1 / 22

The Status of Old French clitics in the 12th century

The Status of Old French clitics in the 12th century. Jennifer Culbertson culbertson@cogsci.jhu.edu Johns Hopkins University. OF clitics and the verb.

emmly
Download Presentation

The Status of Old French clitics in the 12th century

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The Status of Old French clitics in the 12th century Jennifer Culbertson culbertson@cogsci.jhu.edu Johns Hopkins University

  2. OF clitics and the verb • Strong V2 pattern in 12th c OF: (1)Vers dulce Francechevalchetl'emperere.  “Toward sweet France rodethe emperor.” • Subject pronouns are not clitics (Roberts 1993) • Object, reflexive, locative pronouns were clitics

  3. OF Clitics: the debate • Main Issues: • Syntactic or postsyntactic positioning • Category >> heads/XPs, or agreement markers Previous Analyses of OF clitics: • Syntactic heads dependent on verb for positioning (Cardinaletti & Roberts 1993) • Syntactic heads independent of verb (Hirschbühler & Labelle 2000)

  4. Overview of a new analysis • OF clitics are agreement markers positioned by PF constraints (Culbertson & Legendre 2007) • positioned independently from the verb • not moved around by the syntax Main arguments: • OF clitics obey Tobler-Mussafia law, ie. cannot appear in initial position in their clause • regularly undergo enclisis with preceding elements, • are subject to second position (Wackernagel) effects • interact with V2 pattern in the language

  5. Tobler-Mussafia effects (2) a. Typical: Li reis Marsilielatient. “The king Marsilieholds it.” V1 b. Imperative:Dunezlil'arc “Givehimthe sword!” c.Declarative: Vintises nies. “Cametherehis nephew” d. Question: Faiteslevos de gred? “Will (you) doitnow?” e. Quote: Distli paiens… “Saidthe pagans…” [5% of all main clauses in Chanson de Roland] [3%] [<1%] [5%]

  6. Enclicis & Proclisis • Encliticize with preceding elements e.g. sil = si + li, jel = je + li, nes = ne + les Sil receit Blancandrin. Nes poet guarder‘Thus Blancandrin holds them.’ ‘He cannot help them.’ • Proclisis with following elements: e.g. Nus l'orrum.Ne l'amerai… ‘we will hear it.’ ‘I will not love him…’ • Contexts for enclisis are declining during 12th c., however they are still quite common • Possibility of enclisis indicates that OF clitics may not be dependent on verb for positioning

  7. Tobler-Mussafia and enclisis • OF clitics always appear to the right of the verb when the verb is clause initial, why? • Traditionally T-M is explained for enclitics because they require a host to the left • However, if OF clitics are proclitics, dependent only on the verb for their position, explaining T-M is much less straightforward • Because clitics are never attested clause initially, and must always have an XP to the left, OF is unlike other simple proclitic languages (e.g. Modern French).

  8. Previous approaches Previous attempts to explain T-M effects (assuming V in C): • Benincà (1995): verb adjoins to specCP when it’s empty, leaving the clitic below it • Cardinaletti & Roberts (1993): in clitic-V orders the verb picks up the clitic on its way to C, while in V-clitic orders, the verb skips the position occupied by the clitic • Neither analysis is well motivated Conclusion: • Clitic positioning is better explained if we take it to be driven by forces independent of the verb • Hirschbühler & Labelle (2000): OF clitics are subject to several structural constraints

  9. Constraint-based approach H&L (2000) constraint-based approach: • Clitic positions itself with respect to the verb to satisfy its own requirements • {Cl, [+T]},clitics adjoin to terminal elements with feature [+T] • [NONINITIAL, CPmin],clitics are noninitial in the minimal clause • [+LEFTMOST],clitics are leftmost in the minimal clause • Both NI and LEFTMOST constraints are necessary to ensure that clitics are typically preverbal unless it would force them to be initial in the clause • Notice that this combination of constraints will force the clitic to be in ‘second’ position, ie. following the first constituent

  10. Clitics as morphology • H&L (2000) take clitics to be syntactic elements, ie. placed into the structure by the syntax • Alternative view: clitics are phrasal affixes which instantiate functional features and are positioned at PF (Klavans 1985, Legendre 1998, 2001, Anderson 2005, Boskovic 1998) Why PF? • Syntactic accounts of special clitics have long been challenged by morphologists because of: • similarities between clitics and word level affixes • clitic doubling • role of prosody in clitic placement cross-linguistically • syntactic ‘inertness’ of clitics • second position effects (e.g. clustering, climbing, constituent-internal insertion)

  11. Second-position effects • Appear/cluster in 2nd position, always in the same order: • (3) a. Demi Espaignevusduratil. • half spainyougivehe • “Half Spain he will give you.” • b. Jot’enmuvraic.Dunezm’en • Iyou+therefollowgiveme+here • “I will followyou there” “Give me here!” • Based on constraints argued for in H&L (2000) we expect to see second-position effects • Undergo climbing: • (4)En Sarragucevusvendrat aseger; • in Sarraguceyoucomes to beseige • “He comes into Sarraguce to besiege you.”

  12. Second position effects • Second position effects result from theconflict of alignment constraints (Legendre 2000, Anderson 2005) • Generalized Morphological Alignment (McCarthy & Prince 1993) • Cl2 results from alignment of features at PF Cl2 is constraint on linear order sensitive to prosody (5) Quan l'ot Marsilie, sil’ad baiset;  “When Marsilie heard it,[break],thushim (he) has kissed.” • What about V2?

