Work

Philippine Clitic Pronouns and the Lower Phase Edge

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: Pronominal paradigms in Philippine-type Austronesian languages show a robust and curious gap: in transitive clauses, pivot arguments and nonpivot agents may have bound pronominal forms, appearing as second-position clitics, but pronominal nonpivot themes must be full, free pronouns. This gap is instructive regarding the orga-nization of the lower phase edge. As cliticization involves a syntactic dependency between the host and argument position and all syntactic dependencies are constrained by phases, the gap is explained if pivots and nonpivot agents are specifiers of the phase head, making them the only DPs accessible for operations from outside of the lower phase.

Source: Linguistic Inquiry

DOI: 10.1162/ling_a_00374

Authors: Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, Theodore Levin

Institutions: National University of Singapore, Meta (United States)

Language: English

Topic: Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

OpenAlex ID: W2989604487

FWCI: 3.53

Cites: 76

Cited by: 15

Related to: 10