Second-position Clitics Research Articles

Second position without movement: Enclitic particles in Passamaquoddy

This paper presents an analysis of the second-position clitics of Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (Algonquian, New Brunswick and Maine) in the framework of Sign-Based Phrase Structure Grammar (Sag 2012). Unlike a previous transformational analysis (Johnson and Rosen 2015) that takes clitics to occupy a functional head in the left periphery, the proposal advanced here makes no use of movement or functional heads. Instead, clitic positions are determined by a small number of maximally simple constructional statements.

Revisiting the Form of Negation in Pangasinan

Standard negation in Pangasinan comes in two forms, ag and aga. Benton's 1971 grammar of Pangasinan describes the aga form of negation as occurring specifically with third-singular pivot arguments, which if correct would constitute a typologically unusual instance of marked third-singular morphology. We argue against this characterization and instead propose that aga is an allomorph of ag historically motivated by a disyllabic word minimum requirement, with some conventionalized restrictions on its distribution. We offer an explanation for its incorrect previous descriptions and discuss similar alternations between monosyllabic and disyllabic allomorphs of negation in other Austronesian languages and consequences for the prosodic status of secondposition clitics.

Introduction

Introduction

Philippine Clitic Pronouns and the Lower Phase Edge

Pronominal paradigms in Philippine-type Austronesian languages show a robust and curious gap: in transitive clauses, pivot arguments and nonpivot agents may have bound pronominal forms, appearing as second-position clitics, but pronominal nonpivot themes must be full, free pronouns. This gap is instructive regarding the orga-nization of the lower phase edge. As cliticization involves a syntactic dependency between the host and argument position and all syntactic dependencies are constrained by phases, the gap is explained if pivots and nonpivot agents are specifiers of the phase head, making them the only DPs accessible for operations from outside of the lower phase.

Vestigial ergativity in Shughni: At the intersection of alignment, clitic doubling, and feature-driven movement

This paper provides an account of two related aspects of the past-tense morphosyntax of Shughni (Eastern Iranian): (i) the use of second-position clitics, rather than the verbal suffixes of the present tense, to index past-tense subjects’ φ-features; and (ii) a curious alignment pattern – sometimes referred to as vestigial ergativity – in which third-singular subjects of transitive and unergative verbs, but not unaccusative verbs, trigger a second-position clitic matched to their φ-features. After applying a battery of diagnostics to the Shughni clitics, I argue that these morphemes are the result of a clitic-doubling operation rather than agreement proper. A significant clue for this conclusion is the lack of any morphological material co-indexing third-singular unaccusative subjects, which I take to indicate that the past-tense clitics, unlike the present-tense suffixes, lack a default morpheme. This account not only provides support for the validity of diagnostics developed by previous authors for object clitics, but also highlights the importance of including subject clitics when developing a theory of clitic doubling and agreement. In the latter part of the paper, I build upon recent work on the alignment system of Davani (Western Iranian) to provide a feature-driven movement account of Shughni syntax, whereby all unaccusative subjects except third-singular move to a phase edge, where they are found by a probe on T0 and trigger a second-position clitic bearing their φ-features.

Irreality in Q’eqchi’ (Mayan)

This paper discusses the semantic domain of irreality and the grammatical means of its expression in Q’eqchi’, a Mayan language from Guatemala. Three morphosyntactic devices are examined in detail: the prefix t- from the tense/aspect/mood paradigm, the “status” suffix -q/-aq and some second-position clitics. Due to the significant structural and functional diversity of the irreality markers, it is argued that Q’eqchi’ does not distinguish a morphologically homogeneous grammatical category of “reality status”, traditionally postulated in some American indigenous languages. The respective semantic functions are not encompassed in a sole category, but are rather distributed among different grammatical and lexical items. However, the importance of the semantic domain of irreality in Q’eqchi’ grammar should not be completely discarded. The morphosyntactic interconnection between certain grammatical elements (like the suffix -q/-aq, which is triggered on intransitive verbs by the prefix t-) and the diachronic semantic change of some clitics (for example, the enclitic ta changed its meaning from optative to counterfactual) are arranged according to semantic principles within the irreality domain.

