Clitic placement after syntax: evidence from Wolof ...

Clitic placement after syntax - 1

Clitic placement after syntax: evidence from Wolof person and locative markers1 Anne Zribi-Hertz & Lamine Diagne Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20 : 823-884 abstract This paper is an empirical contribution to the typology of functional nominals ('pronouns'), and to the theory of clitics. Its primary goal is to present an adequate descriptive analysis of the attached person and locative markers of Wolof, a language whose ‘special clitics’ partly pattern like those of Berber, described by Dell & Elmedlaoui (1989), Ouhalla (1989) and Boukhris (1998). Our study leads us to discard an all-syntactic account of the special position of clitics, of the sort developed by Ouhalla and Boukhris for Berber, and for Wolof by Njie (1982) and Dunigan (1994); and to adopt an approach crucially separating the syntactic and morphophonological properties of clitics, along the lines set by various scholars working on the syntaxphonology interface. 1.

Introduction The description of clitics a priori seems to involve several components of grammatical theory: Phonology, since clitics are typically spelt out as ‘leaners’, in the sense of Zwicky (1982); Morphology, since they have affixal properties; and Syntax, since special clitics, as initially defined by Zwicky (1977), generally exhibit Subjacency effects. However, the relative prominence of each module in available descriptions of clitic systems varies from one study to the next: depending on the author's theoretical background and on the empirical evidence supporting the study, the linear position of special clitics is regarded as pertaining to syntax (1), phonology (2), lexical morphology (3), or morphosyntax (4): (1)

all-syntactic accounts of special clitics (a few illustrative examples) a. Kayne (1991) • (Romance) clitic pronouns are generated in an argument position and move leftward to adjoin to a functional head. Proclitics adjoin to a head to which the verb has previously raised; enclitics adjoin to a head prior to verb raising: proclisis : cl-[V+X°] -

enclisis :

b.

V-[cl+Y°] -

Shlonsky (1994) •Each (Semitic) clitic pronoun spells out agreement features generated in the Agr-head of its maximal projection. A lexical head moves to adjoin to the closest Agr-head, which contains the clitic: an enclisis configuration follows : V/N/P/A-[AGR cl]


c. Cardinaletti & Starke (1999) • Clitics are phrases which are deficient for some syntactic projections. Consequently they must move in syntax to adjoin to a functional head, this strategy making up for their inherent deficiency. The prosodic deficiency of clitics is but a reflex of their deeper syntactic deficiency. d. Nash & Rouveret (1999), Rouveret (1999) • Clitics spell out argument features which could not be checked in their lexical domain and must therefore be checked further up, in the functional domain. A feature which is not checked in situ (lexical domain) moves up to the closest accessible functional head. If there is no accessible functional head, a 'proxy' category is created during the derivation. Distinctive person inflection on the verb triggers proclisis (as on Italian finite verbs); nondistinctive person inflection triggers enclisis (as on Semitic verbs or nonfinite Italian verbs). (2)

phonological accounts of special clitics a. Wackernagel's (1892) Law In Ancient Greek (and, more generally, in Proto-Indo-European), unstressed elements (including unstressed pronouns) attach to the right of the first prosodic word in their clausal domain. [All clitics considered are therefore enclitics.] b. Sauzet’s (2000) Nontaxic Analysis of clitics Special clitics are nontaxic expressions, i.e. expressions which are not positioned in the output of syntax, and are linearized postsyntactically by syllabification rules which either adjoin or incorporate them to a taxic expression. Simple clitics are taxic expressions which lack stress and thus behave phonologically as ‘leaners’.

(3)

(special) clitics as lexical affixes (Miller (1992), Miller & Sag (1997)) • (French) clitic pronouns spell out argument features of lexical heads. • Correlatively, each clitic surfaces as an affix which attaches to the lexical head (or extended head) whose argument feature it spells out. [The contrast between enclisis and proclisis boils down to that between suffixation and prefixation - an inherent property of each affixal element.]

(4)

(special) clitics as phrasal affixes (Klavans 1985, Anderson 1992, 19932) • Clitics are affixes which spell out phrase features. • Each clitic is specified in the lexicon for - its domain (the syntactic constituent whose feature it spells out) - its anchor (FIRST, HEAD, LAST) - its orientation (PRECEDES or FOLLOWS its anchor) • The same set of principles accounts for both clitic placement and affix placement.

These are but a few representative samples3 of available accounts of (special) clitics, but they will be sufficient for the present discussion. The assumption that (special)


clitics either undergo syntactic movement or occupy special syntactic positions seems to be dominant, although not unanimous (cf. Miller 1992, Miller & Sag 1997), among syntacticians. It is crucially based on the fact that special clitics exhibit Subjacency effects,4 as prototypically illustrated by the following French examples: (5)a.

Je sais que Marie voit I know that Marie sees b. Je sais que Marie I know that Marie I know that Marie sees it. c. *Je lasais que I it + know that

cette this lait +

mouche. fly voit. sees

Marie voit. Marie sees

The ‘special’ position of the accusative pronoun in (5b), contrasting with the accusative DP in (5a), is what led Kayne (1975) to propose the syntactic rule of Clitic Movement – the ancestor of the more recent analyses mentioned in (1) and fn. 3. The ungrammaticality of (5c) provides further support for this analysis by suggesting that Clitic Movement cannot cross the CP barrier, a typically syntactic constraint. However, both the special clitic position exemplified by (5b) and the Subjacency restriction exemplified by (5c) are straightforwardly accounted for under the phonological, lexical and morphological analyses sketched in (2), (3) and (4). The syllabification rules which are assumed to position special clitics under (2b) are crucially local, as are all phonological rules. The lexical approach in (3) correctly predicts that the clitic of (5b) must be phonetically realized as an affix on the (extended) lexical head whose argument it represents; the Klavans/Anderson theory in (4) similarly predicts that the clitic of (5b) should be anchored to a high-visibility (head, initial or final) locus within its scopal constituent (its domain). The crucial contrast between the syntactic, phonological, and morphological accounts lies in the way they explain the ‘special’ linear position of clitics: under all-syntactic analyses, special clitics occupy or move up to special structural positions because they have special syntactic properties, e.g., they instantiate special (agreement) features (Shlonsky), they have a deficient internal structure (Cardinaletti & Starke), or a peculiar (Kayne, (Nash &) Rouveret) feature content. Under phonological and morphological analyses, special clitics do not occupy special structural positions; they are either thought of as regularly-positioned items which move in phonology, due to their prosodic deficiency (Wackernagel), or as ‘nontaxic’ features which are not structurally positioned in the output of syntax and are consequently linearized after syntax (Sauzet, Miller, Klavans, Anderson). The apparently complex distribution of Wolof person and locative markers, presented below, is obviously an interesting challenge for a general theory of pronouns and pronominal clitics. We shall focus here on clitics, starting out with no modular bias: the central issue will precisely be to determine which module(s) of grammatical theory should account for the various properties observed, a task which can only be achieved on detailed empirical grounds. We shall first survey the structure and typology of Wolof clauses (section 2), a necessary preliminary step for the study of clitic placement. Section 3 will argue that an all-syntactic analysis of Wolof clitics, such as that developed by Dunigan (1994), should be discarded. Section 4 will propose an alternative analysis which deals separately with the phonological, syntactic and morphological properties of person and locative markers and accounts for the linear position of ‘special clitics’ at the syntax-phonology interface. Section 5 concludes that the Wolof evidence globally supports a modular approach to clitics and cliticization.


2.

The structure of Wolof clauses: an overview Before we take up the issue of the best analysis for clitics, we need to provide the reader with a general understanding of Wolof clause structure. For convenience’s sake, we shall use zeros in the transcription of our examples to indicate the unmarked values of functional features. Our presentation of the Wolof data departs in various respects from other available syntactic descriptions of Wolof clause structure (particularly Njie 1982, Robert 1994, Dunigan 1994). Some discrepancies between other authors and ourselves will be pointed out along the way. Let us begin with independent, simplex, affirmative, transitive clauses, exemplified in (6) and (7):5 (6)a.

xale -yi lekk -oon -na -ñu child DFpl eat +pst +F 3pl The children had eaten the rice. b. xale -yi lekk ø -na -ñu child DFpl eat -pst +F 3pl The children have eaten the rice. (7 )a. xale -yi d(i)6 -oon -na -ñu child DFpl +ipf +pst +F 3pl The children were eating the rice. b. xale -yi di ø -na -ñu child DFpl +ipf -pst +F 3pl The children will eat the rice.

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

The sentences in (6) and (7) contrast as to their aspect feature (±imperfective); the feature [+imperfective] is spelt out by the auxiliary di. Depending on aspectual value, the linear order of constituents is SVO (cf. (6)) or S Auxiliary VO (cf. (7)). The morpheme na, which we gloss by [+finite], hosts a person marker which we shall identify below (section 4) as an inflectional affix;7 the [+finite] affix typically occurs in independent affirmative clauses.8 In examples (8), negation is spelt out as an inflectional affix on the verb, and surfaces between Tense and Finiteness: (8)a.

xale -yi lekk ø -u(l)9 ø child DFpl eat -pst +neg +F The children have not eaten the rice. b. xale -yi d(i) -oon -u(l) ø child DFpl +ipf +pst +neg +F The children were not eating the rice.

-ñu 3pl

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

-ñu 3pl

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

This first set of data leads us to distinguish five functional features within the inflectional domain, labeled Person, Finiteness, Polarity, Tense and Aspect. Adopting Baker's (1988) Incorporation Theory for description's sake, we assume that each one of these functional features heads its own syntactic projection, and is incorporated into the verb or auxiliary by verb (or auxiliary) movement. Following Collins (1997) and Chomsky (1999), we however assume that the incorporation process pertains to Morphology (word structure), rather than to syntax. We might have alternatively assumed that Person, Finiteness, Polarity, Tense and Aspect were ‘clitics’ in the sense of Klavans (1980, 1985) and Anderson (1992, 1993), i.e. phrasal features whose


linearization would occur postsyntactically, in Morphology. We shall however argue in section 4 that the above features are hierarchically organized in syntax, contrasting in this respect with accusative and locative pronouns, the ‘special clitics’ of Wolof. The [+past] specification is not always spelt out as an affix as in (6), (7), (8). There are interesting constraints on the distribution of the [+past] affix, which would deserve further probing. One such restriction, for which we have no explanation to offer, is that it cannot cooccur with the negative affix on the same verb root; thus, the [+past] counterpart of (8a) is not (9a), but (9b), where the [+past] marker surfaces outside the inflected verb: (9)a. b.

*xale -yi lekk -oon -u(l) ø child DFpl eat +pst +neg +F xale -yi lekk -u(l) ø child DFpl eat +neg +F The children had not eaten the rice.

-ñu 3pl -ñu 3pl

ceeb rice woon +pst

-bi. DFsg ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

To capture this fact, we assume that the tense feature can be generated in either the head of TP (surfacing as an inflectional affix) or in spec,TP (surfacing as an adverbial, uninvolved in verb movement). Independent evidence in support of this analysis is the fact that tense can be spelt out both inflectionally and adverbially within the same clause, as in (10a), inspired by Sauvageot (1965, p. 126). Similarly, the [+ipf] specification may be spelt out twice within a clause, as in (10b), triggering a progressive+habitual interpretation: (10)a. xale -yi d(i) -oon -u(l) ø -ñu woon lekk child DFpl +ipf +pst +neg +F 3pl +pst eat The children would not have eaten the rice in the past. b. xale -yi di ø ø -na -ñu -(d)i lekk child DFpl +ipf -pst -neg +F 3pl +ipf eat The children are usually eating the rice. This first set of descriptive results is summarized in diagram (11):

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg ceeb -bi. rice DFsg


(11)

Wolof clause structure: the lexical and inflectional domains PersP

spec

Pers' Pers°

FinP spec

Fin' Fin°

PolP spec

Pol' Pol°

TP spec

T' T°

AspP spec

Asp' Asp°

vP spec

v' v°

(woon)

xale

[3pl] fl -ñu

[+F] fl -na/ø

......

(di)

[+neg]

[+pst]

[+ipf]

fl -u(l)

fl -oon

fl

÷lekk

(d)(i)

-yi The positive value of the aspect feature, [+imperfective], is spelt out by the auxiliary di, which supports the tense, polarity, finiteness and person affixes.10 Another interesting auxiliary is explicative da (a term we borrow from Njie 1982),11 exemplified by (12) : (12)a. xale -yi da -ñu lekk ø ø ø child DFpl EXPL 3pl eat -ipf -pst -neg ‘(It is because) the children have eaten the rice.’ b. xale -yi da -ñu -(d)i ø ø lekk child DFpl EXPL 3pl +ipf -pst -neg eat ‘(It is because) the children are eating the rice.’

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

Da clauses are inflected for aspect, tense and polarity, but these features are spelt out below da, on the verb or imperfective auxiliary . Da itself is only inflected for person, and does not combine with na: we assume that da is generated in the same position as na, i.e. the Finiteness head, and incorporates the Person feature.12 The Wolof clauses so far considered all host a person marker on the verb or auxiliary and are, correlatively, positively specified for finiteness. A [+finite] clause may be embedded; it may then be introduced by the complementizer ni:


(13)

jigéen -ñi xam ø ø ø -na -ñu womanDFpl know -ipf -pst -neg +F 3pl -ni xale -yi lekk ø ø ø -na -ñu that child DFpl eat -ipf -pst -neg +F 3pl The women know that the children have eaten the rice.13

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

Let us now turn to clause types which, unlike the ones above, do not include a person marker on the verb or auxiliary . We begin with clauses which stand as independent utterances and do not overtly activate the left periphery. (14)

optative clauses na xale -yi lekk (*-oon) ceeb -bi! +F child DFpl eat +pst rice DFsg (It is my wish that we) let the children eat the rice!

