Clitics and Coordination in Linear Structure

Clitics and Coordination in Linear Structure Berthold Crysmann In the context of lexicalist studies of Romance cliticisation, the development and rigorous application of diagnostic criteria (Zwicky and Pullum, 1983; Miller, 1992) for determining the lexical or syntactic status of linguistic items has always enjoyed a central role. As a result, there is a vast body of evidence in French and Italian (Miller, 1992; Miller and Sag, 1997; Monachesi, 1996) that weak pronominals in these languages resemble ordinary bound affixes much more than true postlexical clitics. In particular, syntactic, semantic, morphological, and phonological criteria jointly militate against the view of Romance clitics as proper inhabitants of the syntactic world. As a side effect, the distinction between lexical affixes and postlexical clitics (Halpern, 1995) is seen as a strict dichotomy, with little or no room for true morpho-syntactic hybrids. I will argue in this paper that transitional types do indeed occur, which are characterised by the fact that one group of criteria (e.g. morphological criteria) positively suggest syntactic opacity, while almost all syntactic criteria demand a degree of transparency. Based on data from clitic placement and coordination in European Portuguese (EP), I will suggest that the syntactic transparency is highly superficial in nature, and thus favours an account in terms of word order variation. This perspective, together with the fundamental distinction drawn within recent HPSG between constituent structure and linearisation will also prove capable of making appropriate predictions in the context of semantic idiosyncrasies.

1 A problem 1.1 Lexical status of European Portuguese clitics Following recent studies of French and Italian (Miller, 1992; Miller and Sag, 1997; Monachesi, 1996), weak form pronominals in these languages suggest an analysis in terms of lexical clitics (pronominal affixes). In particular, clitics in these languages display a number of properties, characteristic of bound morphological forms: they are highly selective for their morphological host (Zwicky and Pullum’s (1983) C RITERION A), they display arbitrary gaps in the set of clitic combinations (C RITERION B), they are subject to morphophonological and semantic idiosyncrasies (C RITERIA C AND D) and they are highly opaque with respect to the ap-

Berthold Crysmann — Clitics and Coordination

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plication of syntactic rules (C RITERION E). Moreover, neither in French, nor in Italian, can pronominal object clitics have wide scope over a conjunction of hosts, thereby fulfilling Miller’s (1992) C OORDINATION C RITERION. Clitics in European Portuguese (EP) appear to pattern with their French and Italian counterparts in a number of important respects: as far as purely morphological and morphophonological properties are concerned, weak form pronominals in this language likewise suggest a treatment in lexical terms. Promiscuity (A) Object clitics in EP, similar to bound pronominals in most other Romance languages, can only be found in the vicinity of the verb. With the exception of the negative marker não ‘not’, no syntactic material can intervene between a clitic and its verbal host.1 (1)

a.

A Clara leu repetidamente o livro. the Clara read repeatedly the book ‘Clara read the book repeatedly.’

b.

A Clara leu-o repetidamente. the Clara read-it repeatedly ‘Clara read it repeatedly.’

c.

* A Clara leu repetidamente o. the Clara read repeatedly

it

As illustrated by the contrasts in (1), adverbials such as repetidamente ‘repeatedly’ can indeed intervene between the verb and its objects. With pronominal clitics, however, intervention of other syntactic material between clitic and host leads to ungrammaticality. Although both finite and non-finite verb forms can serve as clitic hosts in EP, some forms in the verbal paradigm appear to lack this property: while past participles can combine with direct and indirect objects in absolute participial clauses, the use of a corresponding clitic pronoun is illicit here. (The following data are taken from Duarte et al. 1995, p. 144.) (2)

a.

Lidos os livros às crianças, vamos passear. read the books to.the children go walk ‘Having read the books to the children, we go out for a walk.’

b.

* Lido-los às

c.

* Lidos-os às

crianças, vamos passear. read-them to.the children go walk

crianças, vamos passear. read-them to.the children go walk


d.

3

* Lidos-lhes os livros, vamos passear. read-to.them the books go

walk

Thus, in addition to categorial restrictions, the grammar of EP observes additional morphological constraints on clitic-host combinations, resulting in a relatively high degree of selection.2 Arbitrary gaps (B) Clitics in EP are used to express both direct and indirect object functions with pronominal and non-pronominal arguments. When used with a ditransitive verb, direct object clitics can combine with indirect object clitics to form a clitic cluster. However, among the set of all conceivable combinations, one can find apparent gaps that do not follow from any general syntactic or semantic considerations. (3)

a.

Ela apresentou-me-lhe como sendo o representante da Microsoft. she introduced-me.to.him as being the representative of Microsoft ‘She introduced me to him as Microsoft’s representative.’

b.

Eu apresentei-me-lhe como sendo o representante da Microsoft. I introduced-me.to.him as being the representative of Microsoft ‘I introduced myself to him as Microsoft’s representative.’

c.

Eu ofereci-me um bolo. I offered-to.me a biscuit ‘I offered myself a biscuit.’

d.

Ela ofereceu-mo. she offered-me.it ‘She offered it to me.’

e.

* Eu ofereci-mo. I

f.

offered-me.it

Eu ofereci-o a mim. I offered-it to me ‘I offered-it to myself.’

The first person object clitic me ‘(to) me/myself’ can be used to express either direct or indirect object functions with pronominal or reflexive interpretations. When used as the sole clitic on the verb, the clitic me can express any of the four possible combinations. If, however, me is combined with another object clitic, some arbitrary restrictions on the range of possible combinations can be observed: while direct object me is compatible with both a pronominal and a reflexive interpretation (3a,b), indirect object me, when combined with a direct object clitic, can only be interpreted as a pronominal. The restriction just observed cannot be


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captured on the basis of syntactic and semantic properties alone: if the direct object is realised as an ordinary full NP, a reflexive interpretation of me is fine. Thus, the acceptability of reflexive indirect object clitics must take into consideration the exact morphological realisation of the direct object as well. Morphophonological idiosyncrasies (C) Object clitics in EP give rise to a number of morphophonological idiosyncrasies, operative, in some cases, at the juncture between clitic and host, as well as inside the clitic cluster itself (Hundertmark-Santos Martins, 1982; Cunha and Cintra, 1984). Neutralisation. When a third person accusative clitic (-o(s)/-a(s) ‘him/her/them’) is suffixed to a verbal host ending in /s/, /z/, or, /r/, the preceding host-final consonant neutralises to [l]. (4)

a.

fazer + -o → fazê-lo do it buy-it ‘to do it’

b.

ela faz + -o → ela fa-lo she does it she does-it ‘she does it’

c.

tu fazes + -o → tu faze-lo you do it you do-it ‘you do it’

d.

far- + -o + ía → fá-lo-ía do it would do-it-would ‘would do it’

As the data in (4) suggest, neutralisation of a preceding consonant applies irrespective of the morphological make-up of the host, affecting both inflectional endings (4a-c) and stem-final segments (4d). This process is highly item-specific in that it does not generalise to similar phonological or morphophonological environments: thus neither the homophonous definite determiners, nor the homophonous agreement endings found with participles and adjectives give rise to neutralisation. (5)

a.

Ele foi preso há três dias. he was arrested has three days ‘He was arrested three days ago.’

b.

Ela foi presa há três dias. she was arrested has three days ‘She was arrested three days ago.’


c.

* Ele foi pre[l]o há três dias

d.

* Ela foi pre[l]a há três dias

5

In fact, outside the domain of clitics, there is only one example where a similar neutralisation occurs, namely the portmanteau pelo(s)/pela(s) ‘by the’, semitransparently related to por + o(s)/a(s). However, the vowel change from /o/ to [e] cannot be regarded as a reflex of any regular phonological process operative in contemporary EP. Thus, this form should best be interpreted as a lexicalised portmanteau. Returning to clitics again, we find that neutralisation to [l] sometimes also occurs within the clitic cluster itself: if a third person accusative clitic is preceded by a first or second person dative (nos/vos), the final consonant of the preceding clitic neutralises as well, yielding surface forms such as no-lo and vo-lo. Note that, within the clitic cluster, this neutralisation process does not apply exceptionless. As we shall see in the following discussion, it does not apply to the third person dative plural lhes ‘to them’. Affix fusion. With third person accusative clitics, EP also displays the phenomenon of affix fusion: whenever clitic -o(s) or -a(s) is preceded by a third person dative plural lhes, the two forms obligatorily contract to lho(s) or lha(s), respectively. Thus, the schwa and the final /s/ are “deleted” from the dative plural, thereby neutralising the number distinction for the indirect object: as a side-effect of fusing dative lhe(s) with accusative o(s), a(s) the morphological reflex of the dative plural is lost. Thus, the fused affixes lho, lha, lhos, lhas are actually ambiguous between dative singular and plural readings. (6)

a.

O Pedro leu-lhe o livro a ele. the Pedro read.to-him the book to him ‘Pedro read the book to him.’

b.

O Pedro leu-lhes o livro a eles. the Pedro read.to-them the book to them ‘Pedro read the book to them.’

c. d. e.

