The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century
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Jennifer Culbertson
Abstract
This paper proposes a new analysis of 12th century Old French clitic pronouns as enclitics obeying independent constraints on positioning rather than simple proclitics on the finite verb, as they are traditionally considered. Several characteristics of 12th century OF clitics suggest that they are second position elements, and should be treated as independent from the verb, including their enclisis to preceding elements, sensitivity to the Tobler-Mussafia law, and clustering in second position. These behaviors are analyzed within an alignment approach to second-position effects, with clitics treated as instantiating agreement features and positioned post-syntactically (following Legendre 1998). The verb-second pattern in the language is given a parallel analysis where finite verb positioning is constrained by syntax but motivated by feature alignment.
Abstract
This paper proposes a new analysis of 12th century Old French clitic pronouns as enclitics obeying independent constraints on positioning rather than simple proclitics on the finite verb, as they are traditionally considered. Several characteristics of 12th century OF clitics suggest that they are second position elements, and should be treated as independent from the verb, including their enclisis to preceding elements, sensitivity to the Tobler-Mussafia law, and clustering in second position. These behaviors are analyzed within an alignment approach to second-position effects, with clitics treated as instantiating agreement features and positioned post-syntactically (following Legendre 1998). The verb-second pattern in the language is given a parallel analysis where finite verb positioning is constrained by syntax but motivated by feature alignment.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Null Expletives and Case: The View from Romance 1
- On the Existence of Null Complementizers in Old French 19
- On the Lack of Transparency Effects in French 37
- On the Syllabification of Prevocalic /w/ in Judeo-Spanish 51
- Word Order and Minimalism 69
- The Status of Old French Clitics in the 12th Century 89
- Towards a Unified Account of Positive and Negative Polarity: Evidence from Romanian 105
- Correlativization and Degree Quantification in Spanish 121
- Imperfect Variation and Class Marking in the Old Spanish Third Conjugation 143
- Licensing Negative Fragments and the Interpretation of Comparison 157
- Developing I-Language in L1 and L2 173
- Crypto-Variation in Italian Velar Palatalisation 193
- Antisymmetry and the Typology of Relative Clauses: Morphological Evidence from Romance 209
- Romance Paths as Cognate Complements: A Lexical-Syntactic Account 227
- Discriminating Pitch Accent Alignment in Spanish 243
- Proscriptions…Gaps…and Something in Between: An Experimental Examination of Spanish Phonotactics 261
- Romanian Palatalization: The Role of Place of Articulation in Perception 277
- Putting in Order the Spanish DP 291
- The Domain of Palatalization in Romanian 307
- Rhotic Metathesis Asymmetries in Romance: Formalizing the Effects of Articulation and Perception on Sound Change 321
- The Left Edge in the Spanish Clausal Structure 339
- Index 359