Optative clauses (which are called injunctive in Ka 1984, desiderative in Fal & al. 1990, and obligative in Church 1981 and Dunigan 1994) are unspecified for polarity, tense, aspect, and person. They include the morpheme na, which we gloss as [+finite], a descriptive assumption confirmed by interpretation: contrasting with imperatives, exemplified by (17) below, optative clauses crucially involve the speaker’s perspective (cf. Diouf 1982, Zribi-Hertz & Diagne 1999). Narrative clauses14 form a second type of independent clauses uninflected for person, whose syntax does not activate the left periphery : (15)a. narrative clauses gaynde -bi lekk lion DFsg eat So the lion eats Aram.15 b. mu lekk Aram. 3sg eat Aram So he eats Aram. c. *gaynde -bi -(di) lion DFsg +ipf d. *gaynde -bi lekk lion DFsg eat e. *gaynde -bi lekk lion DFsg eat f. *gaynde -yi lekk lion DFpl eat

Aram. Aram

lekk eat -oon +pst -ul +neg -ñu 3pl

Aram Aram Aram. Aram Aram. Aram Aram Aram

As revealed by (15c-f), the verb of a narrative clause goes uninflected for tense, aspect, polarity, finiteness, and person. This leads us to assume that this type of clause includes no inflectional projection. Narrative clauses are only but productively (cf. Robert 1994) used in a certain type of 'vivid' narrative style, and are in this respect formally similar to the so-called infinitif de narration (narrative infinitive) of French (e.g. Et le loup de manger le chasseur, 'So the wolf eats the hunter.') In Wolof, however, narrative clauses crucially contrast with what we shall call dependent-tense clauses, which may translate as English infinitivals, in some contexts:


(16)

DT-clauses (DT = Dependent Tense) a. xale -yi bëgg ø ø ø -na child DFpl want -ipf -pst -neg +F [Aram lekk ø ø ceeb -bi] . Aram eat -ipf -pst rice DFsg The children want [Aram to eat the rice]. b. *xale -yi bëgg ø ø ø -na child DFpl want -ipf -pst -neg +F [Aram lekk ø ø -ul ceeb Aram eat -ipf -pst +neg rice c. xale -yi gis ø ø ø -na child DFpl see -ipf -pst -neg +F [Aram di ø lekk ceeb -bi] . Aram +ipf -pst eat rice DFsg The children saw [Aram eating the rice]. d. xale -yi gis ø -oon ø -na child DFpl see -ipf +pst -neg +F [Aram d(i) -oon lekk ceeb -bi] . Aram +ipf +pst eat rice DFsg The children had seen [Aram eating the rice]. e. *xale -yi gis ø -oon ø -na child DFpl see -ipf +pst -neg +F [Aram d(i) ø lekk ceeb -bi] . Aram +ipf -pst eat rice DFsg f. *xale -yi gis ø ø ø -na child DFpl see -ipf +pst -neg +F [Aram d(i) -oon lekk ceeb -bi] . Aram +ipf +pst eat rice DFsg

-ñu 3pl

-ñu 3pl -bi] . DFsg -ñu 3pl

-ñu 3pl

-ñu 3pl -ñu 3pl

The bracketed clauses in (16) may host neither a finiteness marker, nor person inflection, nor polarity (as witnessed by the ill-formedness of (16b)): we assume that, like narrative clauses, they are unspecified for these features.16 They are, however, specified for tense and aspect, but their tense feature must agree with that of the matrix clause. Interestingly, the subject of both narrative and DT-clauses surfaces in the nominative Case, as revealed below by Table (33) (see section 3), which suggests that the nominative should be identified in this language as a default Case specification, rather than as a property dependent on tense and/or finiteness. Relative clauses also lack person inflection, but overtly activate the left periphery. Their topmost functional head hosts a definite determiner (bi, in (17)). Like DT-clauses, relative clauses are specified for tense, aspect, and polarity, but not for finiteness and person: (17)

relative clauses a. ceeb -bi xale -yi lekk {ø /-oon} ø rice DFsg child DFpl eat -pst /+pst -neg the rice which the children {have/had} eaten b. ceeb -bi xale -yi di {ø / -oon} ø lekk rice DFsg child DFpl +ipf -pst / +pst -neg eat the rice which the children {are/were} eating c. ceeb -bi xale -yi lekk ø ø -ul rice DFsg child DFpl eat -ipf -pst +neg the rice which the children have not eaten


What we shall call tense-setting clauses form a third type of embedded clauses lacking person inflection: (18)

Tense-Setting (TS) clauses a. bi xale -yi lekk ø ø -obv C child DFpl eat -ipf -neg When the children ate the rice... b. bi xale -yi d(i) ø -ée -obv C child DFpl +ipf -neg -F While the children are eating the rice... c. bi xale -yi lekk ø -ul -obv C child DFpl eat -ipf +neg When the children did not eat the rice...

-ée -F

ceeb rice

-bi... DFsg...

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi... DFsg...

-ée -F

ceeb rice

-bi... DFsg

TS-clauses are adverbial clauses which, in initial position, set the tense-frame of the whole sentence. Their temporal value is not dependent on the matrix tense: in the above examples , it is the other way around. TS-clauses characteristically include the affix -ée, whose linear position to the right of the negation affix suggests that it fills the same structural slot as na, i.e. the Finiteness head. This accounts for our tentative glossing of -ée as [-finite], a feature value we take as indicating that the temporal anchoring of TS-clauses is set as independent from the UtteranceTime. The global interpretation of TS-clauses depends on their aspectual and obviative specifications.17 We now turn to clause types which are unspecified for person, activate the left periphery, but occur as root sentences. This is first instantiated by imperatives. As their homologues in other more familiar languages, Wolof imperative clauses do not exhibit the same syntax in the affirmative and negative polarity. Affirmative imperatives have a specific imperative morphology (-al) and a deficient person+number inflection (pragmatically limited to the second person), which does not license an external argument. Negative imperatives have no specific imperative morphology, are uninflected for person, and may host a subject argument. The structural analysis we (very tentatively) suggest in (19) is strongly inspired by Harris’s (1998) analysis of Spanish imperatives: (19) imperative clauses a. ø lekk ø -al ø ceeb C eat -neg IMP -pl rice Eat the rice! b. ø lekk ø -al -(l)een ceeb C eat -neg IMP +pl rice Eat the rice! c. b -u(l) ø lekk ceeb -bi! C +neg -pl eat rice DFsg Do not eat the rice! d. b -u(l) -leen lekk ceeb -bi! C +neg 2pl eat rice DFsg Do not eat the rice! e. b -u(l) xale -yi lekk ceeb C +neg child DFpl eat rice Let the children not eat the rice! f. b -u(l) -ñu lekk ceeb -bi! C +neg 3pl eat rice DFsg lit. Let they not eat the rice!

-bi! DFsg (singular addressee) -bi! DFsg 18

(plural addressee)

-bi! DFsg


Subject-focus and presentative clauses involve an enriched peripheral structure including a copular morpheme, glossed by COP. Subject-focus clauses are exemplified by (20): (20) focalized-subject clauses a. xale -y(i>a) -a lekk ø ø child DFpl COP eat -ipf -pst It is the children who ate the rice. b. xale -y(i>a) -a lekk ø -oon child DFpl COP eat -ipf +pst It was the children who had eaten the rice. c. xale -y(i>a) -a (d)i ø ø child DFpl COP +ipf -pst -neg It is the children who are eating the rice. d. xale -y(i>a) -a lekk ø ø child DFpl COP eat -ipf -pst It is the children who did not eat the rice.

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. DFsg

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

-ul ceeb +neg rice

-bi. DFsg

Subject-focus clauses are inflected for tense, aspect, and polarity: we therefore assume their inflectional domain to be saturated. Presentative clauses19 characteriscally include the copular element ng-, which combines with the insertion of a to its left (plausibly, the subject-focus marker, as hinted by Church 1981), and supports an obviation vowel suffix (-i = [-obv], -a = [+obv]) (cf. Sauvageot 1965, Church 1981): (21)

presentative clauses a. xale -y(i>a)+a -ngi lekk ø child DFpl COP/-obv eat -ipf The children eat the rice. b. xale -y(i>a)+a -ngi -(d)i ø child DFpl COP/-obv +ipf -pst The children are eating the rice. c. xale -y(i>a)+a -ngi d(i) -oon child DFpl COP/-obv +ipf +pst The children were eating the rice. d. xale -y(i>a)+a -nga d(i) -oon child DFpl COP/+obv +ipf +pst The children were eating the rice (long ago).

ø -pst

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

Presentative clauses cannot be negated: we assume they are unspecified for polarity. Depending on their aspectual feature, presentative clauses may be used to translate English generic/stative (-ipf), or progressive (+ipf), clauses. Object-focus is marked by means of yet another copular morpheme, la, a nominal functional element made up of [l], the [-count] classifier (Sauvageot 1965), and [a], the [+obv] spatializer: (22)

focalized-object clauses a. ceeb -bi -la xale -yi lekk ø rice DFsg COP child DFpl eat -ipf It is the rice, which the children ate. b. ceeb -bi -la xale -yi lekk ø rice DFsg COP child DFpl eat -ipf It was the rice, which the children had eaten.

ø -pst

ø. -neg

-oon ø. +pst -neg


c. ceeb -bi -la xale -yi -(d)i ø rice DFsg COP child DFpl +ipf -pst It is the rice, which the children are eating. d. ceeb -bi -la xale -yi lekk ø rice DFsg COP child DFpl eat -ipf It is the rice, which the children did not eat.

ø lekk. -neg eat ø -pst

-ul. +neg

Like subject-focus clauses, object-focus clauses have a saturated inflectional domain. We assume here (for lack of evidence suggesting otherwise) that the subject-focus marker a and and the object-focus marker la occupy the same syntactic (Focus) head, whose specifier hosts the presentative subject or focalized (subject or object) phrase, and we shall leave open the precise syntactic status of the presentative marker ngi/nga, which incorporates to the focus copula a in Morphology. Topics typically surface as dislocated phrases (more on this below, section 3): (23)

xale -yi, ñu -a lekk ø ø child DFpl 3pl COP eat -ipf -pst The children, it is they who ate the rice.

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. [ñu-a>ñoo] DFsg

To accommodate this second set of descriptive results, we assume with Rizzi (1997) that the left periphery of a Wolof clause includes several functional projections, among which Force, Topic, Focus, and Presentative: (24)

Wolof clause structure

a.

LEFT PERIPHRY

ForceP spec

Force' Force°

TopicP spec

Top' Top°

FocusP spec

Foc' Foc°

PresP

ni bi ba

Pres' ø

Pres° a la ngi nga

INFLECTIONAL DOMAIN


b.

INFLECTIONAL DOMAIN (REDUCED TO ITS HEADS)

Pers Fin Pol T Asp

ñu

na

ul

oon

di

LEXICAL DOMAIN (vP)

da ée al

Both the left periphery and the inflectional domain are variously saturated, depending on the type of clause: for instance, the complementizer ni selects a Person Phrase for its complement; the determiner (in relative clauses) selects a Polarity Phrase; the complementizer of TS-clauses selects a Finiteness Phrase. Table (25) summarizes Wolof clause types: (25)

Wolof clause types construction type inflected for person

no person inflection

example

V to Infl

xale-yi lekk(-oon)-na-ñu ceeb-bi.

Aux (+ipf) to Infl

xale-yi di(-oon)-na-ñu lekk ceeb-bi.

Aux (+F) to Infl

xale-yi da-ñu lekk(-oon) ceeb-bi.

affirmative imperative

lekk-al(-een) ceeb-bi!

optative

na xale-yi lekk ceeb-bi!

narrative

xale-yi lekk ceeb-bi.

dependent-tense

...[xale-yi lekk(-oon) ceeb-bi]

relative

ceeb-bi xale-yi lekk(-oon)

tense-setting

bi xale-yi lekk-ée ceeb-bi

negative imperative

bu xale-yi lekk ceeb-bi!

subject focus

xale-ya-a lekk(-oon) ceeb-bi.

presentative

xale-ya-a-ngi lekk(-oon) ceeb-bi.

object focus

ceeb-bi-la xale-yi lekk(-oon).


3.

Wolof clitics from an all-syntactic perspective

3.1.

Person and locative markers: a general survey The functional nominals of Wolof relevant for our study of clitics include person and locative markers, which may first be subclassified into two phonological paradigms: strong-stress forms, and weak-stress forms, a point we shall return to below in section 4. Weak forms may be further subdivided into (a) subject markers (a term we borrow from Dunigan 1994), and (b) accusative and locative markers. The three types are briefly exemplified below: strong person and locative markers (26)a. Moodu liggey ø ø ø -na ø Moodu work -ipf -pst -neg +F 3sg Moodu has worked with {them/the children}. b. Moodu lekk ø ø ø -na ø Moodu eat -ipf -pst -neg +F 3sg Moodu ate {there (STR)/on the chair}. subject markers (27)a. xale -yi lekk ø child DFpl eat -ipf The children have eaten the rice. b. ceeb -bi -la -ñu lekk rice DFsg COP 3pl eat It is the rice, which they ate. c. ñu -a (> ñoo) lekk 3pl COP eat It is they, who ate the rice. object pronouns and weak locatives (28)a. Moodu lekk ø Moodu eat -ipf Moodu has eaten them. b. Moodu lekk ø Moodu eat -ipf Moodu has eaten there (WK).

ak with

{ñoom/xale -yi}. 3plSTR/child DFpl

{foofu/ ci LOCSTR/on

ø -pst

ø -neg

-na +F

-ñu 3pl

ø -ipf

ø -pst

ø. -neg

ø -ipf

ø -pst

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. DFsg

ø -pst

ø -neg

-na +F

ø 3sg

-leen. 3pl/O

ø -pst

ø -neg

-na +F

ø 3sg

-ci. LOCWK

seez -bi}.20 chair DFsg

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

As shown by Table (29) below, object pronouns are morphologically distinguished from subject markers in the second and third persons: those which are distinguished will be specified as 'objects' (O) in our glosses. The term 'subject marker' which we use for convenience's sake does not, in our opinion, cover a unitary syntactic class of nominative pronouns, a view we shall make more explicit in section 4: for this reason we only gloss subject markers by their person/number features, with no further 'subject' or 'nominative' specification.


(29)

Wolof person and locative markers STRONG FEATURES

PERSON AND LOCATIVE

WEAK FORMS

subject markers

object pronouns and weak locatives

MARKERS

1sg

man

(m)a

ma

2sg

yaw

nga, ya

la

3sg

moom

ø, (m)u

ko

1pl

ñoom21

ñ(u)

ñu

2pl

yeen

ngeen, yeen

leen

3pl

ñoom

ñ(u)

leen

LOC, -dx, -obv

cii

ci

LOC, -dx, +obv

caa

ca

LOC, +dx, -obv

fii

fi

LOC, +dx, +obv

faa, foofu

fa

Functional locatives are specified for obviation (obv) and deixis (dx): locatives glossed as [-dx] may be read as bound variables, locatives glossed as [+dx] behave as r(eferring)-expressions (the exact nature of the deictic feature is not relevant to the present study). 3.2.

Strong forms Strong functional nominals occur in positions otherwise open to lexical DPs (cf. (26a)) and locative phrases (cf. (26b)). Strong person markers occur in P-governed (30a), dislocated (30b) and object-focus (30c) positions: (30)a. Moodu liggey ø ø ø Moodu work -ipf -pst -neg Moodu has worked with them. b. ñoom, ñu -a (> ñoo) lekk ø STR WK 3pl 3pl COP eat -ipf lit. They/them, it is they who ate the rice. c. ñoom -la Moodu gis ø STR 3pl COP Moodu see -ipf It is them that Moodu saw.

-na +F

ø 3sg

ak ñoom. with 3plSTR

ø -pst

ø -neg

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

ø -pst

ø. -neg

Strong personal pronouns cannot occur as direct objects (cf. (31a)), and when they seem to occur in subject position, as in (31b), they are felt as optional emphatic adjuncts, similar to dislocated topics rather than to proper subject arguments.21 Their nonargumental status is confirmed by the fact that their omission does not cause ungrammaticality, as shown by (31b)-(31c), unlike that of weak subject markers, as shown by (32): 21


(31)a. *Moodu lekk ø Moodu eat -ipf (compare (28a)) b. ñoom lekk ø 3plSTR eat -ipf THEY have eaten the rice. c. lekk ø eat -ipf They have eaten the rice.

