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13. Possessive clitics in the DP: Doubling or dislocation?

  • Giuliana Giusti and Melita Stavrou
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Clitic Doubling in the Balkan Languages
This chapter is in the book Clitic Doubling in the Balkan Languages

Abstract

Despite the extensive, long standing and multi-focused literature on clitics and clitic doubling in the clause, clitic doubling in the dp is a phenomenon still very little, if at all, understood. Our primary concern in this paper is to contribute to the literature on possessor doubling by looking at the co-occurrence of a possessive dp and a possessive clitic inside the Nominal Expression (NE). We will concentrate on two Balkan languages, Bulgarian and Greek, which are the only ones in the Balkan area to display productive use of clitic possessors in the NE. Despite appearances, in Greek and in Bulgarian NEs there are no cases of what in the clausal domain is standardly referred to as “clitic doubling”. This is prima facie an unexpected situation, given that both languages instantiate the two crucial properties that are at stake here: clitic doubling inside the clausal domain, and possessive clitics (genitive in Greek and dative in Bulgarian) inside the nominal domain. This ‘asymmetry’ calls for an explanation and this is what we attempt here. What we find with possessors in Bulgarian and Greek is what corresponds to clitic (left/right) dislocation. It turns out that possessor dislocation is allowed inside NEs as well as in clauses in Bulgarian, while in Greek it is only allowed in the clausal domain. This will be claimed to be the basic difference between the two languages and this difference will be reduced to the different way the dp splits in each language in order to host discourse-relevant features. Apparent doubling with strong possessive pronouns in Greek will be treated as a separate phenomenon tentatively accounted for in terms of the different properties of strong pronouns in each language.

Abstract

Despite the extensive, long standing and multi-focused literature on clitics and clitic doubling in the clause, clitic doubling in the dp is a phenomenon still very little, if at all, understood. Our primary concern in this paper is to contribute to the literature on possessor doubling by looking at the co-occurrence of a possessive dp and a possessive clitic inside the Nominal Expression (NE). We will concentrate on two Balkan languages, Bulgarian and Greek, which are the only ones in the Balkan area to display productive use of clitic possessors in the NE. Despite appearances, in Greek and in Bulgarian NEs there are no cases of what in the clausal domain is standardly referred to as “clitic doubling”. This is prima facie an unexpected situation, given that both languages instantiate the two crucial properties that are at stake here: clitic doubling inside the clausal domain, and possessive clitics (genitive in Greek and dative in Bulgarian) inside the nominal domain. This ‘asymmetry’ calls for an explanation and this is what we attempt here. What we find with possessors in Bulgarian and Greek is what corresponds to clitic (left/right) dislocation. It turns out that possessor dislocation is allowed inside NEs as well as in clauses in Bulgarian, while in Greek it is only allowed in the clausal domain. This will be claimed to be the basic difference between the two languages and this difference will be reduced to the different way the dp splits in each language in order to host discourse-relevant features. Apparent doubling with strong possessive pronouns in Greek will be treated as a separate phenomenon tentatively accounted for in terms of the different properties of strong pronouns in each language.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface ix
  5. Introduction: Clitic doubling, core syntax and the interfaces 1
  6. Part I. Clitic doubling within the Balkan Continuum: Rise and spread
  7. 1. Balkan object reduplication in areal and dialectological perspective 35
  8. 2. Towards grammaticalization of clitic doubling: Clitic doubling in Macedonian and neighbouring languages 65
  9. 3. The genesis of clitic doubling from Ancient to Medieval Greek 89
  10. 4. Clitic doubling and Old Bulgarian 105
  11. Part II. Discourse functional properties of clitic doubling
  12. 5. Romanian clitic doubling: A view from pragmatics-semantics and diachrony 135
  13. 6. Clitic doubling from Ancient to Asia Minor Greek 165
  14. 7. Object clitic doubling constructions and topicality in Bulgarian 203
  15. Part III. Morpho-syntactic properties and modelling of clitic doubling
  16. 8. Clitic doubling, agreement and information structure: The case of Albanian 227
  17. 9. Clitic reduplication constructions in Bulgarian 257
  18. 10. Clitic doubling, complex heads and interarboreal operations 289
  19. 11. Rethinking the Clitic Doubling parameter: The inverse correlation between clitic doubling and participle agreement 321
  20. Part IV. Clitic doubling within the DP
  21. 12. Romanian possessive clitics revisited 361
  22. 13. Possessive clitics in the DP: Doubling or dislocation? 389
  23. Name index 435
  24. Language index 437
  25. Subject index 439
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.130.20giu

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface ix
  5. Introduction: Clitic doubling, core syntax and the interfaces 1
  6. Part I. Clitic doubling within the Balkan Continuum: Rise and spread
  7. 1. Balkan object reduplication in areal and dialectological perspective 35
  8. 2. Towards grammaticalization of clitic doubling: Clitic doubling in Macedonian and neighbouring languages 65
  9. 3. The genesis of clitic doubling from Ancient to Medieval Greek 89
  10. 4. Clitic doubling and Old Bulgarian 105
  11. Part II. Discourse functional properties of clitic doubling
  12. 5. Romanian clitic doubling: A view from pragmatics-semantics and diachrony 135
  13. 6. Clitic doubling from Ancient to Asia Minor Greek 165
  14. 7. Object clitic doubling constructions and topicality in Bulgarian 203
  15. Part III. Morpho-syntactic properties and modelling of clitic doubling
  16. 8. Clitic doubling, agreement and information structure: The case of Albanian 227
  17. 9. Clitic reduplication constructions in Bulgarian 257
  18. 10. Clitic doubling, complex heads and interarboreal operations 289
  19. 11. Rethinking the Clitic Doubling parameter: The inverse correlation between clitic doubling and participle agreement 321
  20. Part IV. Clitic doubling within the DP
  21. 12. Romanian possessive clitics revisited 361
  22. 13. Possessive clitics in the DP: Doubling or dislocation? 389
  23. Name index 435
  24. Language index 437
  25. Subject index 439
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