Formal studies in Slovenian syntax: In honor of Janez Orešnik ed. by Franc Lanko Marušič and Rok Žaucer

Reviewed by: Formal studies in Slovenian syntax: In honor of Janez Orešnik ed. by Franc Lanko Marušič and Rok Žaucer Vrinda Subhalaxmi Chidambaram Franc Lanko Marušič and Rok Žaucer, eds. Formal studies in Slovenian syntax: In honor of Janez Orešnik. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016. 335 pp. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 236.] Linguistics is a prism: any given language in its entirety can be refracted through it to reveal an astounding spectrum of properties. And these properties may prove to be unique or universal, but our understanding of how this prism must work is enhanced by every finding. Few have understood this better than Janez Orešnik, to whom this volume is dedicated, and whose work largely focused on Slovenian and Icelandic. He explored many facets of these languages: diachronic development as well as synchronic phenomena, from Icelandic epenthesis to Slovenian verbal aspect. Professor Orešnik's work is far-reaching in its scope and widely influential. This volume is a fitting tribute for a scholar with broad interests whose work has influenced and inspired several generations of linguists. The first paper of the volume, "On Second Position Clitics Cross-Linguistically" by Željko Bošković, exemplifies the intentions of Marušič and Žaucer (as stated in their introduction) in that it is both informed by and a contribution to the study of Slovenian syntax but that it also draws from a much wider body of knowledge, illustrating clearly the integration of Slavic (and Slovenian) linguistics into the broader scheme of general linguistics. In this paper, Bošković examines one of the many generalizations related to the NP/DP parametric division (Bošković 2008, 2012), namely that only NP languages can accommodate second-position clitic systems. Central to his argument, of course, is the nature of the difference between NP and DP languages. DP languages are defined as those that contain a definite article, which are characterized by three basic properties: (1) they are unique (i.e., morphologically distinct from demonstratives and other determiners), (2) they occur maximally once per traditional NP, and (3) they confer a definiteness interpretation onto their complement NP. This precise definition forms the basis of exclusion of many languages that were previously analyzed as having definite articles, casting them instead as NP languages. For example, this exclusion extends to colloquial Slovenian, which has been argued (notably by Marušič and Žaucer (2014)) to contain a definite determiner ta. According to the definition [End Page 143] given here, ta violates both the morphological uniqueness condition and the single-instance-per-NP condition and thus does not qualify as a definite article. An NP language is distinguished from a DP language by two related features: (1) while it may have an indefinite article, it must not have a definite article (as defined by the conditions above), and (2) bare NPs can be interpreted as definite. This paper is an investigation of the intersection of the DP/NP parameter and another parameter, namely, the second-position clitic parameter, which Bošković sets up as dichotomous between languages that have second-position clitics and those that do not. He readily admits that the latter category is diverse, but he focuses in on languages that have verb-adjacent clitics. The reader must then keep in mind that the analysis that is given, while capable of handling the data from these two language types (2nd position and V-adja-cent), may not extend to all clitic types cross-linguistically. Bošković offers diachronic evidence from Greek to support the generalization that only NP languages accommodate second position clitics. In Homeric Greek, an NP language, clitics occurred overwhelmingly in the second position. But by the time Koine was being spoken, by which time a definite article had emerged, there was no longer a system of 2nd position clitics. Perhaps even more compelling is the variation between two dialects of Ossetic, Iron and Digor. The dialects differ in part due to the presence of a definite article in one (Digor) and its absence in the other (Iron). This correlates with another difference: Iron displays 2nd position clitics while Digor does not.1 In the subsequent sections of the paper...

Second-position clitics and the syntax-phonology interface: The case of Ancient Greek

In this paper we discuss second position clitics in Ancient Greek, which show a remarkable ability to break up syntactic constituents. We argue against attempts to capture such data in terms of a mismatch between c-structure yield and surface string and instead propose to enrich c-structure by using a multiple context free grammar with explicit yield functions rather than an ordinary CFG.

Word order variation in Khoekhoe

Khoekhoe, a Central Khoisan language, has been claimed to have a clause-second position and topological fields similar to German and Dutch. The position in front of the clause-second position can be occupied by either the matrix verb or a dependent. We argue that monomoraic words are exempt from the general head-final order of Khoekhoe and suggest that this can give rise to discontinuous constituents, where second-position clitics intervene within the VP. We show that this idea provides a simple account of Khoekhoe word order variation and formalize it within a linearization-based HPSG analysis that has a wider scope than the previous Minimalist analyses of Khoekhoe and that is compatible with evidence from tonology.

Second-Position Clitics in the vP Phase: The Case of the Armenian Auxiliary

Second-Position Clitics in the vP Phase: The Case of the Armenian Auxiliary

Clitic Phenomena in European Languages (review)

Reviewed by: Clitic phenomena in European languages ed. by Frits Beukema, Marcel den Dikken Ana R. Luís Clitic phenomena in European languages. Ed. by Frits Beukema and Marcel den Dikken. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics today 30.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000. Pp. viii, 320. ISBN 1556199147. $100 (Hb). The essays in this volume are mostly about cliticization in South Slavic (i.e. Macedonian, Slovenian, [End Page 281] Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian). The introduction, by Steven Franks (1–46), discusses interface phenomena in South Slavic and examine show to best analyze the interaction between different components of grammar. Franks argues that an analysis of cliticization should combine insights from derivational syntax with representational work in optimality theory (OT). Theoretically, the position is taken that the proper place for OT in the grammar is at the interface between different components. Within the group of papers on South Slavic, ŽEljko Bošković (71–119) examines the mechanisms triggering clitic placement in Serbo-Croatian. After discussing the purely syntactic analysis and the purely prosodic reordering mechanism, he reaches the conclusion that placement mechanisms are phonological in nature. In ‘Where do clitics cluster?’, Ljiljana Progovac (249–58) writes a short reply to Bošković’s claim that second position clitic placement in Serbo-Croatian is phonological. She argues instead that both syntactic positions and intonation boundaries play an important role in determining where Serbo-Croatian clitics appear. Mila Dimitrova-Vulchanova (121–46) compares possessive clitics in English and Bulgarian, and argues that the difference between them is due to the nature of the clitic head: while English genitive ’s is nonreferential (realizing functional categories), the Bulgarian clitic is referential (i.e. pronominal). Marija Golden and Milena M. Sheppard (191–207) show that Slovenian pronominal clitics depart from prototypical second-position clitics as found in Serbo-Croatian, providing distributional evidence from the clitic systems of both languages to support this claim. Clitic doubling is addressed in Ivana P. Schick’s essay on Bulgarian (259–92). Comparing Bulgarian and Macedonian, she claims that clitic pronouns act consistently as topic markers and participate in the interpretation of information stucture. In the last essay on Slavic, ‘On clitic sites’ (293–316), Olga M. Tomić argues that Macedonian has both verbal and Wackernagel clitics, unlike other European languages with only verbal clitics. Tomić is mostly concerned with deriving the positions of both types of clitics within a derivational view of syntax. There are also essays on cliticization in Spanish, Greek, and Albanian. Artemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou (47–70) examine Greek restrictive relatives introduced by the complementizer pu. The crucial question addressed here is why only direct objects are sensitive to the indefiniteness of the head. Jon Franco (147–89), who looks at clitic doubling with respect to Spanish, takes the position that object clitics should be analyzed as agreement morphemes on the verb (on a par with subject agreement markers), rather than as phonologically dependent pronominal arguments. Dalina Kallulli’s (210–48) paper on clitic doubling focuses on Albanian and Greek. In contrast to Jon Franco’s position, Kallulli argues that clitic doubling and object agreement, despite the similarities, constitute distinct phenomena, particularly because doubled DPs behave like topics. She also discusses the information structure of clitic doubling and specificity. Other topics addressed in this volume include the difference in status between clitic pronouns and auxiliary clitics, and the nature of the functional features instantiated by clitics. Most of the contributions in this volume were originally presented at the fourth conference of the European Society for the Study of English, held at the Lajos Lossuth University in Debrecen, Hungary, in 1997. Ana R. Luís University of Coimbra, Portugal Copyright © 2005 Linguistic Society of America