ø -pst

ø -na -neg +F

ø 3sg

ñoom. 3plSTR

ø -pst

ø -na -neg +F

-ñu 3pl

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

ø -pst

ø -na -neg +F

-ñu 3pl

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

(32)a. ñu -a (>ñoo) 3pl COP It is they who ate the rice. b. * -a COP

lekk eat

ø -ipf

ø -pst

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. DFsg

lekk eat

ø -ipf

ø -pst

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. DFsg

These data suggest that the descriptive generalization put forward by Kayne (1999) regarding the strong pronouns of French may be exported to Wolof: for reasons still unclear to us, strong pronouns in both languages are banned from structural-case positions, and are therefore restricted to nonargument and P-governed positions. Under this assumption, the strong pronoun of (31b) must not occur in subject position, but higher up in a caseless, nonargument position. This assumption is confirmed by the fact that the strong pronoun of (31b) is associated with a marked (contrastive) reading, whereas the lexical subject in the same construction (e.g. (27a)) is construed as neutral.22 3.3. Weak pronouns as syntactic clitics 3.3.1. The distribution of weak pronouns: a first survey 3.3.1.1. Subject markers Depending on the construction, subject markers undergo morphological attachment to their left or (so it seems) to their right, or remain unattached. The complete paradigm is given in Table (33) for the 3pl subject marker, ñu: (33) The distribution of Wolof ‘subject markers’, exemplified by ñu (3pl)24 construction

example

translation

type V-to-Infl

xale-yi lekk-na-ñ(u) ceeb-bi. lekk-na-ñ(u) ceeb-bi.

ipf-to-Infl

xale-yi di-na-ñ(u) lekk ceeb-bi. di-na-ñu lekk ceeb-bi.

EXPL-to-Infl

xale-yi da-ñ(u) lekk ceeb-bi.

L-attachment

The children have eaten the rice. They have eaten the rice. The children will eat the rice. They will eat the rice. (It is because) the children have eaten the rice.

da-ñ(u) lekk ceeb-bi.

(It is because) they have eaten the rice.

optative 24

na-ñu lekk ceeb-bi !

(It is my wish) that they eat the rice!


R-attachment

unattached

relative

ceeb-bi-ñu lekk

the rice which they have eaten

TS

bi-ñu lekkée ceeb-bi...

when they ate the rice...

neg. imp.

bu-ñu lekk ceeb-bi!

Let them not eat the rice!

object focus

ceeb-bi-la-ñu lekk.

It is the rice, which they ate.

subject focus

ñu-a(>ñoo) lekk ceeb-bi.

It is they who ate the rice.

presentative

ñu-a-ngi(>ñoongi) lekk ceeb-bi

They eat the rice.

narrative

ñu lekk ceeb-bi.

So they eat the rice.

DT

...[ñu lekk ceeb-bi]

[them to eat the rice]

Right-attached subject markers are not proclitics (Wolof is an initial-stress, all-enclitic language). In sentence-initial position, they bear default initial stress (more on this in section 4), and undergo bonding,23 i.e. phonological coalescence with their rightward context. Bonding does not specifically concern weak pronouns, it applies to lexical DPs as well, as shown by (34) and (35):24 (34) subject focus a. xale -yi -a (> xaleyaa) lekk child DFpl COP eat It is the children, who ate the rice. b. ñu -a (>ñoo) lekk ceeb 3pl COP eat rice It is they, who ate the rice. (35) presentative a. xale -yi -a -ngi (> xaleyaangi) child DFpl COP PRES The children eat the rice. b. ñu -a -ngi (> ñoongi) 3pl COP PRES They eat the rice.

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

-bi. DFsg lekk eat

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

lekk eat

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg

Left-attached subject markers, on the other hand, are unstressed, and their morphological attachment is specific to weak morphemes. In (36), for instance, we see that the subject marker undergoes left-attachment, while the lexical subject xaleyi does not:: (36)a. ceeb -bi -la -ñu lekk. rice DFsg COP 3pl eat It is the rice, which they ate. b. ceeb -bi -la xale -yi lekk. rice DFsg child DFpl eat It is the rice, which the children ate. Furthermore, we shall see below (Table (37)) that left-attached subject markers serve as morphological supports for object pronouns and weak locatives (hereunder: OLCs: Object and Locative Clitics), whereas right-attached and unattached subject markers do not.


3.3.1.2. Object pronouns and weak locatives Unlike subject markers, OLCs are always enclitic. Like subject markers, however, they surface in different linear positions depending on the construction. A survey of their distribution is given below in Table (37), taking as samples the 3sg object marker ko and the [-obviative] weak locative ci: (37) The distribution of Wolof OLCs construction

lexical subject

functional subject

type V-to-Infl

Ipf-to-Infl

EXPL-to-Infl

optative

relative

TS

neg. imp.

object focus

subject focus

presentative

narrative

DT

xale-yi lekk-na-ñ(u) -ko.

lekk-na-ñ(u) -ko.

The children have eaten it.

They have eaten it.

xale-yi di-na-ñ(u) -ko lekk.

di-na-ñ(u) -ko lekk.

The children will eat it.

They will eat it.

xale-yi da-ñ(u) -ko lekk.

da-ñ(u) -ko lekk.

(It is because) the children have eaten it.

(It is because) they have eaten it.

na-ko xale-yi lekk!

na-ñu-ko lekk!

It is my mish that the children eat it!

It is my wish that they eat it!

ceeb-bi-ci xale-yi lekk

ceeb-bi-ñu-ci lekk

the rice which the children ate there

the rice which they ate there

bi-ko xale-yi lekkée...

bi-ñu-ko lekkée...

when the children ate it...

when they ate it...

bu-ko xale-yi lekk!

bu-ñu-ko lekk!

Let the children not eat it!

Let them not eat it!

ceeb-bi-la-ci xale-yi lekk.

ceeb-bi-la-ñu-ci lekk.

It is the rice, which the children ate there.

It is the rice, which they ate there.

xale-yi-a(>yaa)-ko lekk

ñu-a(>ñoo)-ko lekk.

It is the children who ate it.

It is they who ate it.

xale-yi-a-ngi(>yaangi)-ko lekk.

ñu-a-ngi(>ñoongi)-ko lekk.

The children eat it.

They eat it.

xale-yi lekk-ko.

ñu lekk-ko.

So the children eat it.

So they eat it.

...[xale-yi lekk-ko]

...[ñu lekk-ko]

(want)...the children to eat it.

(want)...them to eat it.


The constructions listed in Table (37) are subdivided into three subtypes (from the top down). In the first subtype, which includes the V-to-Infl, Ipf-to-Infl and Expl-toInfl constructions, OLCs encliticize to the right of the subject marker, which itself encliticizes to the inflected verb or auxiliary, and the behaviour of OLCs is insensitive to whether or not a lexical DP occurs further up in subject position. In the second subtype, which includes the optative, relative, TS, negative-imperative and objectfocus constructions, OLCs are linearized differently when the subject is realized as a lexical DP, and when it is realized as a functional 'subject marker'. The third subtype, which includes subject-focus, presentative, narrative and DT constructions, is characterized by the fact that OLCs do not encliticize to subject markers, but are separated from them by a copula or a lexical verb. 3.3.2. Syntactic clitics and Clitic Movement Dunigan (1994) infers from the data in Table (29) that subject markers and OLCs form a class, distinct from strong pronouns. Since left-attached subject markers exhibit enclitic properties (cf. (36)), and since they furthermore cluster with OLCs (cf. (37)), she concludes that subject markers are themselves clitics, which, from an allsyntactic perspective, means syntactic clitics. To describe formally the distribution of clitics in (37), she assumes that their clitic behaviour is an effect of Clitic Movement, understood as syntactic Head Movement. In two subclasses of cases, however, we saw that subject markers do not cliticize and occur in linear positions otherwise open to full DPs (cf. (34), (35)). To account for these cases without discarding the unitary 'syntactic-clitic' analysis, Dunigan borrows from Sportiche (1996) the idea that clitics are a special type of morphemes which head their own syntactic projections, called clitic phrases. This assumption makes it possible to smooth out the paradoxical fact that some clitics are not cliticized: cliticized clitics are claimed to behave as the heads of their Clitic Phrases, and hence to undergo Clitic Movement, while uncliticized clitics are claimed to behave as XPs, i.e. as full Clitic Phrases, positioned in specifier positions. Applying this theory to Wolof, Dunigan assumes that all the weak pronouns and locatives of Table (29) are syntactic clitics, but that only those which behave as enclitics in (33) and (37) undergo Clitic Movement: it follows that OLCs all undergo Clitic Movement, while those subject markers which do not surface as enclitics (cf. (34b), (35b)) are assumed to behave syntactically as full (clitic) phrases occurring in specifier positions. 3.3.3. The target of Clitic Movement 3.3.3.1. The Attraction-by-Inflection Theory An all-syntactic analysis of clitics requires that the target of Clitic Movement be specified in strictly syntactic terms. In independent finite clauses such as (38a) and (38b), the subject marker followed by OLCs attach to the tensed verb or auxiliary. In DT-clauses, OLCs similarly attach to the tensed verb (39a) or auxiliary (39b):25 (38)a. xale -yi lekk -na -ñu child DFpl eat +F 3pl The children have eaten it. b. xale -yi di -na -ñu child DFpl +ipf +F 3pl The children will eat it.

-ko. 3sg/O -ko lekk. 3sg/O eat

(39)a. Aram bëgg -oon -na [xale -yi lekk Aram want +pst +F ch ild DFpl eat Aram wanted the children to eat it.

-oon -ko ]. +pst 3sg/O


b. Aram gis -oon -na [xale -yi d(i) Aram see +pst +F child DFpl +ipf Aram had seen the children eating it.

-oon -ko +pst 3sg/O

lekk]. eat

c. *Aram gis -oon -na [xale -yi d(i) -oon lekk -ko]. This first set of data is probably what led Njie (1982) to assume that Wolof OLCs move in syntax under the attraction of Tense. This idea could also account for the special behaviour of OLCs in double-object constructions, exemplified by (40c,d,e), contrasting with (40a/b): (40)a. xale -yi wan -na -ñu Aram ceeb -bi . child DFpl show +F 3pl Aram rice DFsg The children have shown Aram the rice . b. *xale -yi wan -na -ñu ceeb -bi Aram. child DFpl show +F 3pl rice DFsg Aram c. xale -yi wan -na -ñu -ko -ko. child DFpl show +F 3pl 3sg/O 3sg/O The children have shown {him/her} {him/her/it}. d. xale -yi wan -na -ñu -ko Aram. child DFpl show +F 3pl 3sg/O Aram (i) The children have shown Aram to {him/her}. (ii) The children have shown {him/her/it} to Aram. e. *xale -yi wan -na -ñu Aram (-)ko. 26 In Wolof as in English canonical double-object constructions, the Goal must precede the Theme (cf. (40a) vs. (40b)). Correlatively, the linear order in the Wolof translation of (40d-ii) should be: Aram>pronoun. This, however, is made impossible (cf. (40e)) by the fact that the OLC must attach to the inflected verb, which may be taken as evidence that Tense attracts the clitic. However, the attraction-by-tense idea runs into empirical problems. In explicative clauses, OLCs attach to the subject marker which itself encliticizes to the explicative auxiliary, located above Tense and Aspect: (41)

xale -yi da -ñu -ko lekk child DFpl +F 3pl 3sg/O eat (It is because) the children had eaten it.

-oon. +pst

We might consider the alternative assumption that OLCs are attracted by Finiteness, rather than by Tense. This could also account for the behaviour of OLCs in optative clauses : (42)

na -ko xale -yi lekk! +F 3sg/O child DFpl eat (It is my wish that) the children eat it!

The attraction-by-finiteness idea is however proved incorrect by the fact that OLCs also surface in special positions in nonfinite clauses. In DT-clauses such as (39b), the imperfective auxiliary targeted by OLCs is not inflected for finiteness. And in narrative double-object constructions, OLCs seem just as attracted by the noninflected verb as they were by the finite one in (40) :


(43)a. xale -yi wan -ko -ko. child DFpl show 3sg/O 3sg/O So the children show{him/her} {him/her/it}. b. xale -yi wan -ko Aram. child DFpl show 3sg/O Aram (i) So the children show Aram to {him/her}. (ii) So the children show {him/her/it} to Aram. c. *xale -yi wan Aram ko. In (nonfinite) clauses which activate a Focus projection, OLCs attach to the focus marker , whose clausal domain we have shown to be nonfinite: (44) a. xale -yi -a -ko lekk. [yi-a>yaa] child DFpl COP 3sg/O eat It is the children, who ate it. b. xale -yi -a -ngi -ko lekk. [yi-a-ngi>yaangi] child DFpl COP PRES 3sg/O eat The children eat it. c. ceeb -bi -la -ci xale -yi lekk. rice DFsg COP LOC child DFpl eat It is the rice, which the children ate there. Finally, in TS-clauses such as (45), OLCs target the initial complementizer/determiner morpheme, which is beyond the Finiteness projection: (45)

bi -ko xale -yi lekk -OBV C 3sgA child DFpl eat When the children ate it...

-ée... -F

3.3.3.2. The Topmost Functional Head theory The above data lead Dunigan (1994) to propose the following alternative generalization: (46)

Dunigan's theory of Wolof clitics Wolof clitics move in syntax to the topmost functional head within the g(rammatical)-projection of V.

The g-projection of V is defined as the maximal functional projection of V, leaving out CP. The reason for leaving out CP is that enclitics do not attach to the complementizer ni which introduces finite complement clauses, as witnessed by (47b), contrasting with (47a): (47)a. Aram wax -na -ni xale -yi Aram say +F that child DFpl Aram said that the children ate it. b. *Aram wax -na -ni -ko Aram say +F that 3sg/O

lekk eat

-na +F

-ñu 3pl

xale -yi lekk child DFpl eat

-ko. 3sg/O -na +F

-ñu. 3pl

Generalization (46) is devised to predict the distribution of both OLCs and enclitic subject markers, assumed to cluster on the same head. In all constructions but two (DT and narrative clauses), clitics are assumed to target a single functional head,


labeled S , the locus of 'clausal particles' which include the na morpheme of finite and optative clauses, the negative-imperative marker bu, the initial complementizer/determiner morpheme of TS-clauses, the determiner-head of relative clauses, and the copula morpheme of focus and presentative clauses. In DT and narrative clauses, which do not contain a S projection, clitics are assumed to target the Tense head, to which the verb or auxiliary has raised. Dunigan's analysis is consistent with the set of data summarized in Table (48): (48) Dunigan's syntactic analysis of Wolof clitics Dunigan's

construction

analysis

type

locus of enclitics

translation

V-to-Infl

xale-yi lekk-na-ñu-ko

The children have eaten it.

ipf-to-Infl

xale-yi di-na-ñu-ko lekk.

The children will eat it.

F-to- Infl

xale-yi da-ñu-ko lekk.

(It is because) the children have eaten it.

Clitic Movement

optative

na-ñu-ko lekk!

