A Lexical Approach to Italian Cliticization

This volume examines the behavior of clitics both in Italian and in certain southern Italian dialects in order to show that, even within a single language, clitics exhibit different properties. Monachesi argues against the existence of a special class ‘clitics’ whose elements exhibit variable behavior. Instead, she decomposes and assimilates their properties to those of well established categories. Motivations are thus provided for treating Italian object clitics as affixes. It is shown that both their morphosyntactic and their phonological behavior argue in favor of this assumption. Under this view, a lexicalist analysis is proposed which takes into account the phonological, morphological and syntactic properties of Italian clitics.

Paola Monachesi is a researcher at the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) located at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.

Preface
Abbreviations

1 Introduction

1.1 What are clitics?
1.2 The status of clitics
1.3 The special position of clitics
1.4 A lexical approach to cliticization
1.5 HPSG and the analysis of cliticization

1.5.1 The theory

1.6 Contents

2 The status Italian clitics

2.1 Italian clitics as affixes: motivations
2.2 Phonological status of Italian clitics

2.2.1 Nespor and Vogel
2.2.2 An alternative analysis
2.2.3 Further Remarks

2.3 Conclusions

3 The analysis of Italian clitics

3.1 Object clitics and simple tenses
3.2 The formation of the clitic cluster

3.2.1 Syntactic approaches to clitic distribution
3.2.2 Morphological approaches to clitic distribution
3.2.3 The Italian clitic cluster
3.2.4 A morphophonological analysis of Italian clitics

3.3 Comparison with other HPGS accounts
3.4 Comparison with Optimality THeory accounts
3.5 Conclusion

4 The clitic si

4.1 The diferent interpretations of clitic si
4.2 On the origin of si constructions
4.3 The analysis of clitic si

4.3.1 Reflexive si
4.3.2 Impersonal si
4.3.3 Impersonal si and reflexive si: a comparison
4.3.4 Middle si
4.3.5 Ergative si
4.3.5 Inherent-reflexive si

4.4 Previous approaches
4.5 Conclusion

5 The clitic loro/span>

5.1 On the origin of loro: its development
5.2 Italian monosyllabic clitics vs. loro: a comparison
5.3 Bisyllabic units as independent words
5.4 The distribution of bisyllabic clitic loro

5.4.1 Problematic data

5.5 Conclusion

6 The analysis of Italian restructuring verbs

6.1 An analysis in terms of nonlocal features

6.1.1 The bottom of the dependency
6.1.2 The middle of the dependency
6.1.3 The top of the dependency
6.1.4 Overgeneration and the additional problems

6.2 An argument composition analysis

6.2.1 The syntactic structure of restructuring verbs
6.2.2 Clitic climbing
6.2.3 The bisyllabic clitic loro
6.2.4 The Long NP-movement
6.2.5 Tough constructions
6.2.6 Auxiliary selection

6.3 Restructuring verbs in Salentino

6.3.1 Clitic climbing Salentino
6.3.2 Salentino of the northern part of the Province od Lecce
6.3.3 On the status of the element ku
6.3.4 Calabrese
6.3.5 Towards an HPSG analysis
6.3.6 Clitic climbing and finite clauses

6.4 An overview of other surface-based accounts
6.5 Conclusion

Appendix
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index

1/1/99

ISBN (Paperback): 1575861089 (9781575861081)
ISBN (Cloth): 1575861097 (9781575861098)
ISBN (Electronic): 1575868954 (9781575868950)

A Lexical Approach to Italian Cliticization

Contents