V-Movement, subject clitics, and inversion

Building on new evidence from Bolognese, this paper proposes an account for the appearance and distribution of φ-related subject clitics both within and among Gallo-Italic grammars that relies only on independently motivated mechanisms. It notes problems for previous accounts that include additional...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Rubin, Edward|||0000-0002-7267-4106
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:317446
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/317446
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.516
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Clitics
Agreement
Tense
Interfaces
Descripción
Sumario:Building on new evidence from Bolognese, this paper proposes an account for the appearance and distribution of φ-related subject clitics both within and among Gallo-Italic grammars that relies only on independently motivated mechanisms. It notes problems for previous accounts that include additional subject clitic specific functional heads and varying height of head-movement. Instead, it proposes that subject clitics depend on standard Agree, and that they are a consequence of an extra uφ ("agreement doubling") beyond the one inherited from C. Inversion in interrogatives is purely syntactic, and follows from strictly cyclic head-movement of V up to C. These two separate uφs underlie the distinct patterns of syncretisms and gaps in paradigms for verbal agreement suffixes and subject clitics in particular grammars, and for generalizations among them. Furthermore, gaps in a paradigm of subject clitics, like gaps in an agreement paradigm, do not imply a lack of Agree, but only a lack of overt exponents. Independently motivated syntactic mechanisms thus feed independently motivated morphological mechanisms. The syntax determines word/morpheme order, while morphophonology determines their realization.