(It is my wish) that they eat it!

targets

relative

ceeb-bi-ñu-ci lekk

the rice which they ate there

TS

bi-ñu-ko lekkee...

When they ate it...

neg. imp.

bu-ñu-ko lekk!

Let them not eat it!

object focus

ceeb-bi-la-ñu–ci lekk.

It is the rice, which they ate there.

subject focus

ñu-a(>ñoo)-ko lekk.

It is they who ate it.

presentative

ñu-a-ngi(>ñoongi)-ko lekk

They eat it.

ñu lekk-ko.

So they eat it.

...[ñu lekk-ko]

[them (to) eat it]

S

Clitic Movement narrative targets T

DT

Dunigan’s syntactic generalization (46) captures the intuition that in most cases, OLCs cluster with one or several monosyllabic functional morphemes. It also correctly predicts the contrast in (49): (49) a. Aram gis -oon -na [xale -yi d(i) -oon Aram see +pst +F child DFpl +ipf +pst Aram had seen the children eating it. b. Aram gis -oon -na [xale -yi -ko d(i) Aram see +pst +F child DFpl 3sg/O +ipf Aram had seen the children who were eating it.

-ko lekk]. 3sg/O eat -oon lekk]. +pst eat

In (49a), where the object clitic is attached to the inflected auxiliary, the bracketed string can only be read as a phrase headed by Tense: a (DT) clause; in (49b), where the object clitic is attached to the determiner yi, the bracketed string can only be read as a phrase headed by yi: a relativized DP. 3.3.4. Discussion of Dunigan's analysis Dunigan's analysis of Wolof clitics starts out with a syntactic bias regarding cliticization: as most syntacticians dealing with this issue since Kayne (1975), Dunigan postulates without demonstration that special clitics, in the sense of Zwicky (1977), are moved to their 'special' position via syntactic Head-Movement. She does


not find it necessary to examine and discuss other possible or available approaches to cliticization, and actually provides no compelling evidence that Wolof clitics undergo moment in syntax. As pointed out in section 1, the fact that clitics are positioned within some local domain with respect to the verb (what she calls the g-projection of V) could just as well be predicted under a lexical, morphological or phonological analysis. Dunigan reasons that since enclitic pronouns and WK locatives cluster on other monosyllabic morphemes plausibly generated in syntactic heads, they must attach to them as a result of Head Movement, hence undergo Clitic Movement in syntax. This conclusion, however, is in no way necessary, for the clustering of clitics might be sensitive to morphophonological, rather than to syntactic, properties. Consider for instance the contrast between the lexical subject and the subject marker in (36), repeated below: (36)a. ceeb -bi -la -ñu lekk. rice DFsg COP 3PL eat It is the rice, which they ate. b. ceeb -bi -la xale -yi lekk. rice DFsg COP child DFpl eat It is the rice, which the children ate. This pair of examples shows that in the object-focus construction, the subject marker (ñu) encliticizes to the focus-marking copula, whereas the lexical subject (xale-yi) remains unattached. Under Dunigan's view, this shows that the subject marker is a clitic, therefore a syntactic clitic, which raises up to S (filled by the copula) via syntactic Clitic Movement, while the lexical subject is not a clitic, hence remains in spec,TP. It is however equally possible to assume, as we shall in section 4, that the lexical subject and the functional subject occupy the same structural position in the output of syntax - arguably, spec,TP - and that the subject marker undergoes enclisis for phonological reasons - because it is a weak-stress monosyllable, unlike the lexical subject. But Dunigan does not even consider such an alternative. The all-syntactic approach which she develops furthermore raises a number of descriptive problems. First recall that the string a+ngi which is targeted by OLCs in presentative clauses is likely to te made up of two morphemes generated in two distinct syntactic heads (cf. Church 1981 and section 2 above); under this assumption, the behaviour of OLCs in presentative clauses violates generalization (46). Second, note that the existence of a syntactic rule of Clitic Movement may be disputed on theoretical grounds, since we may regard as doubtful that Head Movement, as a whole, should pertain to syntax (cf. Collins 1997, Chomsky 1999).27 Furthermore, the Clitic Phrase assumption on which Dunigan's analysis is based is only motivated by an a priori conception of the syntax-phonology interface, according to which weakstress on functional nominals is a reflex of syntax, rather than an independent phonological property. Under the all-syntactic view, weak-stress functional nominals must form a syntactic class, therefore must be 'clitics' even when they do not cliticize. The Clitic Phrase analysis results in various descriptive assumptions which receive no independent justification. Consider in particular the subject marker of finite clauses such as (50), which we proposed to analyse above as the V-to-Infl, Ipf-to-Infl and Expl-to-Infl constructions: (50)a. V-to-Infl xale -yi lekk ø ø ø -na child DFpl eat -ipf -pst -neg +F The children have eaten the rice. b. Ipf-to-Infl

-ñu 3pl

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg


xale -yi di ø ø -na -ñu child DFpl +ipf -pst -neg +F 3pl The children will eat the rice. c. Expl-to-Infl xale -yi da -ñu lekk ø ø child DFpl EXPL 3pl eat -ipf -pst (It is because) the children have eaten the rice.

lekk eat

ceeb rice

-bi. DFsg

ø ceeb -neg rice

-bi. DFsg

These and only these constructions instantiate saturated finite clauses, i.e. independent clauses specified for the full range of inflectional features listed in section 2: Finiteness, Aspect, Tense and Polarity. In these and only these constructions, the subject marker occupies a linear position which is closed to a lexical subject. And in these and only these constructions, the lexical subject (xale-yi) is construed as neutral (i.e. untopicalized, unfocalized). These properties are quite naturally consistent with the analysis proposed above in section 2, which treats the subject marker ñu in (50) as an inflectional element (a person-inflection or 'subjectagreement' marker), crucially correlated with (the positive value of) finiteness, and generated in the topmost functional head of the inflectional domain. Such analysis is, however, in stark conflict with the assumption that all enclitic pronouns start out in the heads of Clitic Phrases generated in argument positions and move up to some functional head in syntax. In order to discard an inflectional analysis of the subject markers of (50), Dunigan argues that subject markers obviously cannot be analysed as the spell-outs of Person inflection in such cases as (51a) (where ñu agrees with a distant antecedent), or (51b) (where ñu surfaces on the same side of the copula as its antecedent): (51)a. object focus construction xale -yi, ceeb -bi -la -ñu lekk. child DFpl rice DFsg COP 3pl eat The children, it is the rice, which they ate. b. subject focus construction xale -yi, ñu -a lekk ceeb -bi. child DFpl 3pl COP eat rice DFsg The children, it is they who ate the rice.

[ñu-a>ñoo]

Dunigan rightly assumes that in such constructions, the subject marker behaves like a resumptive pronoun coindexed with a dislocated topic. But she then goes on to argue that since subject markers behave as subject arguments in (51), they must be subject arguments wherever they occur. Since in (50), the antecedent of the subject marker may be shown to behave as an argument, Dunigan proposes to identify ñu, in this example, as a 'clitic-doubler', coindexed with a DP in argument position - an analysis which, incidentally, fails to account for the crucially finite character of (50), since clitic-doubling is known to be insensitive to finiteness.28 Dunigan's reasoning is based on the postulate that all instances of, e.g., ñu, must spell out the same syntactic entity. Should we refuse this a priori assumption, it is quite possible to argue that ñu spells out Person inflection in (50) while it is generated in (51) in an argument position - as a nominative pronoun. An alleged advantage of Dunigan's analysis is that it provides a unitary theory of Wolof clitics, phrased in (46). This unity is based on the assumption that Clitic Movement occurs in syntax and targets - whenever it is present - a single locus, S, a functional Propositional-Operator head placed above Tense and below CP in the syntactic tree. It however strikes us as unlikely that Wolof clause structure should


involve a single projection (SP) where other languages usually distinguish at least three (Topic, Focus, Polarity - cf. Rizzi 1997). Dunigan's S hypothesis results in presenting Wolof as a strongly exotic language set apart from more familiar ones, and furthermore requires several disputable descriptive assumptions. For instance, to correctly predict (under the S analysis) the distribution of enclitic subject markers in negative clauses, Dunigan is led to assume that negation is generated in S when the subject marker attaches to it (bu-ñu lekk ceeb-bi! 'Let them not eat the rice!'), but in a lower position when the subject marker surfaces to its left (bi-ñu lekk-ul-ée ceebbi 'when they did not eat the rice'). To achieve a unitary analysis of clitics, Dunigan is led to assume that narrative clauses contain an empty tense head, a claim for which empirical evidence is lacking since, as pointed out in section 2, no overt tense or aspect marker can ever occur in such clauses. There is no obvious unity in the claims that clitics behave either as heads or as phrases, that they may target either S or tense, or that subject markers are either clitic doublers or resumptive clitics. Our own analysis will lead us to conclude that Wolof clitics indeed do not form a class at any level of representation. But while this lack of unity is expected under a modular approach which treats phonological, morphological and syntactic properties as largely independent from one another, it is not expected under the assumption that clitics form a syntactic class. 3.3.5. Possible updatings of Dunigan’s theory Dunigan’s analysis is basically in keeping with more recent syntactic theories of special clitics such as those of Cardinaletti & Starke (1999), Rouveret (1999), or Nash & Rouveret (1999), which propose theoretical grounds for such generalizations as (46): under Cardinaletti and Starke’s assumptions, Wolof OLCs would be forced to raise by their inherent structural deficiency; under (Nash &) Rouveret’s, they would be by the fact that, for some reason, the argument feature which they spell out could not be checked within the VP and would thus have to be ‘externalized’ on a higher functional head. (Nash &) Rouveret's feature-checking approach, however, crucially predicts that clitics should always move up to the functional head which is closest to their argument position, which is not what happens to the object pronoun in (52): (52)

xale -yi -a -ko d(i) -oon lekk child DFpl COP 3sg/O +ipf +pst eat It was the children who were eating it.

[yi-a>yaa]

Furthermore, (Nash &) Rouveret's assumption that enclisis generally correlates with a nondistinctive verbal inflection does not export to Wolof, an all-enclisis language with a transparently distinctive verbal morphology.29 Cardinaletti & Starke's theory is based on the assumption that morphophonological deficiency reflects a deficient syntactic feature content. It crucially predicts that weak and clitic pronouns should be 'less referential' than strong pronouns, in one sense or another. As regards Wolof, however, this prediction does not seem supported by empirical evidence: for instance, both strong and clitic pronouns may refer to animates or inanimates, as shown by (53); conjoined pronouns (which must be strong) may refer to both animates and inanimates (cf. (54)); and both strong and clitic pronouns may be read as bound variables, as shown by (55):30 (53)a. {Moodu/ordinatër -bi}, Aram bëgg -na Moodu/computer DFsg Aram like +F Moodu/the computer, Aram likes {him/it}. b. {Moodu/ordinatër -bi}, Aram jendë -na

-ko. 3sgAWK buum ngir

moom.


(54)a. b. (55)a.

b.

Moodu/computer DFsg Aram buy +F wire for 3sgSTR Moodu/the computer, Aram has bought a wire for {it/him}. (Moodu) Aram gis -na Nafi ak moom Moodu Aram see +F Nafi and 3sgSTR (Moodu) Aram sees both Nafi and him. (ordinatër -bi) Aram gis -na téeri -bi ak moom. computer DFsg Aram see +F book DFsg and 3sgSTR (The computer) Aram sees both the book and it. Aramz bëgg -na Moodu {gis -koz /liggey ngir moomz}, Aram want +F Moodu see 3sg/O /work for 3sgSTR ak Maryamak tam (z/k). and Maryama too Aramz wants Moodu to {see herz/work for herz}, and Maryamak too (z/k). Ordinatër -bii lacc -na Moodu {gis -koz /liggey ak moomz}, computer DM need +F Moodu see 3sg/O /work with 3sgSTR ak téere -biik tam (z/k). and book DM too This computerz needs Moodu to {see itz/work with itz}, and this bookk too (z/k).

3.3.6. Conclusion We conclude that the all-syntactic analyses of clitics reviewed above either make wrong predictions for Wolof or must sacrifice explanatory to descriptive adequacy. In the next section, we shall argue that the Wolof data should be accounted for in a modular framework involving neither syntactic clitics, nor Clitic Phrases, nor Clitic Movement. 4.

Wolof enclisis and the syntax-phonology interface We shall now argue that the phonological, syntactic and morphological properties of Wolof person and locative clitics are independent from one another, and that clitics do not form a linguistic class at any level of grammatical representation. From a phonological perspective, Wolof clitics exhibit one of the two regular behaviours of all weak-stress items in this language; from a syntactic perspective, they spell out either theta-marked expressions, or inflectional person features; and from a morphological perspective, they instantiate either weak words, or word-level affixes, or phrase-level affixes. We shall propose a global analysis of Wolof functional nominals which fits together these independent properties in the syntax-phonology interface. 4.1.

Phonology: strong vs. weak stress The Wolof items which Dunigan identifies as (syntactic) clitics are subject markers on the one hand, and object pronouns and functional locatives, on the other, in other words the weak forms of Table (29). We shall first argue that the phonological properties of these items are common to all weak-stress morphemes, in Wolof. Wolof words regularly bear initial stress (cf. Ka 1978, 1984, Diallo 1981a), a property independent from vowel length, as pointed out by Sauvageot (1965). This is illustrated in (57) by a few examples : (56)

Wolof initial stress BISYLLABLES

short-short

[‘jabar] ‘wife’


long-short short-long

[‘saaku] ‘bag’ [‘ginaar] ‘chicken’

TRISYLLABLES

short-short-short short-long-short short-short-long

[‘kakator] ‘chameleon’ [‘banaana] ‘banana’ [‘asamaan] ‘sky’