* O Pedro leu-lhes o livro a ele * O Pedro leu-lhe o livro a eles O Pedro leu-lho a ele(s). the Pedro read.to-him/them.it(m) to him/them ‘Pedro read it to him/them.’

Deletion of final /s/, however, does not constitute a general phonological process in EP, cf. [falsidadzuStensiveIS] to *[falsidaduStensiveIS] (falsidades ostensiveis ‘obvious lies’). Affix fusion must therefore be regarded as an idiosyncrasy that needs independent statement in the lexicon.


6

Closure (F) The perhaps most compelling piece of evidence for the lexical status of EP clitics is provided by an infixation process, generally referred to as MESOCLISIS in Portuguese grammars: with future and conditional tenses, EP clitics may appear infixed between the verbal stem and the tense/agreement suffix. Under the assumption that syntactic operations break up the internal structure of a word, there are only two possible options: either the future/conditional markers and the weak pronominals are both postlexical clitics, or they both enjoy the status of lexical affixes. (7)

Mostrar-no-los-á. show-us-them-fut ‘He will show them to us.’

(Spencer, 1991, p. 366)

Ignoring for the moment the evidence already presented in favour of an affixal analysis of the pronominals themselves, future/coditional markers in EP are characterised by a number of properties which make the postlexical clitic option to appear as rather unlikely. First, auxiliaries in contemporary EP always precede the main verb, reflecting the canonical head-complement order. In the case of our putative clitic auxiliaries, the order would be reversed (C RITERION E). Second, auxiliaries can be separated from their verbal complements by intervening adverbial material. With future/conditional markers such intervening material is illicit (C RITERION A). (8)

a.

Ele tem repetidamente lido o livro. he has repeatedly read the book ‘He has repeatedly read the book.’

b.

Ele consegue facilmente ler a sua própria letra. he can easily read the his own handwriting ‘He can easily read his own handwriting.’

c.

* ele ler repetidamente ía he read repeatedly

o livro would(3sg) the book

Third, auxiliaries can have wide scope over a conjunction of verbal complements. Again, this is not possible in the case of the future/conditional morphemes (C OORDINATION C RITERION). (9)

a.

Ele tem de comprar e ler o livro. he has to buy and read the book ‘He has to buy and read the book.’


b.

7

Ele tem comprado e lido o jornal. he has bought and read the newspaper ‘He has bought the newspaper and read it.

c.

O livro foi lido e destruído pelo Pedro. the book was read and destroyed by Pedro ‘The book was read and destroyed by Pedro.’

d.

* Ele compraría e

e.

* Ele comprar o livro e lería

ler o livro he would buy and read the book

Fourth, with some verbs, we can observe cases of stem allomorphy: while in general, the future/conditional stem form resembles the ordinary infinitive, this is not the case with verbs like fazer ‘do’ or dizer ‘say’, where a special stem form is selected (far- or dir-, resp.), unattested in all other paradigms (C RITERION C). Following the L EXICAL I NTEGRITY H YPOTHESIS, we shall conclude that the affixal properties of the future and conditional tense/agreement markers force us to believe that infixed weak pronominals should also be analysed as lexical affixes. To summarise, we can state that on the basis of morphotactic and morphophonological evidence alone, it is safe to assume that clitic-host combinations in EP should be derived in the lexical component.

1.2 Syntactic transparency of pronominal affixes If we look at the remaining criteria, in particular Criterion E of Zwicky and Pullum (1983) and Miller’s (1992) coordination criterion, the situation becomes much trickier. Clitic Placement EP clitics are subject to an alternation between a prefixed and a suffixed realisation which cannot be determined on the basis of lexical properties alone. With an appropriate trigger (e.g. complementiser, negation, quantifier, wh-phrase) syntactically preceding the clitic host, default realisation of the clitic as a suffix is blocked and prefixation obtains (Duarte, 1983; Cunha and Cintra, 1984; Spencer, 1991). (10)

a. b.

* O João o comprará O João compra-lo-á. John buy-it-will ‘John will buy it.’

c.

deram livros que os amigos lhes that the friends to them gave books ‘that the friends gave them books’


d. e.

8

* que os amigos deram-lhes livros O João não o comprará. John not it buy will ‘John will not buy it’.

f.

* O João não compra-lo-á

Although the dependency is clause-bound in general, it still permits a certain degree of “action at a distance” with the trigger and the preverbal clitic being separated by one or more non-triggers (cf. (10c,d) and (12b)), both lexical and phrasal. Furthermore, trigger status is neither sensitive to the grammatical function, nor to distinctions between arguments and modifiers, involving subjects (11a), objects and temporal adverbials (12a) alike. (11)

a.

* Poucos/Nenhuns alunos telefonaram-lhe.

b.

Poucos/Nenhuns alunos lhe telefonaram. few/no students him phoned

c.

Muitos/Alguns alunos telefonaram -lhe. many/some students phoned him

‘Few/No students phoned him.’

‘Many/Some students phoned him.’

d.

* Muitos/Alguns alunos lhe telefonaram.

With respect to proclisis licensing, the set of natural language quantifiers displays some systematic gaps, enforcing proclisis with downward entailing quantifiers like poucos ‘few’ and nenhuns ‘no’ (11a), while only permitting enclisis with muitos ‘many’ or alguns ‘some’ (11b). Interestingly, the observable gap generalises from D- to A-quantification (cf. (11) and (12)). (12)

a. b.

* O João raras vezes/nunca dá-me razão. Raras vezes/Nunca o João me dá razão. seldom/never John me gives reason ‘John seldom agrees with me.’

c.

Muitas vezes/Às vezes o João dá-me razão. often/sometimes John gives me reason ‘John often/sometimes agrees with me.’

d.

* O João muitas vezes/às vezes me dá razão.

It has been argued in previous work (Crysmann, 1999a) that the class of quantifiers triggering proclisis can be characterised as the set of left or right monotone decreasing quantifiers, or, in other words, the set of quantifiers which introduce a downward entailing context in either their restrictor (e.g. todos ‘all’, cada ‘every’,


9

nenhum ‘no’) or scope argument (e.g. poucos ‘few’, menos de ‘less than’, nenhum ‘no’). It appears, thus, that an inherent lexico-semantic property of the trigger, i.e. downwards monotonicity, plays a much more crucial role than the structural or functional relation it bears with respect to the clitic host. This conclusion is further supported by the apparent irrelevance of scope relations: (13)

a.

Os alunos todos lhe telefonaram. the students all to him phoned ‘All the students phoned him.’

b.

* os alunos todos telefonaram-lhe

c.

Os alunos telefonaram -lhe todos. the students phoned to him all ‘All students phoned him.’

d.

* os alunos lhe telefonaram todos

In the examples given in (13) above, the subject is unambiguously quantified over by a postponed universal quantifier todos ‘all’. Yet, when the quantifier itself precedes the verb, proclisis is obligatory, whereas with postverbal floating quantifiers preposing of the clitic is illicit. It follows that linear position is far more central for clitic placement than scopal properties. Summarising the factors which determine the surface order of EP clitics, we can conclude that it is inherent properties and the linear distribution of syntactically independent trigger elements rather than their functional or hierarchical relation to the clitic host which captures the relevant generalisations. Thus, ordering the clitics with respect to their host should be interpreted as word order variation. It appears that, in EP, syntax treats pronominal affixes as independent syntactic units for these purposes. Coordination It has already been noted in Miller (1992) that the morphological criteria introduced by Zwicky and Pullum (1983) make it difficult to positively decide in favour of clitic status: if an element does not subscribe to any morphological idiosyncrasy, it can still be derived by a fully regular morphological process. One criterion, which does not suffer from this methodological consideration, is the C O ORDINATION C RITERION (Miller, 1992, p. 181): “the possibility of having wide scope over a conjunction of hosts (henceforth: WSC) is a crucial characteristic of postlexical clitic status” (see the next section for elaboration). While Miller (1992) convincingly shows that wide scope of an object clitic over a conjunction of synthetic verbs is at best marginal in French, Portuguese clitics can indeed be shared across two conjoined verbs. As illustrated by the data in (14a), wide scope is not restricted to a conjunction of bare Vs, but is equally


10

possible with a conjunction of ordinary VPs. (The example in (14a) is taken from Barbosa 1996.) (14)

a.

que não te trouxera ao hospital e levara à casa. that not you brought.I to.the hospital and took to.the house ‘that I hadn’t brought you to the hospital and taken you home.’

b. c.

* Eu trouxera-te ao hospital e levara à casa que o João o comprou e leu. that the John it bought and read ‘that John bought and read it.’

d. e.

* O João comprou-o e leu * O João comprou e leu-o

A peculiarity of WSC in EP is the apparent restriction to proclisis: enclitics, whether edge-most or not, can never be shared across a conjunction of synthetic verbs (14b,d,e). This restriction, however, cannot be observed with analytic auxiliary-participle constructions: here, it is the clitic-auxiliary complex, which is shared across the conjunction of participles, as illustrated by the unacceptability of (15c). (15)

a.

o tinha lido atentamente e comentado com os amigos. Ele já he already it had read carefully and commented with the friends ‘He had already read it carefully and commented on it to his friends.’

b.

