Article published in:
Languages in Contrast
Vol. 21:1 (2021) ► pp. 1–27

On clitic placement and gradience of strength of FP in Western Ibero-Romance

| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Old (Medieval and Classical) Spanish permitted finite enclisis and as such is classified as a strong-F language, as are many archaic varieties of Romance languages. Notable about Old Spanish is that, prior to the 1500s, interpolation arrangements were acceptable and rather common, as is still the case of Galician and some dialects of Portuguese. However, from the 1500s onward, interpolation in Old Spanish was no longer productive, much like modern Asturian. This is evidence that the “strong-weak” dichotomy of FP is insufficient to explain the situation of the languages. I argue that the strength of FP should be described as not only “weak” or “strong,” but instead on a gradient scale to distinguish languages that permit a range of possible clitic arrangements.
Keywords: syntax, clitic placement, F projection, Romance, Asturian/Galician/Portuguese/Spanish
Published online: 15 January 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.18001.gra
References

References

Armstrong, N. and MacKenzie, I. E.
2013 Standardization, Ideology and Linguistics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barrie, M.
2000 The Syntax of Clitic Placement in European Portuguese. Revue québécoise de linguistique 28(1): 91–109. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Batllori, M., Sánchez, C. and Suñer, A.
1995 The Incidence of Interpolation on the Word Order of Romance Languages. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 4(2): 185–209.Google Scholar
Berta, T.
2002 Pronombres Clíticos y Construcciones de Infinitivo en la Crónica de veinte reyes . Verbum 4(1): 67–89. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bouzouita, M.
2008 At the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface: Clitics in the History of Spanish. In Language in Flux: Dialogue Coordination, Language Variation, Change and Evolution, R. Cooper and R. Kempson (eds), 221–263. London: College Publications.Google Scholar
Costa, J. and Martins, A. M.
2003 Clitic Placement across Grammar Components. Paper presented at Going Romance, 17th Symposium on Romance Languages, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands. 20–22 November 2003.
Cyrino, S. M. L.
1993 Observações sobre a Mudança Diacrônica no Português do Brasil: Objeto Nulo e Clíticos. In Português Brasileiro: uma Viagem Diacrônica. Homenagem a Fernando Tarallo, I. Roberts and M. Kato (eds), 163–184. Campinas: Editora da UNICAMP.Google Scholar
Davies, M.
2002 Corpus del Español: 100 million words, 1200s–1900s. Available at http://​www​.corpusdelespanol​.org​/hist​-gen/ [last accessed 10 October 2017]. (CdE)
Davies, M., and Ferreira, M.
2006 Corpus do Português: 45 million words, 1300s–1900s. Available at http://​www​.corpusdoportugues​.org​/hist​-gen/ [last accessed 10 October 2017]. (CdP)
Duarte, I. and Matos, G.
2000 Romance Clitics and the Minimalist Program. In Portuguese Syntax: New Comparative Studies, J. Costa (ed), 116–142. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Duarte, I., Matos, G. and Gonçalves, A.
2005 Pronominal Clitics in European and Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 4: 113–141. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fernández Rubiera, F. J.
2009 Clitics at the Edge: Clitic Placement in Western Iberian Romance Languages. PhD Thesis, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
2010 Force°, Finiteness°, and the Placement of Clitics in Western Iberian Romance Languages. Estudos de Lingüística Galega 2: 75–95.Google Scholar
2013 Clisis Revisited: Root and Embedded Contexts in Western Iberian. In Challenging Clitics, C. M. Salvesen and H. P. Helland (eds), 55–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fontana, J.
1993 Phase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in Old Spanish. PhD Thesis, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Freixeiro Mato, X. R.
2006 Gramática da Lingua Galega. Parte II: Morfosintaxe. 2nd ed. Vigo: Edicións A Nosa Terra, Promocións Culturais Galega.Google Scholar
Galves, C.
2003 Clitic Placement in the History of European Portuguese and the Syntax-Phonology Interface. Unpublished manuscript, State University of Campinas.Google Scholar
Galves, C., Britto, H. and Paixão de Sousa, M. C.
2005 The Change in Clitic Placement from Classical to Modern European Portuguese: Results from the Tycho Brahe Corpus. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 4: 39–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Galves, C., Torres Moraes, M. A. and Ribeiro, I.
2005 Syntax and Morphology in the Placement of Clitics in European and Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 4: 143–177. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
González i Planas, F.
2007 Sintaxis de los Clíticos Pronominales en Asturleonés. Ianua: Revista Philologica Romanica 7: 15–35.Google Scholar
2009 Aspeutos de la Sintaxis de la Documentación Lleonesa Medieval. Lletres Asturianes 101: 45–58.Google Scholar
Gupton, T.
2012 Object Clitics in Galician and Complications for Clausal Analyses. In Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, K. Geeslin and M. Diaz-Campos (eds), 272–284. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
