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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

ORCID logo | 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
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Syntax of clitic placement in Ibero-Romance
    • 2.1The F projection as presented in the literature
    • 2.2Derivations of clitic placement in Ibero-Romance via FP
  • 3.Complications of an F projection with a binary description of strength
    • 3.1Old Spanish: Competing systems, interpolation loss
    • 3.2European Portuguese, Galician, and Asturian: Is strong still strong?
    • 3.3Brazilian Portuguese: Loss of enclisis in nearly all contexts
    • 3.4Typology of the strength of FP in WIR
  • 4.Proposal of a gradient description of morphological strength
    • 4.1Assigning values based on cliticization patterns
    • 4.2Categorizing modern WIR languages on the gradient scale
    • 4.3The gradience scale as an indicator of diachronic FP strength
  • 5.Conclusions and open ends for future research
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.18001.gra
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