Eles tinham-nas ouvido e contado aos filhos. they had.them heard and told to.the sons ‘They had heard them and told them to their sons.’

c.

* Ele já o tinha lido atentamente e tinha comentado com os amigos.

WSC is not limited to the case of ordinary pronominal clitics: reflexives (16) and reciprocals (17) can equally be shared across two conjoined verbs. (16)

Não sei se ele se barbeou cuidosamente ou lavou lentamente. not know.I if he self shaved carefully or washed slowly ‘I do not know whether he shaved (himself) carefully or washed (himself) slowly.’

(17)

Todos os irmãos se amam e odeiam. all the brothers self love and hate ‘All brothers love and hate each other.’

Again, with synthetic verbs, WSC is restricted to proclisis, while with analytic verbs, no such restriction applies. One might be tempted here to take the proclisis requirement in the context of WSC as an argument in favour of a difference in status between proclitics and


11

enclitics, the former enjoying a representation in syntax, whereas the latter are derived entirely within the lexicon. While, initially, this assumption may be supported by the observation that morphological idiosyncrasies between clitic and host can only be observed with enclitics, a move along these lines will nevertheless be confronted with two major obstacles. First, some of the morphophonological idiosyncrasies which have been observed to occur between enclitics and host, in particular neutralisation to [l] and affix fusion, can also be observed within the clitic cluster itself, regardless of the position of the cluster. Similarly, the arbitrary gaps discussed above can equally be attested for clitic clusters in preverbal position. Assigning the derivation of proclitics and enclitics to different modules of the grammar will miss important empirical generalisations, as their overall uniformity (including morphophonological alternations) would then appear as a mere coincidence. The morphophonological idiosyncrasies observed in section 1.1 uniformly affect preceding phonological material only, be it at the juncture between clitic and host or cluster-internally. Thus, the lack of such idiosyncrasies at the juncture between proclitics and host may be reduced to the (un)availability of a leftward context. Second, if we follow Spencer (1991) in that “the rules governing clitic placement seem to relate more to syntax than to prosody or morphology” (p. 365), then enclitics just like proclitics should be visible to the syntactic component, in order to block postverbal realisation whenever a trigger is present. Without a proper syntactic representation, verbs with enclitics would be indistinguishable from ordinary intransitives which, by contrast, are perfectly acceptable in the context of a proclisis trigger. Thus, a syntactic account of the proclisis/enclisis alternation necessitates transparency for both proclitic and enclitic realisations.

1.3 Non-argument clitics Clitic placement Just like in other Romance languages, the EP clitic se ‘self’ is capable of expressing a range of different functions in addition to reflexivity: middle, ergative, impersonal, and “inherent pronominal”. What is common to most of these uses is that se does not directly express an argument of the verb, but rather just signals a change in the verb’s argument structure. As such, it cannot be attributed a particular invariant meaning which can be composed in syntax under ordinary assumptions about argument saturation, a fact, which makes it qualify as the object of a lexical process. Often, as it is the case with “inherent pronominal” se, it cannot be attributed any conceivable meaning at all, except that of marking an outright semantic idiosyncrasy. (18)

a.

Nós rimo-nos da Maria. we laughed.us of.the Maria


12

‘We laughed at Maria.’

b.

Todos nós nos rimos da Maria. all we us.laughed of.the Maria ‘We all laughed at Maria.’

c.

O gelado derreteu-se (com o calor). the ice-cream melted.self (with the heat) ‘The ice-cream melted (in the heat).’

d.

não se derreteu. O gelado the ice-cream not self.melted ‘The ice-cream didn’t melt.’

In the context of clitic placement, however, little tribute is paid to what the actual semantic contribution is: as far as word order is concerned, middle, ergative, and “inherent pronominal” se observe the same alternation pattern between proclisis and enclisis as their fully compositional reflexive, reciprocal, and pronominal counterparts (Duarte et al., 1995). Coordination Turning again to conjunctions of verbs, we find that non-argument clitics can have wide-scope as well. (19)

a.

Nas experiências laboratoriais, a nova margarina tem-se derretido in.the laboratory experiments the new margarine has.self dissolved no líquido de teste e afundado. and sunk in.the test liquid ‘In the laboratory experiments, the new margarine has dissolved in the test liquid and sunk.’

b.

Nas experiências laboratoriais, a nova margarina não se derreteu in.the laboratory experiments the new margarine not self dissolved no líquido de teste ou afundou. in.the test liquid or sank ‘In the laboratory experiments, the new margarine neither dissolved in the test liquid, nor sank.’

(20)

c.

A nova margarina afundou *(-se).

a.

Não sei porque é que as filhas do Reno se riram e divertiram not know.I why the Rhinemaiden self laughed and amused à custa do Nibelung. at.the cost of.the Nibelung ‘I do not know why the Rhinemaiden laughed and made fun of the Nibelung.’

b.

As filhas do Reno divertiram *(-se) à custa do Nibelung.


13

Likewise, the proclisis restriction observed with synthetic verbs applies here as well. With analytic auxiliary-participle construction, auxiliary-clitic combinations can be shared across the participles, irrespective, again, of the linear position of the clitic. Also, just as with normal argument clitics, clitic and auxiliary must either both be omitted in the second conjunct or both be repeated.

1.4 Portmanteau clitics As we have seen in the preceding discussion, both linear precedence and coordination do not operate “signs-only”, when it comes to EP clitics. In particular, clitics without a proper content side are both involved in proclisis/enclisis alternation as well as capable of having wide scope over a conjunction of verbal hosts. If we look at fused clitics, i.e. clitics which cannot be broken up into independent parts, we find that they are nevertheless subject to the proclisis/enclisis alternation as a whole: (21)

a.

O Pedro leu-lho a ele(s). the Pedro read.to-him/them.it(m) to him/them ‘Pedro read it to him/them.’

b.

O Pedro não lho leu a ele(s). the Pedro not to-him/them.it(m) read to him/them ‘Pedro didn’t read it to him/them.’

Fused clitics like lho ‘to-him/her/them.it’ would not be entirely unproblematic if they had to be given a representation as ordinary signs, pairing exactly one surface form with exactly one function. Yet, as we have seen above, the functional make-up of the objects targeted by EP clitic placement does not seem to play a crucial role. It is therefore unsurprising that fused clitics observe the same positional alternations as argument and non-argument clitics. A treatment in terms of linearisation would therefore underline the entirely superficial status of the alternation. It should come as no surprise now that fused clitics can also be shared across two conjoined verbs: (22)

a.

Puccini tem-lha tocado e cantado a elas. Puccini has.to-them.it(f) played and sung to them ‘Puccini has played and sung it to them(f).’

b.

Sabes se Puccini lha tocou e cantou a elas? know.you if Puccini to-them.it(f) played and sung to them ‘Do you know whether Puccini played and sang it to them?’


14

1.5 Phrasal Affixation In his discussion of the C OORDINATION C RITERION, Miller (1992, p. 157) notes “that one cannot argue that an item is necessarily not an affix from the fact that it can have wide scope”. The rationale behind the weak formulation of the C O ORDINATION C RITERION lies in the fact that the effects of WSC may as well be captured by means of phrasal affixation (i.e. edge inflection). As we are already confronted with diverging evidence as to the syntactic transparency of EP clitics, it appears crucial to evaluate whether or not an edge inflection approach to WSC will be viable. Probably one of the most famous cases of phrasal affixation is the ENglish possessive marker ’s: while morphological facts (such as haplology) suggest an affixal treatment, the distribution of this marker at the right edge of the NP necessitates a description in syntactic terms. To resolve this paradox, Zwicky (1987) proposes an analysis in terms of edge feature percolation. In its most recent incarnation, Halpern (1995) suggests that the entire possessive NP is marked with a trigger feature [POSS]. He further assumes each trigger feature has a corresponding marking feature which regulates where the morphological exponent of a syntactic feature will be realised. In the case of the English possessive, the marking feature [PM] is an edge feature which percolates down the right edge of the tree. Whenever a terminal node is specified for this marking feature, it will be inflected with the possessive marker ’s, subject, of course, to morphological rules. NP

NP[ POSS]

N book

NP

and

NP[ PM]

N

D

N[ PM]

John

the

children’s

Figure 1: A phrasal affixation account of English possessive ’s In Halpern’s system, the distribution of trigger features and marking features is highly constrained: while trigger features do not percolate at all, marking features can only percolate downwards. Furthermore, for each trigger feature present on the mother node, there is exactly one daughter carrying the corresponding marking feature. If we try to apply this line of analysis to the case of EP clitics taking wide scope over a coordination of VPs, we might postulate a trigger feature [REF], for


15

reflexive clitics, and a corresponding marking feature [RM] which is constrained to appear on the left daughter. VP[ REF] VP[ RM]

ou

VP

V[ RM]

