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Phrase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in the History of Spanish University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons IRCS Technical Reports Series Institute for Research in Cognitive Science 8-1-1993 Phrase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in the History of Spanish Josep M. Fontana University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports Part of the Spanish Linguistics Commons Fontana, Josep M., "Phrase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in the History of Spanish" (1993). IRCS Technical Reports Series. 183. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/183 University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-93-24. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/183 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Phrase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in the History of Spanish Abstract This thesis is a qualitative and quantitative study of the changes that occurred in the phrase structure and system of pronominal clitics in medieval and renaissance Spanish, with the goal of explaining the basic differences between the syntactic properties of clitics in Old Spanish and their counterparts in the various dialects of modern Spanish. Specifically, I argue that these differences are explainable if we classify OSp clitics as Second Position (2P) clitics, in contrast to their modern counterparts. 2P clitics are treated here as prosodically deficient phrasal constituents that appear displaced from their canonical positions as internal arguments of the verb and are adjoined to a phrasal projection at the left edge of the clause (IP). The elements encompassed under the pre-theoretical notion clitic in modern Spanish, however, are not linked to an argument position via a movement chain; rather, they are proposed to be verbal affixes that enter into inflectional elationshipsr with their coindexed argument positions; alternatively put, they are members of the morphological complex instantiating abstract inflectional eaturf es, specifically those of object agreement, and hence inherent components of X0 level type categories. I show that the reanalysis from phrasal categories to X0 related categories took place as a consequence of an unrelated development in the phrase structure of OSp. The gradual loss of a particular mechanism of topicalization, responsible for the manifestation of the patterns associated with the verb-second (V2) constraint in OSp, resulted in a situation where a reanalysis of the parameters of phonological cliticization became inevitable: Lacking a preceding phonological host (namely, the constituent known in the V2 literature as the first position element), 2P clitics went from being inherently enclitic to procliticize by default onto the lexical category immediately to their right, namely, the tensed verbal head. The resulting superficial association between clitic and erb,v found in an increasing number of contexts, triggered in turn a reanalysis of clitics in the syntax as elements associated with the verbal inflection, with the manifestation of a series of concomitant effects: loss of interpolation, requirement of strict orders between verbal head and clitic, and clitic-doubling. Disciplines Spanish Linguistics Comments University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Technical Report No. IRCS-93-24. This thesis or dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/183 The Institute For Research In Cognitive Science Phrase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in the History of Spanish (Ph.D. Dissertation) P by Josep M. Fontana E University of Pennsylvania 3401 Walnut Street, Suite 400C Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228 N August 1993 Site of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Research in Cognitive Science N University of Pennsylvania IRCS Report 93-24 Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1740 This particular version of this dissertation contains some minor revisions which make it slightly different from the version submitted to UMI microfilms. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND THE SYNTAX OF CLITICS IN THE HISTORY OF SPANISH Josep M. Fontana A DISSERTATION in Linguistics Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1993 ____________________________________________ Anthony S. Kroch, Supervisor of Dissertation ____________________________________________ Sabine Iatridou, Committee Member ____________________________________________ Juan Uriagereka, Committee Member ____________________________________________ Donald A. Ringe, Graduate Group Chairperson Pels meus pares, Pepita i Josep María; perquè, en definitiva, sense ells res de tot això haguera estat realment possible. iii Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank three people in my department from whom I have borrowed a great deal of time and knowledge. Susan Pintzuk, Beatrice Santorini, and Ann Taylor did in their dissertations most of the crucial research that made it possible for me to carry out the present investigation. I don’t think I could have been able to make much sense of the Old Spanish clitic facts had I not counted with their work. It is still very amazing to me that our research wound up being so related. Honestly, before starting with this, I could never have suspected that I would be obtaining so many useful clues from work on languages such as Old English, Yiddish or Homeric Greek, which had been carried out by three other graduate students in my department. But most of all, besides inspiring me intellectually, they have been good friends and have given me that of which they have very little: their time. Many thanks are also due to my advisor, Tony Kroch, and to the members of my dissertation committee, Sabine Iatridou, and Juan Uriagereka, for their many suggestions and valuable assistance in this dissertation project. Tony introduced me to the study of syntactic change and made this intellectual experience a truly fascinating one. Sabine and Juan had to suffer through all the preliminary drafts of this dissertation, and gave me many insightful comments and helpful advice. Their contribution has definitely lead to a substantial improvement of the final product. There are also many people who have unselfishly given me much of their time. Special thanks to Aaron Halpern, Philip Miller and Dieter Wanner, who provided me with very detailed and useful comments on earlier drafts of this dissertation. I consider myself very fortunate to have had them around to discuss our work and our common interests. These three guys really don’t mind talking clitics, and they are very good at it. Also special thanks are due to Julie Auger, Jon Franco, Richard Janda, Jack Hoeksema, Don Ringe, Peter Svenonius, and EnricVallduví for their time and for providing me with crucial information at various points in the development of this dissertation. I am also very grateful to the following members of the Icelandic syntax community for many interesting and helpful e-mail discussions: Jóhannes Gíssli Jónsson, Kjartan G. Ottosson, Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson, and Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson. I would also like to thank the following people for discussing various aspects of this work and/or for providing me with valuable information: Judith Aissen, Eva Florensa, Marco Haverkort, Roger Higgins, Paul Hirschbühler, Jim McCloskey, John Moore, Rolf Noyer, Carlos Otero, Ellen Prince, Norvin Richards, Craige Roberts, Jeff Runner, Barbara Vance, Fred Weerman and Arnold Zwicky. Needless to say, none of the people mentioned above is responsible for any of the shortcomings in this thesis. And finally, Louise, you will have to help me figuring out how I can thank you the way you deserve and still manage to respect your love for conciseness, and to not offend your disdain for corniness (specially in dissertation acknowledgements). I will restrain myself. But allow me at least to tell you that I have really appreciated your company as well as your moral and logistic support throughout this ordeal. In fact, you have spent almost as many hours with Old Spanish clitics as I have. You also have encouraged me to continue when I was ready to give up. There is something that some people may not be fully aware of, but iv that I fully understand: having to deal with my warped sense of time and with my writing style is really an act of love. v ABSTRACT Phrase structure and the syntax of clitics in the history of Spanish Author: Josep M. Fontana Supervisor: Anthony S. Kroch This thesis is a qualitative and quantitative study of the changes that occurred in the phrase structure and system of pronominal clitics in medieval and renaissance Spanish, with the goal of explaining the basic differences between the syntactic properties of clitics in Old Spanish and their counterparts in the various dialects of modern Spanish. Specifically, I argue that these differences are explainable if we classify OSp clitics as Second Position (2P) clitics, in contrast to their modern counterparts. 2P clitics are treated here as prosodically deficient phrasal constituents that appear displaced from their canonical positions as internal arguments of the verb and are adjoined to a phrasal projection at the left edge of the clause (IP). The elements encompassed under the pre-theoretical notion clitic in modern Spanish, however, are not linked to an argument position via a movement chain; rather, they are proposed to be verbal affixes that enter into inflectional relationships with their coindexed argument
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