Operator clitics

In Standard Macedonian, we have two types of “special” clitics: (a) clitics that represent categories whose behavior in non-clitic syntax differs from their behavior in clitic syntax and (b) clitics that do not have counterparts in non-clitic syntax. The former type includes the pronominal and auxiliary clitics, whose forms depend on the person and number of the referent, and can conveniently be called inflection clitics. The latter type of clitics are operators.

The operator clitics affect the cliticization behavior of the inflection clitics which cluster with them. A clausal clitic cluster consisting of pronominal and/or auxiliary clitics procliticizes to the head of the clause if it is instantiated by a [+V, þN] category, encliticizes to any category to its left if the clause is headed by a [þV, +N] category, and has the option of procliticizing to the verb or encliticizing to a category to the left of itself, in clauses with [+V, +N] heads. When the clitic cluster contains an operator clitic, however, all the clitics form a single phonological word. In clauses in which V is instantiated by a [+V, þN] category, this phonological word includes the verb; otherwise, that is not the case.