V

se derreteu

afundou

Figure 2: A phrasal affixation account of EP clitics If we compare the two representations above, we find that the left NP conjunct in Figure 1, which is unmarked for [POSS], still constitutes a well-formed English NP, even when used in isolation. The right VP conjunct in Figure 2, with ergative se suppressed, will only be acceptable when it happens to constitute the second part in a conjunction of VPs. In fact, nothing will prevent the VP afundou to be embedded as an immediate daughter of S, yielding the ungrammatical *a margarina afundou (cf. (19)). Having a closer look at the trigger feature introduced for the English possessive, we find that it represents an external property of the entire coordinated NP, specifying a relation to the embedding nominal head book. In the case of EP reflexives, however, it is an internal requirement of the respective verbal heads which is attached to the top-most VP node in Figure 2. It appears, thus, that phrasal affixation can only provide an analysis for those cases of WSC where an external property is encoded on one daughter but not the other. One might, of course, be tempted to assume that the trigger feature itself originates on each of the V nodes and then percolates up the tree. However, such a move would not be compatible with Halpern (1995)’s theory: each trigger feature on an intermediate node would have its own corresponding marking feature on one of its daughter nodes, leading one to expect as many morphological reflexes as there are intermediate nodes. If, however, the correspondence between trigger features and marking features were relaxed, it is difficult to tell, how percolation could be constrained at all and how such an approach would differ from a general SLASH passing mechanism, as adopted for unbounded dependencies in GPSG and HPSG.3 The observation that inherent clitics are equally capable of WSC, on a par with true argument clitics, should cast some further doubt on the viability of an edge inflection approach here. Although, in general, the possibility of WSC is only a necessary and not a sufficient criterion to decide in favour of syntactic transparency, the plausibility of the alternative analysis in terms of phrasal affixation (i.e. edge


16

inflection) strongly depends on the availability of well-motivated phrasal features percolating down to the edge for the purposes of morphological spell-out. However, in the case of inherent clitics, postulating any such feature on the phrasal mother node appears to be entirely artificial. Summarising what we have found thus far, we can conclude that EP clitics exhibit a certain degree of syntactic transparency with respect to clitic placement and coordination which cannot be captured by appeal to the concept of phrasal affixation. Moreover, we established that neither clitic placement nor coordination seems to make any reference to the their functional status: argument clitics, non-argument clitics, and fused clitics are subject to exactly the same constraints. I therefore argue that the syntactic representation of EP clitics is best conceived of as entirely surface-syntactic and that both clitic placement and the realisation of clitics in face of coordination should be delegated to the word order component.

2 Analysis The analysis I am going to propose will be carried out in the framework of Headdriven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG; Pollard and Sag, 1987, 1994). Within recent work in HPSG (Reape, 1994; Kathol, 1995), it has been suggested, on the basis of data from “free word-order languages”, to decouple generalisations about the linear order from immediate constituency, expressed in the DTRS attribute of HPSG phrasal signs. This move certainly parallels similar developments in Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar (e.g. Pullum, 1982; Zwicky, 1986) and Categorial Grammar (Dowty, 1996). In Linearisation HPSG, generalisations about wordorder are instead stated over lists of domain objects (DOM) which in turn are constrained by the constituent structure: in particular, the DOM-lists of the daughters can be shuffled together into the DOM-list of the mother, thereby allowing phonological material from the daughter constituents to be interleaved. Thus, a strict view of constituency in terms of functor-argument structure can be maintained, while surface-oriented phenomena like linear order can operate across considerably larger domains. Although the relationship between functor-argument structure (=tectogrammar) and word order domains (=phenogrammar) is liberated, effects of clause-boundedness can still be captured by constraining complex domain construction not to operate across clause-boundaries. To achieve this, Linearisation HPSG defines compaction as the other fundamental operation besides domain union which allows one to encapsulate the members of the DOM-list into a single DOM object, rendering its internal structure opaque to ordering in higher domains. In order to make the relationship between constituent structure and order domains more explicit, let us consider the HEAD - COMPLEMENT SCHEMA as represented in Figure 3. The schema licenses phrasal signs where the head feature of the mother is token-identical with the head-feature of the head daughter (indicated




*"

4 DOM    "  HEAD  SS | L | CAT

COMPS



DOM



4

   HEAD  SS | L | CAT 

COMPS

1

D E 2

⊕

3

   

PH

i1

SS

2 1 3

17

⊕ ...⊕

in

#+      

#



 DOM 

SS

h 2

PH

i1

i h , . . . , PH

in

i  

Figure 3: Complex domain construction (HEAD - COMPLEMENT SCHEMA)

by 1 ), and where the non-head daughter, i.e. the complement, satisfies the first subcategorisation requirement on the head’s COMPS list (indicated by 2 ). Thus, the COMPS list of the mother node corresponds to the remaining list of unsaturated complements ( 3 ). So far, the representation in Figure 3 does not deviate in any important respect from the standard definition of HEAD - COMPLEMENT structures as assumed, e.g., in Pollard and Sag (1987, 1994). The fundamental difference, however, lies in the way the phonological representation of the mother node is composed from the phonological contributions of the daughters: rather than concatenating the PH ( ON ) values of the daughters directly, according to the linearisation constraints of the language, linearisation-based theories such as those of Pollard et al. (1993) or Kathol (1995) introduce a list-valued feature DOM which assembles the domain objects contributed by the head and the non-head daughter, creating a flattened auxiliary tree structure. As defined in Figure 3, the DOM value of the mother is an unordered concatenation ( ) of the DOM list of the head daughter ( 4 ) with a domain object that represents the phonological ( i1 . . . in ) and syntacto-semantic ( 2 ) contribution of the complement. As recursion on the HEAD - COMPLEMENT SCHEMA will give rise to head’s whose DOM value already contains domain objects corresponding to more deeply embedded complements, the unordered list concatenation guarantees that the head and all of its complements can be ordered ith respect to each other, subject, of course, to the linearisation constraints of the language. Besides collecting the domain objects corresponding to the lexical head and its complements in a flat list structure, the schema in Figure 3 also ensures that the phonological contribution of different complements cannot be interleaved. Whenever a complement is selected by a head, its DOM list “compacts” into a single domain object whose SYNSEM value is token-identical to that of the complement daughter ( 4 ). The phonology of the compacted complement, however, is the con-


18

catenation of the PH ( ON ) values on the complement’s DOM list (see Kathol (1995) for a formal definition of the compaction relation). Thus, the internal categorial and phonological structure of the complement is invisible to order constraints on larger domains. With the HEAD - SUBJECT and MODIFIER - HEAD SCHEMATA defined in an analogous way, order constraints can be expressed across all major constituents in the clausal domain, despite the fact that the underlying tree structure is strictly layered. In one of the most worked out incarnations of Linearisation HPSG (Kathol, 1995), domain objects further carry a specification of a TOPO feature indicating which topological fields they can appear in. Introduction of such a feature actually permits expressing generalisations about the sentence topology in terms of position classes without actual reference to the (possibly) heterogeneous categorial representation of their members. Although initially introduced in the context of the grammar of German (Reape, 1994; Kathol, 1995), analyses in terms of complex order domains have meanwhile been proposed for a wide variety of languages, including Serbo-Croat (Penn, 1999), French (Bonami et al., 1999), and Warlpiri (Sag and Donohue, 1999).

2.1 Linearisation and discontinuous lexical items Traditional HPSG has generally assumed a strict correspondence between syntactic atoms and morphological words. This entails that no syntactic constituent should ever be able to intervene between parts of a word. In Linearisation HPSG, the effects of this assumption can be replicated by stipulating that the DOM-list of a word-level sign specify exactly one domain object. In his approach to German separable prefix verbs, Kathol (1995, 1996), however, argues that these discontinuous lexical items can be analysed in a straightforward way if one assumes that word-level signs can indeed introduce more than one domain object into syntax. (23)

a.

daß Heike auf- hört that Heike up- hears ‘that Heike stops’

b.

Hört Heike auf? hears Heike up ‘Does Heike stop?’

German exhibits a large set of verbs consisting of a main verb and a particle which can be separated from each other by intervening syntactic material. Despite their (surface-)syntactic transparency, the meaning of the verb-particle combination can often not be determined on compositional grounds (cf. (23)). Kathol (1995, 1996) suggests to represent separable prefix verbs as lexical items complete with their


19

unpredictable semantic contribution. separability, however, is captured by lexical specification of a DOM-list with two elements, one containing the particle, the other the (inflected) verb (see Figure 4).   word VCOMPL hi      1 verb HEAD    D E      hört PH     D E  + * * + E D     auf PH VCOMPL  2   h i    DOM       2 TOPO vc SS 1   HEAD    TOPO cf ∨ vc

Figure 4: German separable prefix verbs With the main verb and the particle now having an independent representation for word order purposes, other syntactic material can be positioned between the two, in correspondance with the linearisation constraints of the language. On the tectogrammatical side, however, prefix and verb still behave as one atomic lexical sign. 