Monosyllables may be subdivided into two groups. Some of them, among which all lexical monosyllables (e.g. ceeb ‘rice’, lekk ‘eat’), are like polysyllables (cf. (56)) in that they never behave as leaners, hence always surface as complete prosodic words: we assume that they bear inherent, lexical stress, and analyse them as strong-stress (STR) items. Other monosyllables, all of which of a functional nature,31 behave as leftattached leaners (enclitics), except when they occur in initial position in their prosodic domain. This latter behaviour is illustrated in (57) by na (labeled above a finiteness marker), bi (determiner/complementizer), and the 3pl subject marker ñu: (57) WK items a. noninitial position: ATTACHMENT (enclisis) [‘lekk-na-ñu] ‘they have eaten’, [‘ceeb-bi] ‘the rice’ b. domain-initial position: STRESS [‘na xale-yi lekk] ‘that the children eat’ [‘ñu lekk ceeb] '...them (to) eat rice’ [‘bi xale-yi lekk-ée...] ‘when the children ate...’ Due to their bearing stress, domain-initial WK items are legitimate phonological supports for enclitics, e.g. [‘bi-ñu lekk-ée...] ‘when they ate...’. We assume that WK items have no stress of their own, and, in this straightforwardly initial-stress language, receive default stress in domain-initial position. In noninitial positions, they fail to be stressed and must undergo attachment in order to enter a phonologically well-formed word. This double behaviour may be accounted for in purely phonological terms and is not specific to the items listed in Table (29), which include neither na nor bi. Another relevant example is ni, which occurs either as a complementizer-determiner heading a TS construction, as in (58a), or as the head of a complement clause, as in (58b): (58)a. ni xale -yi lekk -ée ceeb -bi... as child DFpl eat -F rice DFsg As the children ate the rice... b. Aram wax -na Aram say +F -ni xale -yi lekk -na -ñu ceeb -bi. that child DFpl eat +F 3pl rice DFsg Aram said that the children ate the rice. As rightly pointed out by an anonymous reviewer, ni spells out two distinct items in (58a) and (58b): in (58a), it has the same internal makeup (classifier+spatializer) as other Wolof determiner morphemes (e.g. bi); in (58b), ni is etymologically a verb meaning 'say',32 which is also used to introduce the complement clause of some verbs (e.g. wax, which also means 'say', or xam 'know', but not gis 'see'). Our point here is that the nonclitic or clitic behaviour of ni in (58a) and (58b) follows the general pattern sketched in (57) for WK items: ni receives default stress in domain-initial position, as do na, ñu and bi in (57b); and it encliticizes to the adjacent word (the inflected matrix verb) in (58b), as do na, ñu and bi in (57a). A relevant question is the


following: why is the complement clause of (58b) not treated as an independent prosodic domain, within which ni would bear initial stress? We assume that in linking the complement clause to the matrix domain, the prosodic rules of Wolof acknowledge, in the syntax/phonology interface, the selectional relation - accurately pointed out by Dunigan - between ni and the matrix verb. Our conclusions are the following: (i) the ‘clitic’ behaviour of the weak items of Table (29) is in no way specific to the subtype of functional nominals which Dunigan analyses as 'clitic phrases'; (ii) Wolof clitics do not form a class even at the phonological level: they exhibit one of the two possible and predictable behaviours of Wolof WK items, and the relevant grammatical distinction for this language is between STR and WK items, rather than between clitics and nonclitics. 4.2. Syntax: subject pronouns vs. person inflection 4.2.1. Clitic subject markers in XP positions Consider the pair of examples given in (59), which illustrate the TSconstruction: (59)a. bi xale -yi lekk -ée C-obv child DFpl eat -F When the children ate the rice... b. bi -ñu lekk -ée ceeb C-obv 3pl eat -F rice When they ate the rice...

ceeb -bi... rice DFsg -bi... DFsg

These two examples contrast as to the feature content of the subject: (59a) contains a lexical subject (xale-yi 'the children'), while (59b) contains a functional subject (the 3pl marker ñu). As transcribed by hyphenation, the subject marker of (59b) is spelt out as enclitic, while the lexical subject of (59a) is not. Under the all-syntactic analysis of clitics put forward by Dunigan (1994), this contrast is due to the fact that the subject marker (but not the lexical subject) is a syntactic clitic, hence undergoes Clitic Movement in syntax. However, there does not seem to exist any evidence - other than phonological attachment - that the lexical subject and the subject marker do not occupy the same position in syntax. Syntactic evidence rather suggests the opposite, since both the lexical subject and the subject marker in (60) must be linearly adjacent to bi (to their left) and to the tensed item (to their right), as witnessed by the distribution of the adverbial talaata 'Tuesday': (60)a. *bi talaata {ñu /xale -yi} lekk -ée ceeb.. when Tuesday 3pl /child DFpl eat -F rice b. * bi {ñu /xale -yi} talaata lekk -ée ceeb... when 3pl /child DFpl Tuesday eat -F rice c. *bi {ñu /xale -yi} lekk -ée talaata ceeb... when 3pl /child DFpl eat -F Tuesday rice d. bi {ñu /xale -yi} lekk -ée ceeb talaata... when 3pl /child DFpl eat -F rice Tuesday When the children ate rice (on) Tuesday... e. talaata, bi {ñu /xale -yi} lekk -ée ceeb ... Tuesday when 3pl /child DFpl eat -F rice (On) Tuesday, when the children ate rice... The adverbial may only surface in a left or right peripheral position within the clause. The linear position of adverbials is constrained in the same fashion in


optative, relative, negative imperative, and object-focus constructions, as shown by (61): (61)a. na (*talaata) {ñu / xale -yi} lekk ceeb (talaata)! +F Tuesday 3pl / child DFpl eat rice Tuesday It is my wish that {they/the children} eat rice on Tuesday! b. ceeb -bi (*talaata) {ñu / xale -yi} lekk (talaata) rice DFsg Tuesday 3pl / child DFpl eat Tuesday the rice which {they/the children} ate on Tuesday c. bu (*talaata) {ñu / xale -yi} lekk ceeb (talaata)! C+neg Tuesday 3pl / child DFpl eat rice Tuesday Let {they/the children} not eat rice on Tuesday! d. ceeb -la (*talaata) {ñu / xale -yi} lekk (talaata). rice COP Tuesday3pl / child DFpl eat Tuesday It is rice, which {they/the children} ate on Tuesday. Empirical evidence thus fails to indicate that subject markers and lexical subjects occupy different syntactic positions in the five classes of cases under consideration. These data are however readily consistent with the assumption that lexical and functional subjects occupy the same syntactic position33 in these constructions, and that the enclitic behaviour of subject markers regularly derives from pattern (57a). Lexical subjects and subject markers do contrast, in the above constructions, in that the former, but not the latter, may be left-dislocated (a point acknowledged by Dunigan's analysis): (62)a. {xale -yi / *ñu}, bi -ñu lekk -ée ceeb,... child DFpl 3pl when 3pl eat -F rice {The children/*they}, when they ate rice... b. {xale -yi / *ñu}, na -ñu lekk ceeb! child DFpl 3pl +F 3pl eat rice {The children/*they}, it is my wish that they eat rice! c. {xale -yi / *ñu}, bu -ñu lekk ceeb! child DFpl 3pl C+neg 3pl eat rice {The children/*they}, let them not eat rice! d. {xale -yi / *ñu}, ceeb -bi -ñu lekk... child DFpl 3pl rice DFsg 3pl eat {the children/*they}, the rice which they ate... e. {xale -yi / *ñu}, ceeb -bi -la -ñu lekk. child DFpl 3pl rice DFsg COP 3pl eat {The children/*they}, it is the rice, which they ate. This regularity may however equally be derived from the phonological contrast between WK and STR items, if we assume that dislocated phrases must, as such, bear strong stress. In Wolof as - for instance - in French, only strong-stress expressions may occur as independent dislocated topics. Now consider the contrast between the noncliticized subject marker in (63a) and the enclitic subject marker in (63b): (63)a. {ñu / xale -yi} -a lekk ceeb -bi. 3pl / child DFpl COP eat rice DFsg It is {they/the children}, who ate the rice.

[ñu-a>ñoo; yi-a>yaa]


b. bi {-ñu / xale -yi} lekk -ée ceeb when 3pl / child DFpl eat -F rice When {they/the children} ate the rice...

-bi... DFsg

In the subject-focus construction exemplified by (63a), the subject marker ñu is not cliticized, while it is in the TS-construction exemplified by (63b). Under Dunigan's all-syntactic analysis of clitics, both instances of ñu in (63) are 'syntactic clitics', i.e. the heads of Clitic Phrases, but the clitic pronoun of (63a) raises as an XP to a specifier position open to any subject phrase, whereas the clitic pronoun of (63b) raises as a head to right-adjoin to bi. We just saw, however, that there is no independent evidence in support of the assumption that ñu undergoes syntactic movement in (63b). Assuming that it does not and that it occupies in (63) the same syntactic position as the lexical subject xale-yi, the contrast between the nonclitic vs. clitic behaviour of ñu in (63a) and (63b) boils down to the phonological pattern described in (57): ñu bears default-initial stress in (63a), and undergoes attachment in (63b). 4.2.2. Clitic subject markers in syntactic heads Now consider the contrast between the optative sentences in (64) and the independent declarative sentences in (65): (64)a. na {xale -yi / -ñu } lekk ceeb! +F child DFpl 3pl eat rice It is my wish that {the children/they} eat rice! b. xale -yi, na -ñu lekk ceeb! child DFpl +F 3pl eat rice The children, it is my wish that they eat rice! (65)a. xale -yi lekk -na -ñu ceeb. child DFpl eat +F 3pl rice The children have eaten rice. b. lekk -na -ñu ceeb. eat +F 3pl rice They have eaten rice. c. * lekk -na xale -yi ceeb. eat +F child DFpl rice In both (64) and (65), the subject marker ñu surfaces as an enclitic. Several contrasts may however be observed between (64) and (65). In (64), the lexical subject and subject marker alternate to the right of na, while such is not the case in (65), as witnessed by the ungrammaticality of (65c). In (64b), the lexical DP xale-yi which occurs to the left of na exhibits properties characteristic of dislocated topics, while in (65a) it behaves like a subject argument (an issue discussed above, section 3). To account for these data, Dunigan assumes that the subject marker is generated in both (64) and (65) as the head of a Clitic Phrase in subject position, and that enclisis results in all cases from syntactic Clitic Movement to the S head, occupied by na. In (65), the lexical subject xale-yi is assumed to be generated in the specifier of the Clitic Phrase and to move leftward to an argument position, with the subject marker standing as a Case-absorbing 'clitic doubler'. In (64), xale-yi is assumed to occupy a non-argument position, with the subject marker standing as a Case-marked resumptive clitic. The different status of xale-yi in (64b) and (65a) is derived from the different feature content of na, assumed to instantiate an epistemic modal in (65a), but not in (64b) (with the specifier of an epistemic modal defined as an argument position). As already pointed out in section 3, however, this very complicated analysis of subject markers is crucially motivated by the in no way necessary assumptions that


all weak subject markers should form a syntactic class, and that the phonological attachment of clitics should result from syntactic movement. Should we give up this a priori conception of clitics, it is quite reasonable to assume, as we did above in section 2, that the subject markers of (65), but not those of (64), are inflectional person markers which surface at the right periphery of a +finite verb or auxiliary as a result of an incorporation process. This analysis straightforwardly accounts for the facts (i) that the lexical subject of (65a) exhibits argument properties, (ii) that the subject marker of (65a,b) occupies a linear position which is closed to lexical DPs (cf. (65c)), and (iii) that the subject marker of (65a,b) crucially correlates with finiteness. The three constructions which contain an inflectional subject marker are the ones labeled 'V-to-Infl', 'Ipf-to-Infl' and 'EXPL-to-Infl' in Table (33), which we may refer to as finite clauses.34 Under our own account, the acceptability of (65b) indicates that rich person inflection licenses a null subject in Wolof as it does in more familiar 'pro-drop' languages. 4.2.3. Wolof subject markers in phonology-free syntax Summarizing, we assume that the subject marker of (64a) occupies in syntax the same structural position as the lexical subject with which it alternates, whereas the subject marker of (65a,b) is related to finiteness and is generated in an inflectional head closed to DPs. This boils down to saying that the Wolof items which we (as Dunigan) have been calling subject markers have two distinct syntactic statuses, depending on the construction: they are either subject pronouns, or the spell-outs of person inflection, and only the former should be assumed to be specified for nominative Case. The above syntactic distinction is quite independent from phonology, since both the subject pronoun of (64a) and the person-inflection markers of (65a,b) regularly undergo enclisis under (57a). Now consider the subject markers listed in Table (33) as 'right-attached' and 'unattached'. These occur in the four constructions exemplified by (66): (66)a. subject-focus {xale -yi / ñu } -a lekk ceeb. child DFpl 3pl COP eat rice It is {the children/they}, who ate rice. b. presentative xale -yi / ñu } -a -ngi lekk ceeb. child DFpl 3pl COP PRES eat rice {The children/they} eat rice. c. narrative {xale -yi / ñu } lekk ceeb. child DFpl 3pl eat rice So {the children/they} eat rice. d. DT Aram bëgg -na {xale -yi / ñu } lekk ceeb. Aram want +F child DFpl 3pl eat rice Aram wants {the children/they} to eat rice.

[yi-a>yaa/ñu-a>ñoo] [ñu-a-ngi>ñoongi] [yi-a-ngi>yaangi]

The 'right-attached' subjects and subject markers of (66a,b) actually serve as supports for the following left-attached copula, which regularly behaves as a WK item. In all four cases exemplified by (66), the subject marker ñu occurs domain-initially, hence does not undergo enclisis and receives default-stress under (57b). In all four cases, the subject marker (ñu) alternates with a lexical subject as it does in (59) and (61), and we shall therefore assume it to instantiate a nominative pronoun, rather than person inflection. In other words, the subject markers of (59)-(61), on the one hand, and (66),


on the other, have exactly the same syntactic status (they are nominative pronouns), although they do not exhibit the same phonological behaviour (they undergo attachment in (59)-(61), not in (66)). Table (67) below gives the full paradigm of Wolof subject markers subclassified according to our own syntactic assumptions: (67) Wolof subject markers37 syntactic

construction

status

type

1sg

2sg

3sg

1pl

2pl

3pl

inflectional

V-to-Infl

(m)a

nga

ø

ñ(u)

ngeen

ñ(u)

person

ipf-to-Infl

(m)a

nga

ø

ñ(u)

ngeen

ñ(u)

markers

F-to-Infl

(m)a

nga

ø

ñ(u)

ngeen

ñ(u)

optative

(m)a

nga

mu

ñu

ngeen

ñu

relative

(m)a

nga

mu

ñu

ngeen

ñu

TS

(m)a

nga

mu

ñu

ngeen

ñu

neg. imp.

ma

nga

(m)u

ñu

ngeen

ñu

obj.focus

(m)a

nga

ø

ñu

ngeen

ñu

presentative

ma

ya

mu

ñu

yeen

ñu

subj. focus

ma

ya

mu

ñu

yeen

ñu

narrative

ma

nga

mu

ñu

ngeen

ñu

DT

ma

nga

mu

ñu

ngeen

ñu

nominative pronouns

This table does not specify whether or not each item undergoes attachment, a property we have shown to be independently derivable from the phonological pattern in (57). Three of the forms listed in (67) only spell out nominative pronouns ((m)u,, ya, and yeen), one only spells out person inflection (ñ). In most cases, however, nominative pronouns and person-inflection markers have identical phonological spell-outs, a predictable fact under the reasonable assumption (Givón 1972, 1976) that the latter are but a diachronic development of the former. 4.3. Morphology: words, affixes and clitics 4.3.1. Simple clitics vs. inflectional affixes Consider the two examples in (68), which both contain the enclitic subject marker ñu: (68)a. bi -ñu lekk -ée when 3pl eat -F When they ate the rice... b. lekk -na -ñu ceeb eat +F 3pl rice 'They have eaten the rice.

ceeb rice

-bi... DFsg

-bi. DFsg

Under our own assumptions, ñu in (68a) occupies a nominative position in syntax and attaches to the adjacent word under (57a). In (68b), we assume that ñu is 37


generated in the topmost head of the inflectional domain (cf. diagram (24a)), which is targeted by the inflected verb. The terminal string resulting from both attachment processes is similar (ñu is spelt out as a suffix within an initially-stressed word), but the morphological relation between ñu and its phonological support is different in each case. In (68a), attachment is triggered by purely phonological reasons (WK+adjacency) and results in a prosodic word which includes constituents unrelated in syntax (bi+ñu): ñu exhibits in this case the prototypical behaviour of what Zwicky (1977) named simple clitics. In (68b), attachment is triggered by incorporation, a morphological process which forms an inflected word from a set of features positioned in syntax within an x-bar structure: ñu behaves here as a wordlevel, inflectional affix, as defined by Zwicky (1985). 4.3.2. Taxic vs. nontaxic positioning 4.3.2.1. OLCs as special clitics In most cases, OLCs do not surface in the same linear positions as lexical objects and strong locatives. They thus behave as 'special clitics', as recalled by (69): (69)a. xale -yi di -na -ñu child DFpl +ipf +F 3pl The children will eat the rice. b. xale -yi di -na -ñu child DFpl +ipf +F 3pl The children will eat it.

lekk eat -ko 3sg/O

ceeb -bi. rice DFsg lekk. eat

This contrast is what crucially motivates Dunigan's 'Clitic Movement' analysis. OLCs are WK morphemes which undergo phonological attachment, as do a subclass of subject markers, but some properties, examined below, suggest that the phonological attachment of OLCs must follow that of subject markers. 4.3.2.2. Attach : (i) Person Inflection (ii) OLCs That OLCs must attach to the verb or auxiliary after person inflection is suggested by several tests laid out by Zwicky (1985) to distinguish clitics from inflectional affixes. OLCs may form clusters, and linearization within clusters must follow the pattern explicited in (70) : (70)

Linear ordering within Wolof OLC clusters35 a. 1st person > 2nd person > 3rd person > Locative b. long vowel> short vowel

Restriction (70a) is exemplified by (71) : (71)a. xale -yi lekk -na -ñu [-ko child DFpl eat +F 3pl 3sg/O The children ate it there. b. xale -yi wan -na ñu [-ma child DFpl show +F 3pl 1sg lit. The children have shown me you. = (i) have shown me to you. (ii) have shown you to me.