The Rise and Fall of Second-position Clitics

Historical accounts of the phenomenon of cliticization have previously documented only the loss of second-position clitics. This paper argues that the history of Bulgarian offers evidence for the rise of a second-position clitic system. It is demonstrated that the second-position clitics of Old Bulgarian were not directly inherited from Indo-European, but emerged from a system of post-verbal clitics. The findings provide evidence against the position that independent historical laws govern ‘natural’ directions of language change. In particular, they challenge the belief in the uniform tendency for clitics to develop into inflectional affixes. Instead, the findings suggest that language change reflects competition between grammatical options, which instantiate principles and parameters of UG based on the properties of the learning algorithm and the nature of the linguistic input, and which are not intrinsically ranked. An analysis of the historical change that led to the development of second-position clitics in Old Bulgarian is proposed that implicates a switch in the parameter of headedness of TP. Clitics in both the old and new grammars are attracted by T0. A change in the position of T0 relative to its complement triggers the reanalysis of clitics from pronominals forming a complex head with V0 to pronominals moving to the left edge of TP. The non-branching status of clitics makes them category-ambiguous (D0/DP), which allows them to merge in the syntactic structure as either heads or maximal projections. The paper also traces the eventual loss of the second-position clitic system in Bulgarian and argues that changes in the grammar of phrasal movement, specifically the loss of topicalization to Spec,TP, trigger the syntactic reanalysis of clitics from arguments moved and adjoined to TP, into adjuncts to functional heads in the extended projection of V0, resulting in the modern pre-verbal clitic system.

The Syntax and Prosody of Weak Pronouns in Chamorro

In the modular linguistic theory assumed by many generative linguists, phonology and syntax are interconnected but fundamentally independent components of grammar. The effects of syntax on phonology are mediated by prosodic structure, a representation of prosodic constituents calculated from syntactic structure but not isomorphic to it. Within this overall architecture, I investigate the placement of weak pronouns in the Austronesian language Chamorro. Certain Chamorro pronominals can be realized as prosodically deficient weak pronouns that typically occur right after the predicate. I showthat these pronouns are second-position clitics whose placement is determined not syntactically, but prosodically: they occur after the leftmost phonological phrase of their intonational phrase. My analysis of these clitics assumes that lexical insertion is late and can affect and be affected by prosodic phrase formation-assumptions consistent with the view that the mutual interaction of phonology and syntax is confined to the postsyntactic operations that translate syntactic structure into prosodic structure.

Ve as a Second-Position Clitic

Contrary to previous claims in the literature, it is argued that ve, the yes-no particle in Malagasy, is a second-position clitic. Although ve typically appears at the right edge of the predicate phrase, in sentences with nonstandard word order, it surfaces in second position. Ve is contrasted with other particles that are not second-position clitics but pattern with adverbs. The implications of the placement of ve for analyses of Malagasy clause structure are discussed.

Second-position clitics in Czech: Syntactic or phonological?

Through a systematic analysis of the behavior of second-position clitics in Czech, this paper addresses issues that are also of interest in the general study of cliticization. It is argued that clitic placement in Czech is a syntactic process conditioned prosodically; the host is defined syntactically but must also contain a phonological word. There is also a discrepancy in the orientation of the syntactic vs. phonological host: these clitics are syntactically enclitic but phonologically uncommitted. A crucial role in explaining the alternative patterns of phonological attachment is attributed to discourse factors. It follows that the relationship between syntactic and phonological considerations in clitic placement is more complex than just a matter of determining unambiguous enclisis vs. proclisis.