S

       SEPREF + NP * V  E D E   E  D   D  DOM    hört ,  der Minister ,  auf           TOPO vc TOPO mf TOPO cf



NP



+   *   N DET  D E D E   ,     DOM Minister der



V



       + * SEPREF + * V   E  D E    D DOM     auf  hört         TOPO vc TOPO cf ∨ vc

Figure 5: Verb and Prefix separated

Figure 5 illustrates how discontinuity of prefix and verb is achieved in Kathol’s system. Lexically, finite verbs are constrained to appear in one of two topological fields, the sentence final verb cluster [TOPO vc] or the Wackernagel position


20

[TOPO cf ]. The separable prefix, however, is always stranded in sentence final position, hence the specification [TOPO vc]. Subject, complements, and modifiers, on the other hand, can either appear between the Wackernagel position and the sentence final verb cluster [TOPO mf ] or in the pre-Wackernagel topic position [TOPO vf ]. Domain objects are further constrained to appear in the order [TOPO vf ] ≺ [TOPO cf ] ≺ [TOPO mf ] ≺ [TOPO vc]. Now, when a separable prefix verb is use in a sentence like the one in Figure 5, it will contribute two distinct domain objects to the DOM value of the verbal head. When the verb combines with the subject, the DOM list of the subject NP compacts into a single domain object which will be inserted on the DOM list of the mother node, together with the list of domain objects contributed by the head daughter, in this case, the two domain object introduced by the discontinuous lexical verb. One consistent solution of the order constraints would assign the subject NP a value of [TOPO mf ], and thus place it between the finite verb and the stranded prefix. Modelling discontinuous lexical items as words introducing more than one domain object successfully encapsulates the semantic idiosyncrasy in the lexicon, while still enabling us to account for discontinuity in terms of word order variation.

2.2 Lexical representation of EP clitics I have argued in previous work that Kathol’s approach to German separable prefix verbs can be fruitfully generalised to account for morphosyntactic mismatch in EP (Crysmann, 1997) and Fox (Crysmann, 1999b). The key idea behind this generalisation is to tie the lexical introduction of domain objects directly to the morphological derivation. To achieve this, I will follow Riehemann (1994) in adopting an essentially realisational approach to morphology: under Riehemann’s approach, complex morphological objects are directly licensed by means of schemata which specify how the information encoded by a complex form is related to information of its parts. Riehemann introduces a feature morph-b where synsem information of the morphological base is represented, information which is related to the featural representation of the complex word by means of structure sharing (i.e. coindexation). These schemata can be thought of as partial descriptions of possible words which can be organised into a lexical type hierarchy, enabling us to integrate productive schemata with subregular and idiosyncratic ones (see Koenig and Jurafsky, 1994; Koenig, 1999). I have argued in previous work (Crysmann, 1999b) that the treatment of nonlayered, templatic morphological systems can be greatly facilitated, if one assumes a list-valued representation of the morphological base. Consequently, I will assume that word-level signs introduce a feature MORPH whose value is a list of morphs. Minimally, the type hierarchy of morphological sorts (cf. Figure 6) distinguishes between objects of type stem which provide both phonological and syntacto-semantic information and affixes (aff ) which only contribute a speci-


21

morph

"

aff PH

list

  stem    PH list SS synsem

#

Figure 6: Hierarchy of morphological sorts

fication of their phonological contribution. Thus, only stems will enjoy the full status of morphemes making them suitable for representation in the lexicon. Affixes, however, are syncategorematically introduced by constraints which relate the syntacto-semantic representation of the complex form to that of its stem. The phonological information so introduced merely serves to signal the application of a particular morphological derivation.  word     DOM        MORPH                       SS | L | CAT

*



PH

 1 HD

D

...

TOPO

* aff 

PH 3

D

 D E E + * PH . . . 4 . . . +       5 noun  2 HD  TOPO vc vc + 3

lhos

 stem PH *      SS | L | CAT  "

HD

5

COMPS

6

...

E

#

4



5 verb HD  " *  PER  NP: COMPS

ppro

NUM

# h 3 ,NP[a]: PER pl ppro



                       +      list      i +    3 |6         

Figure 7: Two affixes fused Turning to the case of EP cliticisation, I assume that clitic-verb combinations are licensed by underspecified verbal schemata like the one depicted in Figure 7. In order to resolve the tension between lexical affixation and syntactic transparency we have to address two major tasks: first, we need to capture the syntacto-semantic effects performed by the lexical attachment of a pronominal, and, second, we need to provide a surface-syntactic representation for both the verb and the clitic cluster. Concerning the syntacto-semantic side, I follow Miller and Sag (1997) and


22

Monachesi (1996) in assuming that pronominal affixes in EP are argument markers, signalling lexical realisation of subcategorisation requirements. The morphological schema in Figure 7 licenses complex verbs consisting of a ditransitive verbal stem and a Portmanteau affix lhos, where the category (i.e., the HD value) of the complex is restricted to be token-identical to that of the stem ( 5 ). Furthermore, the schema requires the stem to subcategorise for a direct object and an indirect object, whose indices are then restricted to appropriate values. The COMPS list of the entire word is structure-shared with the remnant ( 6 ) of the stem’s COMPS value, thereby suppressing the lexically saturated subcategorisation requirements. Besides restrictions on the argument structure, the above constraint specifies that a verb-clitic complex contributes two domain objects, one for the verbal host, and another one for the clitic cluster. The PH ( ON ) values of these two domain objects are constrained to contain the PH values of the stem and the clitic, respectively.4 While the domain object corresponding to the verbal host will have a HD value token-identical with the HD value of the morphological head, the clitic cluster is classified as a nominal. In addition to categorial information, both domain objects are assigned to a topological field, more specifically, they both contribute to the verbal cluster. This assignment not only accounts for the high degree of locality exhibited by clitic placement, it also provides a basis to distinguish the clitic cluster from other nominal elements in the sentence (cf. section 2.3). 

word      DOM             MORPH             SS | L | CAT 

 D E E * PH . . . 3 . . . + * PH . . . 4 . . . +        1 5 noun  2 HD  HD TOPO vc TOPO vc  stem D E     * + * PH 4 derret  aff  D E    5 verb HD  PH 3 se   h SS | L | CAT  6 NP: PER COMPS 



D

HD

  SUBJ 

COMPS

5



D E 6   hi



                +      list     i    3rd         

Figure 8: Ergative se

Given that the schema in Figure 7 already specifies a restriction to ditransitive verbs by means of a partially specified COMPS value, it is obvious, now, how this approach can be carried over to include lexicalised clitic-verb combinations: instead of an underspecified representation which would permit an instantiation


23

to all verbal stems with an appropriate argument structure, the MORPH value in Figure 8 is further constrained to contain a particular stem form. The argument structure, as well as the semantic contribution of the lexicalised complex are both represented on the sign as a whole. As both semantic composition and satisfaction of subcategorisation requirements operate on (tectogrammatical) signs rather than on (phenogrammatical) domain objects, we are not forced to stipulate a semantic contribution for the syntactically transparent parts of a lexicalised complex.  word   DOM     MORPH         SS | L | CAT 

list ⊕ *" 

h

PHON list

futstem SS | L | CAT | HD

⊕

1

i

2 verb

#+

HD 2

  SUBJ

*

"

NP[nom]:

PER NUM



* aff



PHON



#+ 3rd   sg

     +   D E list   1 ia         

Figure 9: Future/Conditional Schema

The benefit of partial descriptions for the analysis of EP cliticisation phenomena, however, becomes most obvious, as soon as constraint interaction comes into play. As we have seen in the discussion of the data in section 1.1, future/conditional tenses permit infixation of the clitic cluster between the tense/agreement suffix and the stem. By contrast, however, there was no evidence forcing us to believe that the morphosyntax of the future/conditional morphemes themselves necessitates any degree of syntactic transparency. Under the approach outlined here,this paradox can be resolved in a straightforward way, if we make the natural assumption that future/conditional morphemes always attach to the rightmost domain object of a morphologically complex verb, regardless of whether this domain object corresponds to the verbal stem, or to the clitic cluster. As depicted in Figure 9, the phonological contribution of the third person singular conditional morph -ia is concatenated with the PHON value of a domain object which in turn is constrained to appear last. If the conditional constraint in Figure 9 is combined with e.g. the clitic constraint in Figure 7, yielding a representation like the one in Figure 10, unification of the two constraints licenses the set of ditransitive verbs where either the cluster precedes the verbal stem complete with tense/agreement inflection (=proclisis), or else the verbal stem immediately precedes the cluster to which the the tense/agreement morphemes are then attached (=mesoclisis). Before I illustrate how the specific assumptions about the correspondence between lexical signs and (phenogrammatical) domain objects actually figures in

Berthold Crysmann — Clitics and Coordination 

24

word

     DOM                        MORPH              SS | L | CAT   

 PH  ,  HD

D E D E lhos ⊕ 3 ia +   ∨ 4 noun  TOPO vc TOPO vc  D E  D E * PH 2 lhos 1 ⊕ 3 ia + PH       4 noun , HD  HD TOPO vc TOPO vc  futstem PH 1 *" #" #    aff aff 4 HD , ,  "  * PH 2 PH 3   PER SS | L | CAT  NP: COMPS   * PH  HD