-ci]/*[-ci -ko]. LOC LOC 3sg/O -la ] / *[-la 2sg/O 2sg/O

-ma]. 1sg

Although we have seen that the canonical order of constituents in a double-object construction is Goal>Theme (cf. (40)), this restriction seems overrun by (70a) in clitic


clusters: in (71b), 1st-person ma must be linearized to the left of 2nd-person la, whatever the thematic roles associated with each clitic. Restriction (70b) is exemplified by (72) : (72)a. *xale -yi wan -na -ñu [-ko -leen]. b. xale -yi wan -na -ñu [-leen -ko]. child DFpl show +F 3pl 3pl/O 3sg/O lit. The children have shown them {him/her/it}. = (i) have shown them to {him/her}. (ii) have shown {her/him/it} to them. (iii) In (72), the two OLCs, both 3rd-person, are linearized by (70b).36 The following examples show that the linearization conditions in (70) apply only within the limits of OLC clusters, and do not extend to adjacent inflectional person affixes. For example, in (73), the short inflectional affix ñu is not linearized by (70b) to the right of the long accusative clitic leen; similarly in (74), the 1sg object clitic ma is not linearized by (70a) to the left of the 3pl inflectional affix ñu : (73)a. xale -yi gis -na -ñu child DFpl see +F 3pl b. *xale -yi gis -na -leen The children have seen them. (74)a. xale -yi gis -na -ñu child DFpl see +F 3pl b. *xale -yi gis -na -(m)a The children have seen me.

-leen. 3pl/O -ñu. -ma. 1sg/O -ñu.

Note that if inflectional person markers are positioned as a result of incorporation, hence after syntax, it follows that OLCs, which are linearized after them, must also be positioned after syntax. 4.3.2.3. Attach (i) nominative pronouns (ii) OLCs The examples in (75) show that nominative pronouns, like person inflection, precede OLCs and are unaffected by the linearization constraints which apply within OLC clusters: (75)a. bi -ñu when 3pl When they When they b. bi -ñu when 3pl When they When they c. *bi -ma when 1sg

-ma -ko -ci wan -ée... 1sg 3sg/O LOC show -F showed me to {him/her} there... showed {it/him/her} to me there... -leen -ko -ci wan -ée... 3pl/O 3sg/O LOC show -F showed them to {him/her} there... showed {it/him/her} to them there... -ñu -ko -ci wan -ée... 3pl 3sg/O LOC show -F

Two issues must now be settled regarding OLCs: (a) how should we characterize their 'special' linear position ? (b) how and at what stage in the derivation do they reach this position?


4.3.2.4. The target of OLCs Dunigan's answer to our question (a), which is contained in her generalization (46), is that OLCs target the topmost functional head within the extended projection of V. Under our own descriptive assumptions, this hypothesis runs into at least two sets of empirical problems. First, OLCs may occur in narrative clauses, such as (76), where they encliticize to the verb: (76)

xale -yi lekk -ko. child DFpl eat 3sg/O So the children eat it.

To predict this pattern under Dunigan's analysis, we must assume that the verb of a narrative clause raises up to a functional head which provides a target for the object clitic. However, as already pointed out in section 3, overt evidence that this functional head is present fails to exist, and if such a functional head is lacking, we are led to assume that OLCs directly attach to the lexical verb in (76), which weakens the all-syntactic approach since lexical heads are not assumed to 'attract features' in syntax. The second set of problematic evidence is the behaviour of OLCs in optative, relative, TS, negative imperative and object-focus clauses. As shown by Table (37), their linear position in these constructions seems to crucially depend upon the clitic vs. nonclitic nature of the subject, as exemplified by (77)-(78): (77)a. bi -ko (-ci) xale -yi when 3sg/O LOC child DFpl b. * bi xale -yi -ko (-ci) when child DFpl 3sg/O LOC When the children ate it (there)... (78)a. *bi -ko (-ci) -ñu lekk when 3sg/O LOC 3pl eat b. bi -ñu -ko (-ci) when 3pl 3sg/O LOC When they ate it (there)...

lekk eat lekk eat

-ée... -F -ée... -F

-ée... -F lekk -ée... eat -F

Under Dunigan's analysis, all clitic pronouns and locatives in these examples are positioned in syntax by Clitic Movement, which right-adjoins them to bi, assumed to fill the S head. This theory correctly predicts that OLCs should occur to the left of the lexical subject in (77), and that they should cluster with the subject clitic in (78) their position with respect to the subject marker could be taken care of by an external linearization restriction (subject marker>OLC), to be added to (70). This view however conflicts with our own descriptive assumptions (cf. 4.2.1), according to which the subject marker of (78b) occupies in syntax the same structural position as the lexical subject of (77a) and undergoes phonological attachment under (57a). If the positioning of OLCs in (77)-(78) is sensitive to the attached behaviour of the subject, as suggested by the data, it follows, under our own assumptions, that they must also be linearized after syntax, and that they must furthermore undergo attachment after nominative pronouns (this confirms the results of section 4.3.2.3). In other words, the OLCs of (78b) target the string bi-ñu, which is NOT a syntactic head, but a prosodic word made up of a syntactic head (bi) followed by a functional nominal (ñu) occupying in syntax an argument (specifier) position.


It would however be inaccurate to characterize the target of Wolof OLCs in purely phonological terms, as considered in (79): (79)

The target of Wolof OLCs: a purely phonological tentative approach Attach OLCs to the leftmost prosodic word within the prosodic domain.

This descriptive assumption might suffice to account for a subset of data, among which (77)-(78), but it would fail to account for many others, e.g., (69b), (71), (72b), (74a), or (76). The alternative phrasing we propose in (80) in effect collapses Dunigan's syntactic assumption with the phonological restriction in (79), and correctly predicts all the data reviewed above: (80)

The target of Wolof OLCs: the syntax-phonology interface Attach OLCs to the prosodic word which contains the topmost head of their extended-V domain.

Our crucial assumption in (80) is that the target of OLCs must be defined neither in syntax alone, nor in phonology alone, but in the syntax-phonology interface. OLC attachment occurs in Phonology and thus first targets a prosodic word, but it is nevertheless sensitive to syntactic x-bar structure since it must crucially identify the topmost head within diagram (24). In some cases, such as (77a), the topmost head of the extended-V domain forms a word of its own at PF, and OLCs simply attach to it (e.g. bi+ko). In other cases, OLC attachment must see through a larger prosodic word to identify its syntactic target: thus in (78b) the topmost syntactic head (bi) is contained in the prosodic word bi-ñu (> bi-ñu+ko), and in (69b), (71), (72b), (74a), the topmost syntactic head na is contained in the inflected verb or auxiliary resulting from incorporation (e.g. di-na-ñu+ko). Unlike the object clitics of French analysed by Miller (1992) and Miller & Sag (1997), Wolof OLCs do not necessarily spell out a syntactic feature of their syntactic target (thus, the OLCs of (77a) do not spell out features of bi); their syntactic target is left unrestricted as to both category (it is functional in, e.g., (69b) : di-na-ñu+ko, and lexical in (76) : lekk+ko) and syntactic position (it may fill V, T, Pol, F, Foc, or C). Because it is primarily identified as a phonological entity (a prosodic word), the target of OLCs may include material which does not occupy a head position in syntax (e.g. ñu in bi-ñu, cf. (78b)). The result of OLC attachment may thus indeed be phonologically characterized as a wellformed prosodic word, regularly bearing initial stress. However, their target may not be defined in the purely phonological terms considered in (79), as clearly witnessed above by (49), which shows that the linearization of OLCs is sensitive to syntactic structure. That OLCs may not attach to the cliticized complementizer ni, as exemplified by (47), repeated under (81), suggests that generalization (80) is subject to a uniqueness requirement : (81)a. Aram wax -na -ni xale -yi Aram say +F that child DFpl Aram said that the children ate it. b. *Aram wax -na -ni -ko Aram say +F that 3sg/O

lekk eat

-na +F

-ñu 3pl

xale -yi lekk child DFpl eat

-ko. 3sg/O -na +F

-ñu. 3pl

The complementizer ni satisfies the syntactic component of (80), since it is the topmost head of the clause (extended-V domain) containing the object pronoun. However, we see in (81b) that the object pronoun cannot attach to ni. We assume that


this restriction arises from the fact that ni encliticizes (by (57a)) to the adjacent matrix inflected verb, resulting in the prosodic word wax-na-ni, which includes both the topmost head of the matrix domain (na) and the topmost head of the embedded domain (ni), hence fails to provide a unique syntactic target for OLC attachment. Under our analysis, the ungrammaticality of (81b) thus results from a conflict which typically involves the syntax-phonology interface, rather than syntax alone (‘subjacency’). 4.3.2.5. OLCs as nontaxic weak items We have argued above that enclisis, in Wolof, occurs after syntax, and that OLCs undergo attachment after both person inflection and subject clitics: this suffices to predict that OLCs always follow subject markers within clitic clusters, with no need to add a subject>object linearization constraint to (70). The fact that OLCs generally follow subject markers may be accounted for in terms of the taxic/nontaxic distinction proposed by Sauzet (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000), which largely converges with the analyses of special clitics developed by Klavans (1980, 1985) and Anderson (1992, 1993). We have argued above that the personnumber features spelt out by Wolof subject markers are either generated as nominative arguments or as inflectional markers. Whichever their syntactic status, all Wolof subject markers share one common property: their linear position within their clause is straightforwardly determined in syntax. Nominative pronouns occur in the linear positions generally open to subject phrases; and person inflection is spelt out at the right periphery of the finite verb or auxiliary, which - under Baker's (1988) incorporation approach - reflects its topmost position in the inflectional domain. Generalizing, we may thus characterize Wolof subject markers as taxic items. Contrastively, OLCs may be identified as nontaxic, i.e. items which are left unlinearized in the output of syntax and must consequently be positioned after syntax, in morphophonology. Following Klavans (1980, 1985) and Anderson (1992, 1993), we assume that nontaxic items spell out phrasal features - in the case of Wolof OLCs: object and locative features pertaining to the extended projection of V. Under the taxic/nontaxic distinction, we may assume that taxic WK items, as a class, undergo attachment prior to nontaxic WK items - a natural assumption if we think of Phonology as a layered component whose first activated stratum is the closest to the output of syntax (cf. Zwicky & Pullum 1983, Selkirk 1984, Zwicky 1985, Pullum & Zwicky 1988, Inkelas & Zec 1990, Kaisse 1990, Miller, Pullum & Zwicky 1997, among others). Our own analysis of Wolof OLCs crucially contrasts with Dunigan's in the way it explains the 'special' linear position of these items: under Dunigan's generalization (46), it results from the topmost g-head attracting the clitic, a magnetic phenomenon which might be due to the inherent strength of the g-head, to the inherent weakness of the clitic, or to a combination of both. Under our own generalization (80), it stems out from the fact that nontaxic items should be spelt out in a high-visibility locus within their phrasal domain. High visibility is a property of a geometrical nature, which in this specific case is assessed in syntactic terms (topmost head of phrasal domain). Under the modular approach (80), it is unproblematic that, as exemplified by (43b) or (76), OLCs seem insensitive to the contrast between functional and lexical heads, or that, as illustrated by (78b), their target may be made up of a syntactic head and a syntactic nonhead. 5.