  13. OF V2 Traditional approach: V2 = V in C (parallels Germanic V2) (eg. Roberts 1993, Vance 1998) Evidence for alignment approach: • V2 parallels clitic-second (Anderson 2005, Legendre 2001) • V2 is sensitive to number of constituents preceding verb • ‘Dummy’ or ‘arbitrary’ elements in first position (6)Sirecevraila chrestïene lei. “(I) will receivethe christian law.” Also: dunc “thus”, e “and”, u “or”, or “now”, puis “then”

  14. Alignment Constraints • Constraints for morphological/feature alignment: NONINITIAL(X): violated by candidates with [X] at the left edge of the intonational phrase (typically clause) EDGEMOST(X): gradiently violated by candidates with [X] not aligned with left edge of the intonational phrase • X = argument features of verbs (F) and clitics (Cl) • Verbs and clitics will compete for second position • Resolution of conflict between second position elements is not unique to OF (e.g. for Macedonian, Legendre 1997)

  15. Additional constraints • I-to-C movement not necessary • Additional constraints: INTEGRITY(XP): violated by candidates with elements intervening within an XP unit (Anderson 2005) EPP: violated by candidates with empty specIP (satisfied by pro) • based on SUBJ (Grimshaw 1997), but can be satisfied by non-subjects • evidence: all types of constituents found before V in embedded clauses, e.g. …(7)queli Franceisasmastes a ferir; “…thatthe Frank (you) will fight” *t: violated by movement traces (called STAY in Grimshaw 1997, see also Legendre 2001)

  16. Analysis of OF Cl2 and V2 • OF ranks EPP, INTEGRITY >> NI(X) >> E(X) >>*t • OF ranks NI(Cl) >> E(Cl) >> NI(F) >> E(F) • XV(S) clauses (8) Vers dulce Francechevalchetl'emperere.  “Toward sweet Francerodethe emperor.” Key points:  XV(S), SVX clauses are IPs,  *t eliminates CP  NI(F) >> E(F)

  17. Analysis of OF Cl2 and V2 • X-Cl-V(S) clauses (9) Demi Espaignevusduratil.  “Half of Spainhewill giveyou.” Key points:  E(Cl) >> E(F)  clitics are coindexed with pro (Borer 1986) Key points:  INT(XP) is highly ranked

  18. Clitic Clustering (10)Jot’enmuvrai Iyou+therefollow “I will followyou there” Key points:  E(ClO) >> E(ClL) explains order in clustering  single NI(Cl) constraint is sufficient

  19. Analysis of OF Cl2 and V2 • V2 is violated in V1 clauses (e.g imperatives) • E(IMP): imperatives must be at left edge (Legendre 2000) • V-Cl-X clauses (11)Dunezlil'arc“Givehimthe sword” Key points:  E(IMP) is highly ranked  reverse order of V-clitic

  20. Conclusions • The positioning of OF clitics is captured successfully by the resolution of a conflict between NONINITIAL and EDGEMOST constraints • Second-position verbs in OF can be captured by this same constraint interaction • Competition between verbs and clitics leads to clitics in second position, verbs in third • Pattern of enclisis to verbs in V1 contexts automatically follows • Suggests that treating clitics as agreement markers aligned post-syntactically may be theoretically preferable to purely syntactic analysis

  21. Thanks! Special Thanks to Geraldine Legendre & Paul Smolensky

  22. References Adams, M. (1987). "From Old French to the Theory of Pro-drop." NLLT 5: 1-32. Anderson, S. (2005). Aspects of the Theory of Clitics. New York, NY, Oxford University Press. Borer, H. (1986) “Thesyntaxofpronominalclitics” In H. Borer ed. Syntax and Semantics 19 Diesing, M. (1990). "Verb movement and the subject position in Yiddish." NLLT 8(1): 41-81. Grimshaw, J. (1997). "Projection, Heads, and Optimality." Linguistic Inquiry 28(3): 373-422. Hirschbühler, P. & M. Labelle (2000). “Evolving Tobler-Mussafia effects in the placement of French clitics”. New Approaches to Old Problems: Issues in Romance Historical Linguistics. S. Dworkin & D. Wanner. Philadelphia, PA, John Benjamins: 165-182. Legendre, G. (1997). Second Position Clitics in a Verb-Second Language: Conflict Resolution in Macedonian. ESCOL Meeting, Cornell University, CLC Publications. Legendre, G. (2000). Positioning Romanian Verbal Clitics at PF." Clitics in Phonology, Morphology & Syntax. B. Gerlach & J. Grijzenhout. John Benjamins. 36. Legendre, G. (2001). “Masked V2 Effects and the Linearization of Functional Features”. Optimality- Theoretic Syntax. G. Legendre, J. Grimshaw & S. Vikner. MIT Press: 241-277. McCarthy, J. and A. a. P. S. Prince (1994). The Emergence of the Unmarked: Optimality in Prosodic Morphology. NELS 24, University of Massachussetts Amherst, GLSA. Lemieux, M. & F. Dupuis, 1995. “The Locus of Verb Movement in Non-Asymmetric Verb-Second Languages: the Case of Middle French.” In A. Battye & I. Roberts eds., Clause Structure and Language Change, Oxford University Press. Roberts, I. (1992). Verbs and Diachronic Syntax: A Comparative History of English and French. Kluwer Academic Press. Vance, B. (1998). Verb-Second, Null Subjects, & Syntactic Change in Medieval French. Kluwer Academic Press.

More Related