1

2

ppro



HD

    SUBJ  

COMPS

4 verb

* 5

"

NP:

PER NUM



#+  3   sg  

NUM



                         +       #    h i +   3  , NP[a]: PER 3 | 5     pl ppro            

Figure 10: Lexical representation of proclisis/mesoclisis verbs

a linearisation-based analysis of clitic placement and coordination in EP, let me briefly summarise what has been achieved thus far: the lexical properties of EP clitics are represented as constraints over lexical signs, permitting an integration with the lexical type hierarchy. The realisational approach adopted facilitates the description of subregularities and idiosyncrasies (e.g., syncretism in the case of fused clitics), while still enabling us to abstract out certain regularities. Based on the fundamental distinction drawn in Linearisation HPSG between signs, as elements of functor-argument structure, and domain objects, as elements of surface syntax, a lexical representation of clitics has been proposed which does not interfere with semantic composition in the case of fused or inherent clitics. As should be evident from the discussion of mesoclisis, the morphology-syntax interface in terms of domain objects effectively hides most of the internal morphological representation of lexical signs, thereby maintaining the basic insight behind the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis, a clean, modular separation of morphological and syntactic representation. More precisely, syntactic operations can only access those data structures which are made available by the morphological (or lexical) component. Furthermore, the information represented in these data structures is couched entirely in syntactic terms (comprising categorial and topological information), without any


25

reference to morphological distinctions. While the domain objects so derived are certainly aligned with morphological structures, the “underlying” morphological structures themselves are not visible to the syntactic component: they can neither be subcategorised for (subcategorisation in HPSG targets SYNSEM values only), nor can they be recovered from the PH ( ON ) values of the individual domain objects, as the concatenation operation effectively erases any internal structure. In a sense, this mapping of PH ( ON ) values corresponds to the concept of bracket erasure in Lexical Morphology and Phonology.

2.3 Clitic placement as word order variation Now that we have established an appropriate lexically-derived representation of cluster-verb combinations for EP, we can procede towards an analysis of the wordorder variation found in the data. h

TOPO

i pre

≺

h

TOPO

vc

i

≺

h

TOPO

post

i

Figure 11: Topological fields in EP

In the context of Romance, and EP in particular, we can take advantage of the concept of topological fields and apply it to model the dichotomy between preverbal and postverbal domains we have observed in section 1.2. I will suggest that the grammar of EP recognises three topological fields which are ordered according to the constraint in Figure 11. Proclisis triggers are then characterised by both their topological ([TOPO pre]) and inherent lexical properties (see Figure 12), thereby implementing the empirical observation that clitic placement in EP is best described by reference to linear position and lexical properties. The clitic cluster itself will be assigned to the verbal cluster ([TOPO vc]; cf. Figures 7 and 8), along with the finite verb and a few other items, including the sentential negation marker não ‘not’, temporal adverbials, preposed nada and indefinite quantifiers. This captures that the position immediately preceding the verb is highly priviledged. Moreover, assigning, e.g., the sentential negation marker and the clitic cluster to the same topological field ensures that these elements should, in principle, be able to flip position. Indeed, as illustrated by the data in (24), the negative marker can intervene between the verb and the pronominal clitics.5 (24)

O Carlos disse que já me não podia ir buscar. the Carlos said that already me not could go pick up ‘Carlos said that it would not be possible to pick me up. (Barbosa, 1996, p. 18)

While, in the standard variety, interpolation of negation is possible, other “light” preverbal elements (e.g., pronominal subjects) cannot intrude between the clitic


26

and the verb. If subjects carry a value of [TOPO pre], the impossibility of interpolated subject pronouns falls out from the order constraint on topological fields formulated in Figure 11. (25)

Quantas vezes te eu disse para estares calado? how.many times you I told to be quiet ‘How often have I told you to be quiet?’ Northern varieties (Barbosa, 1996, p. 7)

According to Barbosa (1996), this restriction does not hold for the northern varieties of EP. In these dialects, pronominal subjects can intervene between the object clitics and the verb, but subject NPs cannot. This dialectal variation will easily be accounted for by assigning subject pronominals to the verbal cluster as well.  phrase   *  HD (a)  DOM . . .  LEX 



# # " "  +  HD verb HD noun mark ∨ prep  ≺ →  TOPO vc TOPO vc +  ...   TOPO pre   phrase # # " " # + * "  HD verb HD noun   SS | L | CONT d-mon-func ≺ → (b)  TOPO vc TOPO vc ...  DOM . . . TOPO pre ∨ vc   phrase # # " " # + * "   HD verb noun → HD ≺ (c)  SS | NLOC | INH | QUE neset DOM . . . TOPO vc TOPO vc ...  TOPO pre

Figure 12: Proclisis constraint

On the basis of topological fields, clitic placement can now be described by implicational constraints (see Figure 12) on phrasal signs: if a complementiser (or a preposition) is present in the preverbal topological field, the clitic cluster has to precede the verb.6 Another major class of proclisis triggers are preverbal wh-expressions. As wh-phrases are characterised by a non-empty QUE set (Pollard and Sag, 1994), the linearisation constraint can again be formulated on purely syntactic grounds. Probably the most interesting class of proclisis triggers are the nominal and adverbial quantifiers. We have seen in section 1.2 that the difference in the monotonicity properties of natural language quantifiers allows us to distinguish triggers from non-triggers. This partitioning of quantifiers generalises from D- to A-quantification, disregarding categorial or configurational differences. The third proclisis constraint is therefore couched mainly in semantic terms. In the absence of categorial restrictions, this last constraint will also account for the


27

trigger status of other (non-quantifier) downward entailing expressions, such as the negative marker não ‘not’.7 To summarise, the elements conditioning proclisis can be assigned to three natural classes, two of them syntactic, and one semantic: sentence-embedding heads, wh-expressions, and monotone decreasing functors. 



S

        V N NP + * ADV  E  D E   E  D E  D   D DOM         nunca ,  o João ,  lhos ,  deu        TOPO vc TOPO vc TOPO pre TOPO pre





NP

+   *   N DET  D E D E   ,    DOM  João o 

ADV





VP

         + + * V + * N * ADV   E  E  D E   D  D DOM   lhos   deu    nunca           TOPO vc TOPO vc TOPO pre ∨ vc 

     + * ADV   D E       DOM   nunca       TOPO pre ∨ vc



V



       + + * V * N   D E D E        DOM     deu lhos         TOPO vc TOPO vc

Figure 13: Ordering EP clitics

Figure 13 illustrates how the linear structure is constructed on which the above order constraints apply. In this example, the TOPO value of the downward monotone A-quantifier nunca ‘never’ will license both preverbal and postverbal realisation. If nunca is placed to the left of the subject, however, its topological value is restricted to pre, according to the order constraints on topological fields (cf. Figure 11). As a consequence, enclisis will be illicit, resulting in the linear order captured at the top of the tree. The postulation of these topological fields is, of course, motivated by independent evidence. First, postverbal adjuncts and complements can often be interspersed, with the adjuncts separating the complements from their verbal governor (cf. Abeillé and Godard, 1994; Di Sciullo and Williams, 1987, for similar observations regarding French). Likewise, with inverted subjects, the unmarked order would place the subject before the objects, an order which is quite unexpected under a constituency-based approach to subject-verb inversion. Thus, as far as word


28

order is concerned the distribution of postverbal material does not appear to be influenced by constituent structure in any direct way. Second, the domain immediately preceding the finite verb is highly selective as to the elements it may contain. In addition to sentential negation and clitics, the negative pronominal nada ‘nothing’ can be placed in this position (26a) , whereas other negative pronouns like ninguém ‘nobody’ and ordinary object NPs are banned from this preverbal position (26b). Moreover, the elements in the verbal cluster cannot be interspersed with other preverbal material, e.g. subjects (26c,d). (26)

a.

Ele nada viu. he nothing saw ‘He didn’t see anything.’

b.

* Ele ninguém viu.

c.

* Nada

d.

* Ninguém ele viu.

he nobody saw ele viu. nothing he saw

nobody he saw

To conclude this section, we have seen that the placement properties of EP clitic clusters can directly be captured by means of word order constraints. In the formulation of these constraints, the adoption of independently motivated topological fields has played a crucial role in deriving the linear asymmetries observed in section 1.2. Finally, it has been demonstrated that Portuguese sentence topology can also be used to constrain the phenomenon of interpolation.