Conclusion: pronoun typology and the modularity of grammar Our description of Wolof person and locative markers has led us to distinguish three types of phonologically-deficient (WK) items: nominative pronouns, which encliticize to any adjacent word within their phrasal domain and


otherwise receive default initial stress; person inflection, spelt out as a suffix on the finite verb or auxiliary; and OLCs, spelt out as nontaxic phrasal clitics. We conclude that clitics, in Wolof, do not form a syntactic class. Clitics only share the phonological property (57a), but they do not form a linguistic class, not even in phonology - the relevant phonological distinction for Wolof being WK/STR, rather than [±clitic]. Despite Cardinaletti & Starke's (1999) predictions, we have found no empirical evidence that WK person and locative markers form a class of syntactically deficient items. Diagram (82) attempts to capture the relation between the syntactic, morphological, and phonological properties revealed by our study: (82)

Wolof person and locative markers : the syntax-phonology interface

+taxic (features projected in X-bar syntax)

XP

-taxic (phrasal features)

X°

-structural case

+structural case

dislocated, isolated or P-governed pronouns

nominative pronouns

person inflection

accusative and locative pronouns

full-fledged words

simple clitics or domaininitial independent words

wordlevel affixes

special clitics

SYNTAX

MORPHOLOGY

PHONOLOGY

strong stress

weak stress

The only syntax-phonology correlations which seem brought out by (82) are the facts that strong pronouns do not appear in structural-case positions and that all nontaxic items have weak-stress phonological spell-outs. Since there is no evidence that Wolof strong-stress and weak-stress pronouns contrast as to their feature content (see


section 3.3.5), the descriptive results presented in (82) do not suffice to establish that strong stress is sensitive to syntactic case; it might be that nonstructural-case positions (i.e. dislocated, isolated, and P-governed positions) in Wolof, as in French, independently require full-fledged prosodic words, for phonological reasons. Anderson (1992) provides evidence that the other correlation suggested by (82) (nontaxic//WK) is not a necessary one. Leaving these issues open for future research, we conclude that the Wolof data presented in this study globally support a modular approach to pronoun typology treating weak-stress and cliticization as phonological properties largely independent from syntax. References Anderson, Steven, 1992, A-morphous morphology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK. Anderson, Steven, 1993, ‘Wackernagel's revenge: clitics, morphology, and the syntax of second position’, Language 69-1 , pp. 68-98. Baker, Mark, 1988, Incorporation: a theory of grammatical function changing, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Borer, Hagit (ed.), 1986, The syntax of pronominal clitics. Syntax and semantics 19, Academic Press, New York. Boskovic, Zeljko, 2000, ‘Cliticization and the syntax-phonology interface’, unpublished ms., University of Connecticut. Bouchard, Denis, 1982, On the content of empty categories, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. Boukhris, Fatima, 1998. Les clitiques en berbère tamazighte : approche minimaliste, unpublished diss., Université Mohamed V, Rabat. Burzio, Luigi, 1986, Italian syntax, Reidel, Dordrecht. Cardinaletti, Anna; & Michael Starke, 1999, ‘The typology of structural deficiency: a case study of the three classes of pronouns’, in H. van Riemsdijk (ed.) Clitics in the languages of Europe, Mouton-De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 145-233. Chomsky, Noam, 1998, Minimalist inquiries: the framework, MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 15. Chomsky, Noam, 1999, Derivation by phase. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18, Department of Linguistics, MIT. Church, Eric, 1981, Le système verbal du wolof. Documents Linguistiques, vol. 27, Publications of the Department of General and African Linguistics, Dakar University. Collins, Chris. 1997, Local economy, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Dell, François ; & Mohamed Elmedlaoui, 1989, ‘Clitic ordering, morphology and phonology in the verbal complex of Imdlawn Tashlhiyt Berber, Langues orientales anciennes. Philologie et linguistique, ##2 & 3, Peeters, Leuven/Paris. Diallo, Amadou, 1981a, Une phonologie du wolof, Les langues nationales au Sénégal, vol. 78, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dakar University. Diallo, Amadou, 1981b, Structures verbales du wolof contemporain. Les langues nationales au Sénégal, vol. 80, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dakar University. Diouf, Jean-Léopold, 1982, Introduction à une étude du système verbal du wolof: relation modes, pronoms sujets et autres modalités du prédicat, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dakar University. Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen, 1999, ‘The typology of pronouns and the distinction between syntax and morphophonology’, in H. van Riemsdijk (ed.) Clitics in the languages of Europe, Mouton-De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 249-257. Dunigan, Melynda, 1994, The clausal structure of Wolof: a study of focus and cliticization, unpublished dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


Emonds, Joseph, 1975, ‘A transformational analysis of French clitics without positive output constraints’, Linguistic Analysis 1-1, pp. 3-24. Fal, Aram, Rosine Santos & Jean-Léonce Doneux, 1990, Dictionnaire wolof-français, Karthela, Paris. Fal, Aram, 1991, Alphabétisation in wolof. Guide orthographique, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dakar University. Frota, Sonia, 1992, ‘Is Focus a phonological category in Portuguese?’ Proceedings of ConSole , Utrecht University, pp. 69-86. Givón, Talmy, 1972, ‘Historical syntax and synchronic morphology: an achaeologist's field trip’, Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistics Society 7, pp. 394-415. Givón, Talmy, 1976, ‘Topic, pronoun, and grammatical agreement’, in C. Li (ed.), Subject and topic,, Academic Press, New York, pp. 149-188. Greenberg, Joseph, 1966, The languages of Africa, Mouton, The Hague. Halle, Morris; & Alec Marantz, 1993, ‘Distributed Morphology and the pieces of Inflection’, in K. Hale and S.J. Keyser (eds.), The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 111-176. Halpern, Aaron, 1995, On the placement and morphology and clitics, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, CA. Harris, James, 1997, ‘Why n'ho is pronounced [li] in Barceloní Catalan: Morphological Impoverishment, Merger, Fusion and Fission’, Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 26, pp. 61-86. Harris, James, 1998, ‘Spanish imperatives: syntax meets morphology’. Journal of Linguistics 34-1, pp. 27-52. Inkelas, Sharon , & Draga Zec (eds.), 1990, The phonology-syntax connection, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, CA. Jaeggli, Osvaldo, 1982, Topics in Romance sntax., Foris, Dordrecht. Ka, Omar, 1978, L'accent en wolof: essai d'analyse phonétique et linguistique, MA thesis, University of Dakar. Ka, Omar, 1994, Wolof phonology and morphology, University Press of America, Lanham MD. Ka, Ousman, 1982, La syntaxe du wolof: essai d'analyse distributionnelle, Unpublished dissertation, Dakar University. Kaisse, Ellen, 1983, ‘The syntax of auxiliary reduction in English’, Language 59-1, pp. 93-122. Kaisse, Ellen, 1990, ‘Toward a typology of postlexical rules’, in S. Inkelas & D. Zec (eds.), The phonology-syntax connection, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, CA, pp. 127-144. Kayne, Richard, 1975, French syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge MA. Kayne, Richard, 1989, ‘Null subjects and clitic climbing’, in O. Jaeggli & K. Safir (eds.), The Null Subject Parameter, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 239-261. Kayne, Richard, 1991, ‘Romance clitics, Verb Movement, and PRO’, Linguistic Inquiry 22-4 , pp. 647-686. Kayne, Richard, 1994, The antisymmetry of syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge MA. Kayne, Richard, 1999, ‘A note on clitic doubling in French’, ms., New York University. Keenan, Edward, 1996, ‘Morphology is structure: a Malagasy test case’, in M. Pearson and I. Paul (eds.), The structure of Malagasy, vol. 1, UCLA Occasional Papers Papers in Linguistics 17, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, pp. 92-112. Kihm, Alain, 1995, ‘Le capuchon de mon stylo - mon capuchon de stylo: morphosyntaxe et sémantique des compléments du nom en wolof’, in J.


Guéron (ed.), Rencontres: études de syntaxe et de morphologie, Publidix, Université Paris-10, Nanterre, France, pp. 147-170. Klavans, Judy, 1980, Some problems in a theory of clitics, doctoral dissertaion, University College London. Published 1982 by Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington IN. Klavans, Judith, 1985, ‘The independence of syntax and phonology in cliticization’, Language 61, pp. 95-120. Legendre, Geraldine, 1997. ‘Optimal Romanian clitics; a cross-linguistic perspective’, Technical report JHU-CogSci 97-9, Department of Cognitive Science, Baltimore MD. Miller, Philip, 1992, Clitics and constituents in Phrase Structure grammar, Garland, New York. Miller, Philip; Geoffrey Pullum , & Arnold Zwicky, 1997, ‘The principle of phonology-free syntax: four apparent counterexamples in French’, Journal of Linguistics 33-1, pp. 67-90. Miller, Philip; & Ivan Sag, 1997, French clitic movement without clitics or movement, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15-3, pp. 573-639. Nash, Lea; & Alain Rouveret, 1999, ‘Feature fission and the syntax of argument DPs and clitics’, paper presented at the Clitic Round Table, Département de Recherches Linguistiques, Université Paris-7, Paris. Njie, Codu Mbassy, 1982, Description syntaxique du wolof de Gambie, Les Nouvelles Editions Africaines, Dakar. Ouhalla, Jamal, 1989, ‘Clitic movement and the ECP: evidence from Berber and Romance languages’, Lingua 79, pp. 165-215. Pullum, Geoffrey, & Arnold Zwicky, 1988, ‘The Syntax-Phonology interface’, in F. Newmeyer (ed.), Cambridge Survey of Linguistics, Cambridge University Press, pp. 255-89. Rizzi, Luigi, 1997, ‘The fine structure of the left periphery’, in L. Haegeman (ed.) Elements of grammar. Handbook in generative syntax, Kluwer, Dordrecht , pp. 281-337. Roberge, Yves, 1990, The syntactic recoverability of null arguments, Mc Gill-Queen's University Press, Montreal. Robert, Stéphane, 1994, Approche énonciative du système verbal. Le cas du wolof, Editions du CNRS, Paris. Rouveret, Alain, 1999, ‘Clitics, subjects and tense in European Portuguese’, in H. van Riemsdijk (ed.), Clitics in the languages of Europe, Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 639-679. Sauzet, Patrick, 1996, ‘Ordre des mots, ordre dans les mots’, Langue française 111, pp. 10-37. Sauzet, Patrick, 1998, ‘Enamourer, enivrer, enorgueillir: le statut des préfixes’, in P. Sauzet (ed.), Langues & Grammaire II & III: Phonologie, Linguistics Department, Université Paris-8, Saint-Denis, France, pp. 117-140. Sauzet, Patrick, 1999, ‘Linéarité et consonnes latentes’, Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 28, pp. 59-86. Sauzet, Patrick, 2000, ‘Clitiques: comment bouger sans changer de place, ou: si la phonologie remplaçait le mouvement?’, paper presented at the Langues & Grammaire weekly seminar, Paris. Sauvageot, Serge, 1965, Description synchronique d'un dialecte wolof: le parler du Dyolof, Institut Français d’Afrique Noire, Dakar. Selkirk, Elisabeth, 1984, Phonology and syntax: the relation between sound and structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Shlonsky, Ur, 1994, ‘Semitic clitics’, Geneva Generative Papers 2-1, pp. 1-11.


Sportiche, Dominique, 1996, ‘Clitic constructions’, in J. Rooryck & L. Zaring (eds.), Phrase structure and the lexicon, IULC Press, Bloomington, IN, pp. 213-276. Wackernagel, Jacob, 1892, ‘Uber ein Gezets der indogermanischen Wortstellung’, Indogermanische Forschungen 1, pp. 333-436. Zagona, Karen, 1982, Government and proper government of verbal projections, unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, University of Washington. Zribi-Hertz, Anne, 1999, ‘Les pronoms forts du français sont-ils [+animés]? Spécification morphologique et spécification sémantique’, in M. Coene, W. De Mulder, P. Dendale & Y. D'Hulst (eds.), Traiani Augusti Vestigia Pressa Sequamur: Studia Linguistica in Honorem Lilianae Tasmowski, Unipress, Padova, pp. 663-679. Zribi-Hertz, Anne, & Liliane Mbolatianavalona, 1999, ‘Towards a Modular Theory of Linguistic Deficiency: Evidence from Malagasy Personal Pronouns’, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 17-1, pp. 161-218. Zribi-Hertz, Anne; & Lamine Diagne, 1999, ‘Description linguistique et grammaire universelle: réflexions sur la notion de finitude à partir de la grammaire du wolof’, in A. Söres & C. Marchello-Nizia (eds.), Typologie des langues, universaux linguistiques, special issue of LINX, Linguistics Department, Université Paris-10, Nanterre, France, pp. 205-215. Zwicky, Arnold, 1977, On clitics, Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, IN. Zwicky, Arnold, 1982, ‘Stranded to and phonological phrasing in English’, Linguistics 20, pp. 3-97 Zwicky, Arnold, 1985, ‘Clitics and particles’, Language 61-2, pp. 283-305. Zwicky, Arnold, 1986, ‘The Unaccented Pronoun Constraint in English’, Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 32, pp. 100-113. Zwicky, Arnold, 1990, 'Syntactic representations and phonological shapes', in S. Inkelas & D. Zec (eds.) The phonology-syntax connection, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford, CA, pp. 379-397. Zwicky, Arnold, & Geoffrey Pullum, 1983, ‘Cliticization vs. inflection: English n't’, Language 59-3, pp. 502-513. Received 12 August 1999 Revised 31 August 2001 Authors’ address : UMR 7023, CNRS/Paris-8 Département de Linguistique Générale Université Paris-8 2 rue de la Liberté 93526 Saint-Denis CEDEX 02 France [email protected] [email protected]


1

Wolof is a language spoken in Gambia and Senegal, which Greenberg (1966) classifies in the Northern West-Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo family. This paper is based on the Senegalese variety spoken by one of the co-authors, Lamine Diagne, born in Dakar in 1968 and raised in Dakar and Saint-Louis by Saint-Louis parents and relatives. Our data hence exhibit some typical features of Saint-Louis Wolof, which, in gross sociolinguistic terms, we may characterize as 'upper-class conservative': Saint-Louis speakers are known to cultivate an awareness of Good Wolof, and for instance hold on to the full paradigm of noun classifiers ([b/g/k/w/m/l/s/j], in the singular), which Dakar speakers tend to reduce to one ([b]). This research was conducted in French (the two authors' common tongue), which accounts for occasional references to French in the phrasing of our description. Parts of the research which led to this article were presented at the 'Langues & Grammaire' seminar of UPRESA 7023 (Paris-8/CNRS) and at the Clitic Workshop organized by Université Paris-7 in February 1999, whose audiences came up with a lot of interesting questions and remarks. We thank several individual colleagues and students for their feedback while this work was in progress: Nadira Aljovic, Stephen Anderson, Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, Celia Jakubowicz, Makoto Kaneko, Philip Miller, Lea Nash, Alain Rouveret, Liliane Tasmowski, and Arnold Zwicky. We thank Stéphane Robert and Serge Sauvageot for kindly supplying us with copies of their own works on Wolof. We owe special debts of gratitude to Alain Kihm and Patrick Sauzet, who shared with us some of their expertise on Wolof and linearity (respectively), and to Joan Maling and our four NLLT reviewers, who provided us with many pages of demanding-but-supportive feedback on previous drafts of our text. 22 Our phrasing in (4) is based on Anderson (1992, p. 203). Klavans (1985), whose approach is very similar, derives the proclitic/enclitic contrast from yet another parameter (right- vs. left-attachment). Anderson argues that this distinction follows from a particular language’s rule(s) of Stray Adjunction, and is thus independent from the issue of clitichood. 3 Other syntactic accounts may be found in Emonds (1975) Jaeggli (1982), Bouchard (1982), Borer (1986), Burzio (1986), Roberge (1990), Sportiche (1996), Jakubowicz & Nash (1997), Dobrovie-Sorin (1999), among others. For a phonological account of Portuguese clitics, see Frota (1992). 4 Cf. Kayne (1989, 1991), Ouhalla (1989). Further empirical evidence taken as supporting the syntactic movement of clitics is drawn from the past-participle-agreement facts of French: in this language, a past-participle agrees with the object clitic which surfaces to its left, not with the object DP which surfaces to its right: (i)a. Pierre a mis cette chemise. Pierre has put-pp-DEFAULT this shirt-Fsg Pierre put on this shirt. b. *Pierre a mise cette chemise. Pierre has put-pp-Fsg this shirt-Fsg c. (cette chemise) Pierre l' a mise. this shirt-Fsg Pierre 3Fsg-ACC has put-pp-Fsg