2014 The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Subjects and Clausal Word Order in Galician. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gupton, T. and Lowman, S.
2013 An F Position in Cibeño Dominican Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 16th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, J. C. Amaro, G. Lord, A. de Prada Pérez and J. E. Aaron (eds), 338–348. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Kayne, R.
1991 Romance Clitics, Verb Movement, and PRO. Linguistic Inquiry 22(4): 647–686.Google Scholar
Laka, I.
1993 Negative Fronting in Romance: Movement to Σ. In Linguistic Perspectives on the Romance Languages, W. J. Ashby, M. Mithun and G. Perissinotto (eds), 315–334. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
MacKenzie, I.
1999–2017 The Linguistics of Spanish. Available at http://​www​.staff​.ncl​.ac​.uk​/i​.e​.mackenzie​/index​.html [last accessed 30 August 2019].
Madeira, A.
1992 On Clitic Placement in European Portuguese. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 4: 96–122.Google Scholar
Magro, C.
2010a When Corpus Analysis Refutes Common Beliefs: the Case of Interpolation in European Portuguese Dialects. Corpus 9: 115–135. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010b Interpolação & Cia nos Dialectos do Português Europeu. Estudos de linguística galega 2: 97–119.Google Scholar
Martins, A. M.
1994 Enclisis, VP-deletion, and the Nature of Sigma. Probus 6(2–3): 173–205.Google Scholar
2003a Deficient Pronouns and Linguistic Change in Portuguese and Spanish. In Romance Language and Linguistic Theory 2001: Selected Papers from ‘Going Romance’, Amsterdam, 6–8 December 2001, J. Quer, J. Schroten, M. Scorretti, P. Sleeman and E. Verheugd (eds), 213–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2003b From Unity to Diversity in Romance Syntax: a Diachronic Perspective of Clitic Placement in Portuguese and Spanish. In Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History, K. Braunmüller and G. Ferraresi (eds), 201–233. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2005 Clitic Placement, VP-ellipsis and Scrambling in Romance. In Grammaticalization and Parametric Variation, M. Batllori, M-L. Hernanz, C. Picallo and F. Roca (eds), 175–193. Oxford: University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nieuwenhuijsen, D.
2006 Cambios en la Colocación de los Pronombres Átonos. In Sintaxis Histórica de la Lengua Española, Primera Parte: la Frase Verbal, C. Company Company (ed), 1337–1404. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Ordóñez, F.
2012 Clitics in Spanish. In The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics, J. I. Hualde, A. Olarrea and E. O’Rourke (eds), 423–452. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pires, A.
2005 Verb Movement and Clitics: Variation and Change in Portuguese. In Grammaticalization and Parametric Variation, M. Batllori, M-L. Hernanz, C. Picallo and F. Roca (eds), 48–59. Oxford: University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Poole, G.
2007 Interpolation and the Left Periphery in Old Spanish. In Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, M. Hussein, M. Kolokante and C. Wright (eds), 13:188–216. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics, Newcastle University.Google Scholar
2013 Interpolation, Verb-Second, and the Low Left Periphery in Old Spanish. Iberia 5(1): 69–98.Google Scholar
Raposo, E.
1999 Directionality of Cliticization in European Portuguese: Left or Right? In Grammatical Analyses in Basque and Romance Linguistics, J. Franco, A. Landa and J. Martín (eds), 219–232. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2000 Clitic Positions and Verb Movement. In Portuguese Syntax: New Comparative Studies, J. Costa (ed), 266–298. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar
Raposo, E. and Uriagereka, J.
2005 Clitic Placement in Western Iberian: a Minimalist View. In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax, G. Cinque and R. Kayne (eds), 639–697. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar
Rivero, M.-L.
1986 Parameters in the Typology of Clitics in Romance and Old Spanish. Language 62(4): 774–807. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Rivero, M.-L. and Terzi, A.
1995 Imperatives, V-movement and Logical Mood. Journal of Linguistics 31: 301–332. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sánchez Rei, X. M.
1999 O uso da Interpolación Pronominal en Galego durante os Séculos Escuros. VERBA 26: 327–344.Google Scholar
Silva-Villar, L.
1995 Inverted Tenses and Negation in Galician-Portuguese. Mester 24(1): 19–42.Google Scholar
Simões, A. R. M.
2006 Clitic Attachment in Brazilian Portuguese. Hispania 89(2): 380–389. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sportiche, D.
1996 Clitic Constructions. In Phase Structure and the Lexicon, J. Rooryck and L. Zaring (eds), 244–307. Dordrecht: Kluwer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Terzi, A.
1999 Clitic Constructions, their Hosts and Ordering. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 17: 85–121. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Uriagereka, J.
1995a An F Position in Western Romance. In Discourse Configurational Languages, K.É. Kiss (ed), 153–175. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar
1995b Aspects of the Syntax of Clitic Placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry 26(4): 79–123.Google Scholar