2.4 Surface-oriented coordination In the discussion of the basic empirical facts in section 1.2 above, we have seen that wide-scope over a coordination of hosts (WSC) is possible with all types of EP clitics, whether they could be given a compositional interpretation (pronominals and reflexives) or not (inherent clitics and “portmanteaux”). Furthermore, I have argued that an analysis in terms of phrasal affixation is highly unmotivated, as it would involve the postulation of phrasal features which are primarily rooted in the lexicon and which are sometimes quite idiosyncratic in nature. Thus, WSC appears to support the conclusions already drawn on the basis of clitic placement data. It is a tacit assumption often made in the linguistic literature that syntactic constituency is a major prerequisite for coordination. As constituency is conceived as a property of tectogrammar in Linearisation HPSG, it would be quite embarassing, if we had to grant fused and inherent clitics the status of signs for the purposes of coordination only. Fortunately, as argued by Kathol (1995), gapping and non-constituent coordination in languages like German and English provide the kind of evidence which allows us to cast some serious doubts on the relevance of


29

constituency in the context of coordination. As illustrated by the data in (27), coordination in EP also does not depend on classical notions of constituent structure. (27)

a.

O Pedro bebeu vinho e a Maria cerveja. the Pedro drank wine and the Maria beer ‘Pedro drank wine and Maria beer.’

b.

O Pedro deu à Maria um livro pelo seu aniversário e um disco the Pedro gave to.the Maria a book for.the her birthday and a record pelas suas bodas de prata. for.the her wedding of silver ‘Peter gave Mary a book on her birthday, and a record on her silver jubilee.’

The core idea of a linearisation account of coordination is to allow for the possibility that in the course of complex domain formation, two identical domain objects can actually be collapsed into one (cf. Kathol, 1995 for a conceptually similar, though technically different proposal). To achieve this, I shall propose a phrase structure schema which licenses coordinated sentential phrases. 

phrase    DOM     SS | L | CAT

 phrase   DOM 1 ⊕  SS | L | CAT

2 0

h

PH i1

1

0

⊕ "

*"

PH

i1

⊕... ⊕

SS | L | CAT

HD SUBJ

i h , . . . , PH

verb hi

im

⊕

j1

⊕... ⊕

0

jn

#+

#

i im ⊕

  phrase     5   DOM 1 ⊕   SS | L | CAT

3 0

h

PH j1

⊕

        

5

i h , . . . , PH

i jn ⊕

   

5

Figure 14: Coordination schema (preliminary version) The necessity of having coordinated structures licensed by a phrase structure schema of their own derives from the fact that these structures differ from most other phrase structures also with respect to headedness. In particular, coordinated structure impose a likeness restriction on the conjoint daughters which is captured in the COORDINATION SCHEMA by means of structure sharing of the mother’s CAT value with the CAT value of the conjunct daughters ( 0 ). The COORDINATION SCHEMA further regulates how the order domain of the mother is constructed from the DOM values of the conjunct daughters: as specified in Figure 14, the left edge of the mother’s DOM list is token-identical with the left edge of both conjunct daughters ( 1 ). Thus, whenever the DOM lists of the conjunct


30

daughters start with an identical sequence of domain objects, this sequence can be shared on the DOM list of the mother. Similarly, identical lists of domain objects at the right edge of each conjunct can be shared at the right edge of the mother ( 5 ). Which domain objects are permissible at the respective edges is determined by the lexical and phrasal linearisation constraints of the language. The non-shared rest, however, is compacted into a single domain object whose PH ( ON ) value is the concatenation of the PH ( ON ) values of all non-shared domain-objects. The CAT value of the coordinated sentential remnant is identified with the that of the coordinated structure. Enclisis and WSC  sign *   1 DOM . . .

2

"

TOPO HD

vc noun

 sign *   1 DOM . . .



#

2

+ → ... 

...

"

TOPO HD

vc verb

#



+ ∨ ... 



sign    * TOPO  1  DOM . . .  HD  LEX

 vc  verb, +



2

 +   ...  

Figure 15: Placement properties of the clitic cluster

Having sketched the basic technical machinery, we are can now proceed towards an analysis of the data under consideration. The first major observation we have made concerns the apparent restriction of WSC to proclisis. At first sight, this is a rather unexpected behaviour, as the coordination schema as I have defined it above should allow an enclitic to be shared at the right edge just as it licenses sharing of a proclitic at the left edge of the construction. However, this expectation is not confirmed by the data (cf. the contrasts in (14)). In the discussion of the lexical properties of EP clitics we observed that enclisis give rise to morphophonological idiosyncrasies on the host while proclisis leaves the host unaffected. Similarly, other syntactic material can intrude between proclitics and the host, while this is not possible with enclisis (cf. Barbosa, 1996). It appears, thus, that these two observations are intimately related: if an element may trigger morphophonological alternations on some other element, it is necessary to guarantee that these two elements will always appear adjacent to each other. As depicted in Figure 15, the clitic cluster must either precede all verbal domain objects, or it immediately has to follow a lexical verb. If we consider, the representation in Figure 16a, a trigger is present, licens-


(a)

(b)

(c)



31 

S

+     *   S N ADV NP  E  E, D  DOM D E, D E, D tocou e cantou lhas não ele 



S

+    *  N S NP *  D E D E D E   ,  ,    DOM  lhas tocou e cantou ele 

S



+     *   S N V NP  D E D E D E D E           DOM , , , tocado e cantado lhas tinha ele

Figure 16: WSC with proclisis and enclisis

ing preposing of the clitic cluster. Sharing of the clitic at the left edge satisfies the linerisation requirement as all verbal domain objects (the S) follow the clitic cluster. In 16b, however, proclisis is not triggered. Sharing of the enclitic across the two conjoined verbs, however, violates the requirement that either the immediately preceding domain object be a lexical verb or that all verbal domain objects must follow the clitic cluster. Note that, if both the enclitic and its immediately preceding host are shared no conflict will arise: this situation is actually given with analytic tense forms where the clitic and the auxiliary are shared regardless of proclitic or enclitic realisation (cf. 16c). Auxiliaries and WSC In constructions with analytic tense forms, we observed that a clitic can only be shared across two verbs, if the auxiliary is also shared. Although this observation is certainly correct, it still lacks any degree of linguistic generality. If we have a look at the data in (28), we find that the observation made in the context of cliticauxiliary combinations also seems to hold between preposed nada ‘nothing’ and the auxiliary: if both are shared, or if both are replicated on each conjunct, the sentence is fine. If however, one is shared and the other is replicated, the sentence becomes ill-formed. (28)

a.

Ele nada tinha lido e comentado com os amigos. he nothing had read and discussed with the friends ‘He had not read and commented on anything with his friends.’

b.

* Ele nada

tinha lido e tinha comentado com os amigos. he nothing had read and had commented on with the friends


c.

32

Ele nada tinha lido e nada tinha comentado com os amigos. he nothing had read and nothing had commented on with the friends ‘He had not read anything and he had not commented on anything with his friends.’

It appears, thus, that the restriction holding between clitic and auxiliary in coordinated structures is also characteristic of other members of the verbal cluster: under the hypothesis that identical elements in the verbal cluster are constrained to be shared simultaneously, we will not only be able to give a more concise formulation of the patterns observed above, we will also be in a position to account for the scope differences in (29) below. (29)

a.

Ele nunca tinha dançado mas/?e tinha pulado he never had danced but/and had jumped ‘He had never danced, but he had jumped.’

b.

Ele nunca tinha dançado e pulado. he never had danced and jumped ‘He had never danced nor jumped.’

If an element from the verbal cluster is replicated on the second conjunct, the negative adverbial nunca ‘never’ in (29a) can only have narrow scope over the first conjunct. If no such element is replicated, nunca is interpreted as having wide scope over both conjuncts. (30)

a.

com os amigos. Ele não tinha lido o livro e não o tinha comentado he not had read the book and not it had commented on with the friends ‘He had not read the book and he had not commented on it with his friends.’

b.

* Ele não tinha lido o livro mas/e o tinha comentado

com os amigos. he not had read the book but/and it had commented on with the friends

The clitic placement data found with sentential negation não ‘not’ also appear to pattern with the above generalisation: if some other element in the verbal cluster is replicated on the second conjunct, não can only function as a proclisis trigger for the first clitic-verb complex. Proclisis in the second conjunct will, thus, lead to ungrammaticality. It is of note, however, that no such restriction seems to hold for the elements in the preverbal field: despite replication of elements in the verbal cluster, a subject or a complementiser can still be shared across the two conjuncts. Having reduced the restriction on simultaneous sharing of clitic and auxiliary to a general property of the verbal cluster, we can now give a formal specification of the relevant constraint: as depicted in Figure 17, an element of the verb cluster can only be shared if the non-shared parts of the two conjuncts do not contain any other identical domain objects from this cluster. Thus, the topological fields introduced for pure word-order purposes also play a central role in the syntax of coordination.

Berthold Crysmann — Clitics and Coordination 

phrase    DOM     SS | L | CAT

 phrase   DOM 1 ⊕  SS | L | CAT ∧

1

...,

h

2 0

h

TOPO

PH i1

1

0

⊕ "

*"

PH

i1

⊕... ⊕

SS | L | CAT

HD SUBJ

i h , . . . , PH

verb hi

im

33

⊕

j1

⊕... ⊕

0

jn

#+

#

i im ⊕

  phrase     5   DOM 1 ⊕   SS | L | CAT

 * " i PHON  vc , . . . → ¬ 2 . . . , TOPO

6

#

vc

, ...

