Cover not available

Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 21:1 (2021) ► pp.1–27

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

On clitic placement and gradience of strength of FP in Western Ibero-Romance

ORCiD logo with link | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Published online: 15 January 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.18001.gra
Abstract
Old (Medieval and Classical) Spanish permitted finite enclisis and as such is classified as a strong-F language, as are many archaic varieties of Romance languages. Notable about Old Spanish is that, prior to the 1500s, interpolation arrangements were acceptable and rather common, as is still the case of Galician and some dialects of Portuguese. However, from the 1500s onward, interpolation in Old Spanish was no longer productive, much like modern Asturian. This is evidence that the “strong-weak” dichotomy of FP is insufficient to explain the situation of the languages. I argue that the strength of FP should be described as not only “weak” or “strong,” but instead on a gradient scale to distinguish languages that permit a range of possible clitic arrangements.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Syntax of clitic placement in Ibero-Romance
    • 2.1The F projection as presented in the literature
    • 2.2Derivations of clitic placement in Ibero-Romance via FP
  • 3.Complications of an F projection with a binary description of strength
    • 3.1Old Spanish: Competing systems, interpolation loss
    • 3.2European Portuguese, Galician, and Asturian: Is strong still strong?
    • 3.3Brazilian Portuguese: Loss of enclisis in nearly all contexts
    • 3.4Typology of the strength of FP in WIR
  • 4.Proposal of a gradient description of morphological strength
    • 4.1Assigning values based on cliticization patterns
    • 4.2Categorizing modern WIR languages on the gradient scale
    • 4.3The gradience scale as an indicator of diachronic FP strength
  • 5.Conclusions and open ends for future research
  • Notes
  • References
References (51)
References
Armstrong, N. and MacKenzie, I. E. 2013. Standardization, Ideology and Linguistics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barrie, M. 2000. The Syntax of Clitic Placement in European Portuguese. Revue québécoise de linguistique 28(1): 91–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Batllori, M., Sánchez, C. and Suñer, A. 1995. The Incidence of Interpolation on the Word Order of Romance Languages. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 4(2): 185–209.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berta, T. 2002. Pronombres Clíticos y Construcciones de Infinitivo en la Crónica de veinte reyes . Verbum 4(1): 67–89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bouzouita, M. 2008. At the Syntax-Pragmatics Interface: Clitics in the History of Spanish. In Language in Flux: Dialogue Coordination, Language Variation, Change and Evolution, R. Cooper and R. Kempson (eds), 221–263. London: College Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Costa, J. and Martins, A. M. 2003. Clitic Placement across Grammar Components. Paper presented at Going Romance, 17th Symposium on Romance Languages, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands. 20–22 November 2003.
Cyrino, S. M. L. 1993. Observações sobre a Mudança Diacrônica no Português do Brasil: Objeto Nulo e Clíticos. In Português Brasileiro: uma Viagem Diacrônica. Homenagem a Fernando Tarallo, I. Roberts and M. Kato (eds), 163–184. Campinas: Editora da UNICAMP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, M. 2002. Corpus del Español: 100 million words, 1200s–1900s. Available at [URL] [last accessed 10 October 2017]. (CdE)
Davies, M., and Ferreira, M. 2006. Corpus do Português: 45 million words, 1300s–1900s. Available at [URL] [last accessed 10 October 2017]. (CdP)
Duarte, I. and Matos, G. 2000. Romance Clitics and the Minimalist Program. In Portuguese Syntax: New Comparative Studies, J. Costa (ed), 116–142. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duarte, I., Matos, G. and Gonçalves, A. 2005. Pronominal Clitics in European and Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 41: 113–141. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández Rubiera, F. J. 2009. Clitics at the Edge: Clitic Placement in Western Iberian Romance Languages. PhD Thesis, Georgetown University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010. Force°, Finiteness°, and the Placement of Clitics in Western Iberian Romance Languages. Estudos de Lingüística Galega 21: 75–95.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. Clisis Revisited: Root and Embedded Contexts in Western Iberian. In Challenging Clitics, C. M. Salvesen and H. P. Helland (eds), 55–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fontana, J. 1993. Phase Structure and the Syntax of Clitics in Old Spanish. PhD Thesis, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freixeiro Mato, X. R. 2006. Gramática da Lingua Galega. Parte II: Morfosintaxe. 2nd ed. Vigo: Edicións A Nosa Terra, Promocións Culturais Galega.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Galves, C. 2003. Clitic Placement in the History of European Portuguese and the Syntax-Phonology Interface. Unpublished manuscript, State University of Campinas.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Galves, C., Britto, H. and Paixão de Sousa, M. C. 2005. The Change in Clitic Placement from Classical to Modern European Portuguese: Results from the Tycho Brahe Corpus. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 41: 39–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Galves, C., Torres Moraes, M. A. and Ribeiro, I. 2005. Syntax and Morphology in the Placement of Clitics in European and Brazilian Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 41: 143–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
