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In:Dependency Linguistics: Recent advances in linguistic theory using dependency structures
Edited by Kim Gerdes, Eva Hajičová and Leo Wanner
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 215] 2014
► pp. 229–252

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Clitics in dependency morphology

 | Aichi University, Toyohashi, Japan
Published online: 1 October 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.215.11gro
Clitics are challenging for many theories of grammar because they straddle syntax and morphology. In most theories, cliticization is considered a phrasal phenomenon: clitics are affix-like expressions that attach to whole phrases. Constituency-based grammars in particular struggle with the exact constituent structure of such expressions. This paper proposes a solution based on catena-based dependency morphology. This theory is an extension of catena-based dependency syntax. A syntactic catena is any word or any combination of words that are continuous with respect to dominance. Likewise, any morph or any combination of morphs that is continuous with respect to dominance form a morph catena. Employing the concept of morph catena together with a hyphenation convention leads to a parsimonious and insightful understanding of cliticization.
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Osborne, Timothy & Jiaxin Li
2023. Coordination and referential dependencies: a dependency grammar account in terms of predicate-valent structures. Folia Linguistica 57:3 ► pp. 629 ff. DOI logo
Osborne, Timothy & Thomas Groß
2021. Bracketing paradoxes: A dependency grammar analysis in terms of morph catenae. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 57:3 ► pp. 397 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Serbian Clitics [Studies in Language Companion Series, 229], DOI logo

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