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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 12: Selected papers from the 45th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Campinas, Brazil
Edited by Ruth E.V. Lopes, Juanito Ornelas de Avelar and Sonia M. L. Cyrino
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 12] 2017
► pp. 235–258

Chapter 15
When a piece of phonology becomes a piece of syntax

The case of subject clitics

| City University of New York | College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center

This work argues against the view that phonological factors play a role in the distribution of vocalic auxiliary subject clitics (vocalic auxiliary scls), namely, those scls which occur with auxiliary verbs beginning in a vowel. Evidence is given to support the view that such scls are purely syntactic entities, whose distribution is governed only by syntactic factors. The analysis leads to a re-casting of vocalic auxiliary scls as “be-scls,” where the phonological structure of the auxiliary becomes irrelevant. Removing the phonological component from the explanation of the behavior of these syntactic elements further allows us to make fruitful connections with many other syntactic phenomena which would not otherwise have been seen.

Keywords: auxiliary verbs, consonant onset, functional structure, Northern Italian dialects, subject clitics, syllable structure
Article outline
  • 1.Overview of the phenomenon
    • 1.1The nature of auxiliary subject clitics across Northern Italian varieties
    • 1.2This goal of this chapter
  • 2.Problems with dual phonology-syntax restriction on the distribution of the vocalic auxiliary scl
    • 2.1Lack of phonological restrictions elsewhere in the grammar
    • 2.2The distribution of clitics is otherwise determined by the presence of other syntactic entities
      • 2.2.1 ocl for scl phenomena
      • 2.2.2Romagnol scl vs. complementizer
    • 2.3Summary: Syntax is responsible for the distribution of clitics in Romance
  • 3.Borgomanerese second person singular scls t and tal : Mirror image pattern
    • 3.1The second person singular forms tal and t in Borgomanerese
    • 3.2Summary
  • 4.Alternative hypothesis: Speakers take the onset of the consonantal auxiliary’s syllable to be a syntactic object
    • 4.1Analysis for Torinese auxiliary scls and similar phenomena
      • 4.1.1Spanish non-standard imperatives (Kayne 2010)
      • 4.1.2“Change to [a]” under ocl-enclisis in Borgomanerese (Tortora 2014)
    • 4.2Evidence for the “independent consonant”
  • 5.Closing thoughts
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.12.15tor
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