The phonology of postverbal pronouns in Romance languages
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Lori Repetti
Abstract
In many Romance varieties, the verb in imperative verb + (postverbal) pronoun phrases retains primary stress: Italian/Spanish: [kómpra]/[kómpra-melo] ‘buy!’/‘buy me it!’. However, in others varieties, stress in these phrases may be realized on a different syllable: [kompra-meló], [kompra-mélo], [kompra-mélozo]. In this paper, I address questions that have puzzled linguists for some time: Why is there a stress shift when enclitic pronouns are added to the imperative verb? How is the position of the stressed syllable determined? I propose that many factors are involved, including morpho-syntactic factors (the presence of a weak or a clitic pronoun, which are prosodized differently), phonological processes (the mapping of syntactic to prosodic structure), and phonetic processes (tonal association to metrically prominent syllables).
Abstract
In many Romance varieties, the verb in imperative verb + (postverbal) pronoun phrases retains primary stress: Italian/Spanish: [kómpra]/[kómpra-melo] ‘buy!’/‘buy me it!’. However, in others varieties, stress in these phrases may be realized on a different syllable: [kompra-meló], [kompra-mélo], [kompra-mélozo]. In this paper, I address questions that have puzzled linguists for some time: Why is there a stress shift when enclitic pronouns are added to the imperative verb? How is the position of the stressed syllable determined? I propose that many factors are involved, including morpho-syntactic factors (the presence of a weak or a clitic pronoun, which are prosodized differently), phonological processes (the mapping of syntactic to prosodic structure), and phonetic processes (tonal association to metrically prominent syllables).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Root gerunds in Old Romanian 1
- Old French possessives and ellipsis 21
- The generalization of preposition para via fusion and ensuing loss of compositionality 39
- On capacities and their epistemic extensions 59
- Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches 79
- Epistemic adverbs, the prosody-syntax interface, and the theory of phases 99
- Romanian tough-constructions and multi-headed constituents 119
- Depictive secondary predicates in Spanish and the relative/absolute distinction 139
- Gender agreement with animate nouns in French 159
- French loanwords in Korean 177
- Affirmative polar replies in Brazilian Portuguese 195
- Participle fronting and clause structure in Old and Middle French 213
- “Toned-up” Spanish 233
- On null objects and ellipses in Brazilian Portuguese 257
- Age effects and the discrimination of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in heritage and native Spanish 277
- The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals 301
- The X 0 syntax of “dative” clitics and the make-up of clitic combinations in Gallo-Romance 321
- Some notes on falloir , devoir , and the theory of control 341
- The phonology of postverbal pronouns in Romance languages 361
- From N to particle 379
- Marsican deixis and the nature of indexical syntax 399
- Index 415
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Root gerunds in Old Romanian 1
- Old French possessives and ellipsis 21
- The generalization of preposition para via fusion and ensuing loss of compositionality 39
- On capacities and their epistemic extensions 59
- Beyond the subject DP versus the subject pronoun divide in agreement switches 79
- Epistemic adverbs, the prosody-syntax interface, and the theory of phases 99
- Romanian tough-constructions and multi-headed constituents 119
- Depictive secondary predicates in Spanish and the relative/absolute distinction 139
- Gender agreement with animate nouns in French 159
- French loanwords in Korean 177
- Affirmative polar replies in Brazilian Portuguese 195
- Participle fronting and clause structure in Old and Middle French 213
- “Toned-up” Spanish 233
- On null objects and ellipses in Brazilian Portuguese 257
- Age effects and the discrimination of consonantal and vocalic contrasts in heritage and native Spanish 277
- The linguistic competence of second-generation bilinguals 301
- The X 0 syntax of “dative” clitics and the make-up of clitic combinations in Gallo-Romance 321
- Some notes on falloir , devoir , and the theory of control 341
- The phonology of postverbal pronouns in Romance languages 361
- From N to particle 379
- Marsican deixis and the nature of indexical syntax 399
- Index 415
