rather than long head movement.

CLITICS IN SLAVIC*

Abstract. In this paper I examine the rules for placement of clitics in a selected number of Slavic languages. I propose that the placement of argument clitics is dictated by a functional category, Finiteness, whereas for extended clitic chsters it is dictated by clause‐initial structure, analysed in terms of a construct preliminarily called FRONT. I argue that it is the language particular requirements on FRONT that determine the distribution of extended clitic clusters.