lit. (this shirt) Pierre it (Fem)-put on = This shirt, Pierre put it on. Assuming that agreement must involve a spec-head relation (a well-spread but in no way necessary assumption, cf. Miller & Sag 1997), it follows that the object pronoun of (i-c) must not occupy the same syntactic position as the object DP of (i-a). It does not necessarily follow, however, that the clitic ever moved in syntax to its surface position in (i-c): the pronoun and the DP could be linearized differently for morphophonological reasons, with agreement occurring after linearization (in morphology). 5 The following abbreviations will be used in the glosses : C = complementizer position; COP = copula; DF = definite; DM = demonstrative; EXPL = explicative ; F = finite; IMP = imperative; ipf = imperfective; LOC = locative; neg = negation; O = object; obv = obviative ; PRES = presentative; pst = past tense; pl = plural; sg = singular; STR = strong; WK = weak; 1, 2, 3 = first, second, third person. Hyphens in examples note phonological attachment (which is always left-oriented in Wolof): thus, the morpheme [na] is transcribed na when it is unattached, -na when it is enclitic. Brackets in the examples indicate segments which are deleted in phonology. Hyphens in glosses note the negative value of a functional feature: thus, [-pst] represents the negative value of the tense feature, [±pst]. 6 The final vowel of the imperfective auxiliary (di) is truncated when this auxiliary hosts a vowel-initial enclitic or suffix: di+oon > doon, di+u(l > du(l), di+ée > dée. Furthermore, the imperfective auxiliary di loses its initial consonant and is spelt out as an enclitic when it is preceded by a vowel and does not itself host any affix, thus: ...Moodu di lekk... > Moodu-(d)i lekk [Moodu-y lekk]. 7 Our analysis here is at odds with Dunigan’s (1994), who treats the person marker of such examples as (6) and (7) as a subject clitic. This issue will be discussed in sections 3 and 4. 8 Dunigan glosses oon by 'perfect', di by ‘present’, ‘future’, or ‘inversive’, depending on context, and na by ‘affirmative’. We gloss oon by ‘past’ (as do Church 1981, Ka 1984, Fal & al. 1990, Fal 1991, and Robert 1994), di by ‘imperfective’ (as do Ka 1984, Fal & al. 1990, and Robert 1994) and na by ‘+finite’ (which Church 1981 glosses by 'énonciatif', Ka 1984 by 'no-focus', Fal & al. by 'terminative', and Robert 1994 by ‘perfect’). We believe that our own description results in a minimally ‘exotic’ general picture of the Wolof inflectional system. Regarding na, Robert’s ‘perfect’ gloss is due to the fact that (6b) reports an accomplished, therefore ‘past’ event. With stative verbs, however, na does not trigger a past interpretation, cf: (i) xale -yi bëgg ø -na -ñu ceeb. child DFpl want -pst +F 3pl rice The children want rice. (≠ The children wanted rice) There is no a priori incompatibility between atelic verbs and the perfect tense, as shown by English: The children wanted rice. But there are natural and widespread restrictions on the [atelic]x[imperfective] combination. Under our assumptions, the semantic constrast between lekk-na-ñu ceeb ‘they have eaten rice’ and bëgg-na-ñu ceeb ‘they want rice’ stems out from the fact that the telic verb lekk is inflected for the [-imperfective] feature (triggering an accomplished reading), whereas the atelic verb bëgg is left uninflected for imperfectivity and simply read as ‘nonpast’, in this context. In any case, na has nothing to do with tense and aspect. Dunigan’s ‘affirmative’ gloss of na misleadingly suggests that it is a polarity marker, which it clearly is not, as hinted by Dunigan herself (cf. Dunigan 1994, pp. 33-34). It is indeed true that na does not combine with negation, an interesting restriction for which we have yet no


explanation to offer. However, many Wolof clauses which may host negation may not host na, e.g. relative clauses: (ii) a. ceeb -bi xale -yi lekk-ul rice DFsg children DFpl eat +neg ‘the rice which the children have not eaten’ b. *ceeb -bi xale -yi lekk-na rice DFsg children DFpl eat ? If na should spell out an affirmative polarity feature, it should not be missing from affirmative subject-focus, object-focus, and TS clauses (see below), which may all be negated. Furthermore, na and negation have very different feature contents. As will appear through further examples, the functional head which hosts na is semantically correlated with the Utterance Source (person, viewpoint, Utterance Time). We assume that na and NEG are generated in two distinct functional heads, respectively Finiteness and Polarity. The finiteness assumption regarding na, which is explicited in Zribi-Hertz & Diagne (1999), is backed up by linguistic intuitions expressed by several Senegalese linguists among whom Diallo (1981b), Ka (1982), and Fal (1991). 9 The negation marker [ul] is truncated of its final consonant when it hosts a consonant-initial suffix. 10 A similar description may be proposed for the auxiliated finite verb forms in, e.g., French except that French auxiliaries spell out the [+accomplished] feature, rather than [+imperfective]. 11 Da is glossed verb focus in Ka (1984), predicate focus in Dunigan (1994), emphatique du verbe in Church (1981) and Robert (1994), processif in Fal & al. (1990). The term explicative more accurately suggests the semantic effect correlated with this element: da is typically inserted to indicate that the clause provides an explanation for a previous statement, e.g.: (i) xale -yi liggey -u(l)-ñu tey, da -ñu opp ø ø ø child DFpl work +neg 3pl today EXPL 3pl be ill -ipf -pst -neg ‘The children did not work today, (it is because) they are ill.’ (adapted from Njie 1982, p. 143) 12 In other words, na and da are both ‘finiteness’ markers, whose semantic import pertains to the Utterance Source. That da is related to na is independently suggested by the occurrence of (i) and (ii) as dialectal variants: (i) na dem Dakar. [Dakar area] (ii) da dem Dakar. [Saint-Louis area] ‘(It is my wish ) that (you) go to Dakar. 13 Depending on discourse context, the feature combination [-imperfective]x[-past] may be translated by the English preterite (ate) or by the present perfect (e.g. have eaten). In treating the 'perfect' reading as unmarked, Wolof is similar to, e.g., Classical Arabic (thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this remark). 14 Clauses such as (15) are called minimal by Church (1981). The term narrative is borrowed from Robert (1994), who similarly labels what we shall describe below as nonpast/nonimperfective tense-setting clauses, exemplified by (16). As revealed by (15c-f), however, such examples as (15a,b) include no inflectional specification, whereas the embedded clause in (16) is negatively specified for tense and aspect. 15 We translate Wolof narrative clauses by So+PRESENT TENSE, which is intended to convey the 'vivid narrative' semantic effect.


16

The fact that DT-clauses may not be inflected for negative polarity still needs to be explained. To translate an English negative infinitival, Wolof must use a noninflectional strategy: (i) xale -yi bëgg-na-ñu [Aram bañ lekk ceeb-bi]. child DFpl want +F 3pl Aram refuse eat rice DFsg lit. The children want Aram (to) refuse (to) eat the rice. = The children want Aram not to eat the rice. 17 Thus, (18a) and (18c) are translated as 'When...' , due to their nonimperfective aspect; whereas (18b) is translated as 'While...', due to imperfective di. 18 As rightly observed by a shrewd anonymous reviewer, a genuine Dakar speaker would be likely to realize (19b) as in (i), where the imperative marker is deleted to the left of the plural marker: (i) ø lekk ø -leen ceeb -bi! C eat IMP 2pl rice DFsg Our example (19b), with its overt imperative marker, stands as a typical 'Saint-Louisianism', cf. fn.1. 19 Our terminology here follows Sauvageot (1965), Church (1981) and Robert (1994). Ka (1984) calls such clauses sentence-focus, and Fal & al. (1990), situative. 20 Interestingly, the morpheme we gloss and translate here by 'on' is no other than the weak locative ci of Table (29). 21 The same remark applies to French strong pronouns which also seem to occur in subject position in, e.g., (i): (i) Eux ont mangé le riz. 3Mpl (STR) have eaten the rice THEY have eaten the rice. In French (i) as in Wolof (31b), the strong pronoun must bear contrastive stress, which is neither true of the P-governed strong pronoun of (ii) (the Wolof analogue of (30a)), nor of the lexical subject of (iii): (ii) Jean a travaillé avec eux. Jean has worked with them. (iii) Les enfants ont mangé le riz. The children have eaten the rice. This suggests that the marked reading of the strong pronoun in (i) does not derive from some inherent feature of the pronoun and that the strong pronoun of (i) does not occupy the subject position, but a higher position in the clause periphery. Further evidence in support of this assumption, regarding French, is the ungrammaticality of liaison in (i)=(iv-a), contrasting with (iv-b): (iv)a. Eux [*z] ont mangé le riz. THEY have eaten the rice. b. Ils [z] ont mangé le riz. They have eaten the rice. 22

Our description of strong pronouns is at odds with Dunigan's, who assumes that the strong pronoun in (31b) occupies the same structural position as would a lexical subject in the same construction. This issue, however, is a minor one with respect to the analysis of clitics. 23

We borrow this term from Keenan (1996), who uses it to describe Malagasy. Further details on Wolof bonding may be found in Ka (1984). To make the examples typographically shorter, we shall from now on omit from our transcriptions the zero 24


inflectional features which have no relevance for the properties under discussion. Zero inflection is relevant for the analysis of syntactic structure, but it is irrelevant as regards the positioning and attachment of clitics. 25 In Wolof as in, e.g., Italian, or Classical French, a few modal and movement verbs behave as auxiliaries with respect to OLC placement, cf.: (i) xale -yi bëgg -na -ñu -ko lekk. child DFpl want +F 3pl 3sg/O eat lit. The children it-want to eat. (cf. Classical French: Les enfants l'ont voulu manger.) Gambian-Wolof semi-auxiliaries (a term we borrow from Zagona 1982) are listed by Njie (1982, p. 123) and include bëgg 'want', dem 'go', ñow 'come', sañ 'dare', bañ 'refuse', and yakkamti 'hurry'. 26 The distribution of Wolof OLCs in double-object constructions is partly parallel to that of English unstressed pronouns in similar contexts - as described and analysed by Zwicky (1986): (i) *John showed Mary him. (cf. (40e)) (ii) John showed him Mary. (cf. (40d), reading (i)) Zwicky's assumption that unstressed pronouns cannot form a prosodic phrase of their own may be extended to Wolof to account for the ill-formedness of (40e). Wolof OLCs, however, further contrast with English pronouns in that they may not bear contrastive stress; thus (iii) is well-formed in English, while (iv) is not in Wolof, for ko is a weak-stress item, and the only available stress for a Wolof weak-stress item is default, domain-initial stress (see section 4 below): (iii) John showed Mary HIM. (iv) *Moodu wan -na ø Aram KO. Moodu show +F 3sg Aram 3sg/O (Capitals transcribe contrastive stress.) 27 Collins and Chomsky rightly point out that Head-to-Head movement in syntax results in illegitimate traces. Thus, if V raises up (i.e. adjoins) to T in syntax, it does not c-command its trace, as exemplified below by the French inflected form mange-ait, (eat/PST), ‘was eating’ or ‘used to eat’: TP T° VP V° T° V° mangez -ait tz To avoid this problem, Collins (1997) and Chomsky (1999) suggest that Head-to-Head movement should occur in Morphology and leave no trace. 28 Cf. the following Spanish examples: (i) Dative clitic-doubler a. Maria le dio un regalo a Juan. [finite clause] Maria gave a present to Juan. b. Sería mejor darle un regalo a Juan. [nonfinite clause] It would be better to give a present to Juan. (ii) Accusative clitic-doubler (Rio de la Plata Spanish) a. Maria lo visitó a Juan. [finite clause] Maria visited Juan. b. Sería mejor visitarlo a Juan. [nonfinite clause] It would be better to visit Juan.


29

According to (Nash &) Rouveret, enclisis obtains when distinctive verbal morphology is lacking. Verbal morphology is viewed as distinctive if it involves an explicit person-number marking, segmentally distinct from the verb root, as in Italian canta-ø-no 'sing/PRS/3pl'. Correlatively, clitics procliticize to the Italian finite verb, but they encliticize to the Italian infinitive verb, which does not bear distinctive morphology. The same assumption is meant to account for the fact that enclisis is generalized in Semitic languages, which typically exhibit a nondistinctive (nonconcatenative) verbal morphology. 30 These violations of Cardinaletti and Starke's theory are not specific to Wolof: strong pronouns may also refer to inanimates when conjoined, and be read as bound variables in, e.g., Malagasy (cf. Zribi-Hertz & Mbolatianavalona 1999) and French (cf. Zribi-Hertz 2000). 31 WK items all have a functional content, as assumed by, e.g., Selkirk (1984). Conversely, however, all functional morphemes are not WK items, as witnessed by the strong pronouns and locatives of Table (29). 32 Under this reading ni has a ne variant, which it does not have in (58a). 33 We assume this position to be the canonical subject position, which may be identified as the specifier of the topmost projection within the inflectional domain. The specific nature of this projection depends on the construction itself (cf. section 2, diagrams (24)). 34 By glossing na as +F in all of its occurrences, we suggest that optative clauses such as (64a) are finite, which is not perfectly satisfactory. Such clauses indeed contain na, which is +finite in the sense that it is Speaker-oriented (as argued in Zribi-Hertz & Diagne 1999). But they fail to be thoroughly finite because their inflectional domain is not saturated (it is unspecified for Tense, Aspect, and Polarity). Saturated finite clauses contain both na AND a complete inflectional domain. 35 Church (1981, pp. 94-95) spells out the constraint in (70a), but not that in (70b). According to him, a further rule should linearize singular pronouns to the left of plural ones – but we have found no evidence of this in the dialect under consideration. 36 The accusative pronoun leen is a priori ambiguous between the 2pl and the 3pl (cf. (29)). Restriction (70b) is of course only relevant if leen is construed as 3pl.

Clitic placement after syntax: evidence from Wolof ...

Clitic placement after syntax: evidence from Wolof ...

Suggest Documents

TO POLISH CLITIC PLACEMENT

The Change in Clitic Placement from Classical to Modern ... - CiteSeerX

The Change in Clitic Placement from Classical ... - Tycho Brahe Project

Clitic placement in Serbian - Cornell University

CLITIC PLACEMENT IN BULGARIAN COMPOUND ... - CiteSeerX

Clitic Placement, Prosody, and the Bulgarian Verbal

sounds definite-ly clitic: evidence from scandinavian tone

Clitic placement in Serbian: Corpus and ... - Cornell University

Clitic placement and the properties of the Intonational Phrase in ...

Acquiring Clitic Placement in Bilectal Settings: Interactions ... - Frontiers

Serbo-Croatian Second Position Clitic Placement and the ...

Clitic placement in SpanishâEnglish bilingual children - CiteSeerX

Prosody as a Diagonalization of Syntax. Evidence from ... - CiteSeerX

late assignment of syntax theory: evidence from ...

Encoding the addressee in the syntax: evidence from ... - Springer Link

The development of abstract syntax: Evidence from structural ... - iSites

Storage and computation in syntax: Evidence from ... - MindModeling

Logophors: looking outside of syntax Evidence from real-time ... - Leiden

The development of abstract syntax: Evidence from ... - Google Sites

ARISTOTELIAN SYNTAX FROM A

Wolof Language (2008 Syllabus)

Wolof Grammar Manual

Artifact quantification and tractography from 3T MRI after placement of ...

DIAGNE Grammaire de Wolof Moderne

Clitic placement after syntax: evidence from Wolof ...