3

+

0

h

∧

3

PH j1

*

...,



   ⊕ 5     

i h , . . . , PH

i jn ⊕

"

#

PHON

6

TOPO

vc

   

5

+ , ... 

Figure 17: Coordination schema (final version)

3 Conclusion In this paper, I have argued that the treatment of EP pronominal clitics, although they are morphologically clearly affixes, nevertheless requires a limited amount of syntactic transparency. In particular, neither clitic placement nor wide scope over a coordination of hosts appeared to make reference to content-distinctions. Thus, it could be shown that the degree of syntactic transparency required is actually quite restricted and highly superficial in nature. I have suggested that all the information needed for a fruitful analyses of both coordination and clitic placement facts can readily be found in the word order component. An analysis has been presented which actually models the coordination facts without appeal to tree-structural configurations.

Notes 1 The

possibility of having the negative marker interpolated between the clitic cluster and the verb does not constitute a particularly good piece of evidence in favour of promiscuous attachment. Other monosyllabic words, like subject pronouns, do not enjoy interpolation in the standard variety. Thus, even if we were to concede that the negation marker could function as a clitic host in its own right, the set of clitic hosts would be enlarged by just a single item, excluding, still, all members from other major and minor categories.


34

2 The

inability of participles to host the clitic cluster may as well be considered an arbitrary gap. 3 See

Monachesi (1996) for an extensive discussion on the shortcomings of treating clitic placement as an unbounded dependency construction. 4

The phonological information represented on domain objects must, of course, be systematically related to the phonological contributions specified by members of the MORPH list. To achieve this, it is sufficient to require that a concatenation of the PH values on the DOM list is subsumed by a concatenation of the PH values on the MORPH list (cf. Crysmann, 1999b). 5 One

might suspect that the Portuguese negative marker is a clitic (or even a verbal affix) on a par with the pronominals. In contrast to true clitics (or affixes), however, it can be used in isolation. Moreover, não can also be found in the context of NPs, like in não muitos estudantes ‘not many students’. 6I

am ignoring here the case of infinitival a, the only marker/preposition that does not trigger proclisis in EP. The syntax of a, however, differs quite drastically from that of other infinitival prepositions (cf. Raposo, 1989), allowing the nominative subject of the inflected infinitive to appear to their left. Thus, it might be conceivable to analyse this item as an infinitival raising verb. 7A

formal representation of monotonicity properties has been proposed by Branco and Crysmann (1999) using M INIMAL R ECURSION S EMANTICS (Copestake et al., 1998).

References Abeillé, A. and Godard, D., 1994. “The complementation of french auxiliaries”. In West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, vol. 13. Stanford University: CSLI Publications/SLA. 27 Barbosa, P., 1996. “Clitic placement in European Portuguese and the position of subjects”. In Approching Second. Second Position and Related Phenomena, A. L. Halpern and A. M. Zwicky, eds., 1–40. No. 61 in CSLI Lecture Notes, CSLI Publications. 10, 25, 26, 30 Bonami, O., Godard, D. and Marandin, J. M., 1999. “Constituency and word order in French subject inversion”. In Constraints and Resources in Natural Language Syntax and Semantics, G. Bouma, E. Hinrichs, G.-J. Kruiff and R. Oehrle, eds., 21–40. Studies in Constraint-Based Lexicalism, Stanford: CSLI publications. 18 Branco, A. H. and Crysmann, B., 1999. “Negative concord and linear constraints on quantification”. paper presented at the Going Romance ’99 Workshop on Negation, Leiden. 34


35

Copestake, A., Flickinger, D. and Sag, I., 1998. “Minimal recursion semantics. An introduction”. Proceedings of ESSLLI 10, Saarbrücken. 34 Crysmann, B., 1997. “Cliticization in European Portuguese using parallel morpho–syntactic constraints”. In Proceedings of the LFG97 Conference, M. Butt and T. H. King, eds.. Stanford: CSLI Publications. 20 Crysmann, B., 1999a. “Licensing proclisis in European Portuguese”. In Empirical Issues in Formal Syntax and Semantics. Selected papers from the Colloque de Syntaxe et de Sémantique de Paris (CSSP 1997), F. Corblin, C. Dobrovie-Sorin and J.-M. Marandin, eds., 255–276. The Hague: Thesus. 8 Crysmann, B., 1999b. “Morphosyntactic paradoxa in Fox”. In Constraints and Resources in Natural Language Syntax and Semantics, G. Bouma, E. Hinrichs, G.-J. Kruiff and R. Oehrle, eds., 41–61. Studies in Constraint-Based Lexicalism, Stanford: CSLI publications. 20, 34 Cunha, C. and Cintra, L., 1984. Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo. Lisboa: Edições João Sá da Costa. 4, 7 Di Sciullo, A.-M. and Williams, E., 1987. On the Definition of Word. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 27 Dowty, D., 1996. “Towards a minimalist theory of syntactic structure”. In Discontinuous Constituency, H. Bunt and A. v. Horck, eds.. Natural language processing 6, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 16 Duarte, I., 1983. “Variação paramétrica e ordem dos clíticos”. Revista de Faculdade de Letras 4: 158–178. 7 Duarte, I., Matos, G. and Faria, I., 1995. “Specificity of European Portuguese clitics in Romance”. In Studies on the Acquisition of Portuguese, I. H. Faria and M. J. Freitas, eds.. Lisboa: Edições Colibri. 2, 12 Halpern, A., 1995. On the Placement and Morphology of Clitics. Dissertations in Linguistics, Stanford: CSLI Publications. 1, 14, 15 Hundertmark-Santos Martins, M. T., 1982. Portugiesische Grammatik. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. 4 Kathol, A., 1995. Linearization-Based German Syntax. Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University. 16, 17, 18, 28, 29 Kathol, A., 1996. “Discontinuous lexical entries”. manuscript, paper presented at the Third International Conference on HPSG, Marseille. 18 Koenig, J.-P., 1999. Lexical Relations. Stanford: CSLI publications. 20 Koenig, J.-P. and Jurafsky, D., 1994. “Type underspecification and online type construction in the lexicon”. In West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, vol. 13. Stanford: CSLI Publications/SLA. 20 Miller, P. and Sag, I. A., 1997. “French clitic movement without clitics or movement”. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 15 (3): 573–639. 1, 21


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Miller, P. H., 1992. Clitics and Constituents in Phrase Structure Grammar. Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics, New York: Garland. 1, 2, 7, 9, 14 Monachesi, P., 1996. The Syntax of Italian Clitics. Ph.D. thesis, Tilburg. 1, 22, 34 Penn, G., 1999. “Linearization and WH-extraction: Evidence from SerboCroatian”. In Slavic in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, R. D. Borsley and A. Przepiórkowski, eds., chap. 6, 149–182. Studies in Constraint-Based Lexicalism, Stanford: CSLI. 18 Pollard, C., Levine, R. and Kasper, R., 1993. “Studies in constituent ordering: Toward a theory of linearization in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar”. Grant Proposal to the National Science Foundation, Ohio State University. 17 Pollard, C. and Sag, I., 1987. Information–Based Syntax and Semantics, vol. 1. Stanford: CSLI. 16, 17 Pollard, C. and Sag, I., 1994. Head–Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford: CSLI and University of Chicago Press. 16, 17, 26 Pullum, G., 1982. “Free word order and phrase structure rules”. In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Meeting of the Northeast Linguistic Society, J. Pustejovsky and P. Sells, eds., 209–220. Amherst: GLSA. 16 Raposo, E., 1989. “Prepositional infinitival constructions in European Portuguese”. In The Null Subject Parameter, O. Jaeggli and K. Safir, eds., 277–305. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 34 Reape, M., 1994. “Domain union and word order variation in German”. In German in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, J. Nerbonne, K. Netter and C. Pollard, eds., 151–197. No. 46 in Lecture Notes, Stanford University: CSLI Publications. 16, 18 Riehemann, S., 1994. “Morphology and the hierarchical lexicon”. manuscript, CSLI, Stanford. 20 Sag, I. and Donohue, C., 1999. “Domains in Warlpiri”. paper presented at the HPSG-99, Edinburgh. 18 Spencer, A., 1991. Morphological Theory. An Introduction to Word Structure in Generative Grammar. No. 2 in Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics, Oxford: Blackwell. 6, 7, 11 Zwicky, A., 1986. “Concatenation and liberation”. In Papers from the 22nd Regional Meeting, 65–74. Chicago Linguistic Society. 16 Zwicky, A., 1987. “Suppressing the Zs”. Journal of Linguistics 23: 133–148. 14 Zwicky, A. and Pullum, G. K., 1983. “Cliticization vs. inflection: English n’t”. Language 59: 502–513. 1, 7, 9

Clitics and Coordination in Linear Structure

Clitics and Coordination in Linear Structure

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