González i Planas, F. 2007. Sintaxis de los Clíticos Pronominales en Asturleonés. Ianua: Revista Philologica Romanica 71: 15–35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. Aspeutos de la Sintaxis de la Documentación Lleonesa Medieval. Lletres Asturianes 1011: 45–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gupton, T. 2012. Object Clitics in Galician and Complications for Clausal Analyses. In Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, K. Geeslin and M. Diaz-Campos (eds), 272–284. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. The Syntax-Information Structure Interface: Subjects and Clausal Word Order in Galician. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gupton, T. and Lowman, S. 2013. An F Position in Cibeño Dominican Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 16th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, J. C. Amaro, G. Lord, A. de Prada Pérez and J. E. Aaron (eds), 338–348. Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kayne, R. 1991. Romance Clitics, Verb Movement, and PRO. Linguistic Inquiry 22(4): 647–686.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laka, I. 1993. Negative Fronting in Romance: Movement to Σ. In Linguistic Perspectives on the Romance Languages, W. J. Ashby, M. Mithun and G. Perissinotto (eds), 315–334. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacKenzie, I. 1999–2017. The Linguistics of Spanish. Available at [URL] [last accessed 30 August 2019].
Madeira, A. 1992. On Clitic Placement in European Portuguese. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 41: 96–122.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Magro, C. 2010a. When Corpus Analysis Refutes Common Beliefs: the Case of Interpolation in European Portuguese Dialects. Corpus 91: 115–135. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010b. Interpolação & Cia nos Dialectos do Português Europeu. Estudos de linguística galega 21: 97–119.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martins, A. M. 1994. Enclisis, VP-deletion, and the Nature of Sigma. Probus 6(2–3): 173–205.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003a. Deficient Pronouns and Linguistic Change in Portuguese and Spanish. In Romance Language and Linguistic Theory 2001: Selected Papers from ‘Going Romance’, Amsterdam, 6–8 December 2001, J. Quer, J. Schroten, M. Scorretti, P. Sleeman and E. Verheugd (eds), 213–230. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003b. From Unity to Diversity in Romance Syntax: a Diachronic Perspective of Clitic Placement in Portuguese and Spanish. In Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History, K. Braunmüller and G. Ferraresi (eds), 201–233. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. Clitic Placement, VP-ellipsis and Scrambling in Romance. In Grammaticalization and Parametric Variation, M. Batllori, M-L. Hernanz, C. Picallo and F. Roca (eds), 175–193. Oxford: University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nieuwenhuijsen, D. 2006. Cambios en la Colocación de los Pronombres Átonos. In Sintaxis Histórica de la Lengua Española, Primera Parte: la Frase Verbal, C. Company Company (ed), 1337–1404. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México/Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ordóñez, F. 2012. Clitics in Spanish. In The Handbook of Hispanic Linguistics, J. I. Hualde, A. Olarrea and E. O’Rourke (eds), 423–452. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pires, A. 2005. Verb Movement and Clitics: Variation and Change in Portuguese. In Grammaticalization and Parametric Variation, M. Batllori, M-L. Hernanz, C. Picallo and F. Roca (eds), 48–59. Oxford: University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poole, G. 2007. Interpolation and the Left Periphery in Old Spanish. In Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics, M. Hussein, M. Kolokante and C. Wright (eds), 131:188–216. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics, Newcastle University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. Interpolation, Verb-Second, and the Low Left Periphery in Old Spanish. Iberia 5(1): 69–98.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raposo, E. 1999. Directionality of Cliticization in European Portuguese: Left or Right? In Grammatical Analyses in Basque and Romance Linguistics, J. Franco, A. Landa and J. Martín (eds), 219–232. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2000. Clitic Positions and Verb Movement. In Portuguese Syntax: New Comparative Studies, J. Costa (ed), 266–298. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Raposo, E. and Uriagereka, J. 2005. Clitic Placement in Western Iberian: a Minimalist View. In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax, G. Cinque and R. Kayne (eds), 639–697. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rivero, M.-L. 1986. Parameters in the Typology of Clitics in Romance and Old Spanish. Language 62(4): 774–807. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rivero, M.-L. and Terzi, A. 1995. Imperatives, V-movement and Logical Mood. Journal of Linguistics 311: 301–332. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sánchez Rei, X. M. 1999. O uso da Interpolación Pronominal en Galego durante os Séculos Escuros. VERBA 261: 327–344.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silva-Villar, L. 1995. Inverted Tenses and Negation in Galician-Portuguese. Mester 24(1): 19–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simões, A. R. M. 2006. Clitic Attachment in Brazilian Portuguese. Hispania 89(2): 380–389. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sportiche, D. 1996. Clitic Constructions. In Phase Structure and the Lexicon, J. Rooryck and L. Zaring (eds), 244–307. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terzi, A. 1999. Clitic Constructions, their Hosts and Ordering. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 171: 85–121. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uriagereka, J. 1995a. An F Position in Western Romance. In Discourse Configurational Languages, K.É. Kiss (ed), 153–175. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1995b. Aspects of the Syntax of Clitic Placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry 26(4): 79–123.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Graham, Lamar A.
2021. Personal vs. personalized infinitives in Ibero-Romance. In Spanish Socio-Historical Linguistics [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 12], ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue