Abstract
This study investigates two apparently distinct morphological processes that occur in some specific Vernacular Central Catalan clitic clusters: Fission and Impoverishment. In Fission, a cluster of first and second person clitics (e. g. te me) generates a third clitic in the sequence (e. g. se te me), while Impoverishment involves the replacement of the first or second person reflexive clitic in the cluster by the default reflexive: e. g. te me becoming se te. It is argued that Fission and Impoverishment are, in fact, successive stages of the same morphological phenomenon, which is referred to as Reflexivity Cluster Remapping. Assuming the framework of Distributed Morphology for pronoun paradigms, the various constraints that govern and limit Reflexivity Cluster Remapping are explored.
Acknowledgments
I would like to gratefully acknowledge the comments, critiques and suggestions made by two anonymous Probus reviewers. I also thank Sílvia Perpiñán and very especially David Heap for their comments and input that helped improve this paper. I would also like to thank the audiences of the Bilingual Workshop in Theoretical Linguistics in 2015 and the Canadian Linguistics Association conference in 2015, both hosted by the University of Ottawa, for their feedback.
References
Anagnostopoulou, Elena. 2003. The syntax of ditransitives: Evidence from clitics, Vol. 54. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Arregi, Karlos & Andrew Nevins. 2007. Obliteration vs. impoverishment in the Basque g-/z-constraint. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 13(1). 2.Search in Google Scholar
Bastida, Salvador. 1976. Restricciones de orden en las secuencias de clíticos del castellano: Dos requisitos. In Víctor Sánchez de Zavala (ed.), Estudios de garmática generativa, 59–99. Barcelona: Labor.Search in Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulàlia. 1991. Morphology after syntax: Pronominal clitics in Romance. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulàlia. 1994. The person-case constraint: A morphological approach. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 22. 33–52.Search in Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulàlia. 1995. The where and how of clitic order. Revue québécoise de linguistique-Université du Quebec à Montréal 24. 61–82.10.7202/603103arSearch in Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulàlia. 2002. Cliticització. Gramàtica del català contemporani 1. 954–962.Search in Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulàlia. 2008. The Person-Case constraint and repair strategies. In Roberta D’Alessandro, Susann Fischer & Hrafn Hrafnbjanson (eds.), Agreement Restrictions 103–128. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110207835.103Search in Google Scholar
Bruhn de Garavito, Joyce, David Heap & Jacques Lamarche. 2002. French and Spanish se: Underspecified, non reflexive. Actes du Congrès de l’Association canadienne de linguistique 2002, 42–54. Montréal: Université du Québec à Montréal.Search in Google Scholar
Croft, William. 1988. Agreement vs. case marking and direct objects. Agreement in natural language: Approaches, theories, descriptions, 159–179.Search in Google Scholar
de Benito Moreno, Carlota. 2015. Pero se escondíamos como las ratas. Isogloss: A Journal on Variation of Romance and Iberian Languages 1. 95–127.10.5565/rev/isogloss.1Search in Google Scholar
Embick, David & Rolf Noyer. 2007. Distributed morphology and the syntax/morphology interface. In Gillian Ramchand & Charles Reiss (eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic interfaces, 289–324. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199247455.013.0010Search in Google Scholar
Halle, Morris. 2000. Distributed morphology: Impoverishment and fission. In Jacqueline Lecarme, Jean Lowenstamm & Ur Shlonsky (eds.), Research in Afroasiatic Grammar: Papers from the third conference on Afroasiatic languages, 125–150. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/cilt.202.07halSearch in Google Scholar
Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection. In Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (eds.), The view from building 20, 111–1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Rolf Noyer. 1999. Distributed morphology. Glot International 4(4). 3–9.Search in Google Scholar
Harley, Heidi & Elizabeth Ritter. 2002. Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis. Language 78(3). 482–526.10.1353/lan.2002.0158Search in Google Scholar
Harris, James. 1995. The morphology of Spanish clitics. In Héctor Campos (ed.), Evolution and revolution in linguistic theory, 168–197. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Harris, James & Morris Halle. 2005. Unexpected plural inflections in Spanish: Reduplication and metathesis. Linguistic Inquiry 36(2). 195–222.10.1162/0024389053710710Search in Google Scholar
Heap, David. 1998. Optimalizing Iberian clitic sequences. In José Lema & Estela Treviño (eds.), Theoretical analyses on romance languages, 227–248. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/cilt.157.13heaSearch in Google Scholar
Heap, David. 2005. Constraining optimality clitic sequences and feature geometry. In Lorie Heggie & Francisco Ordóñez (eds.), Clitic and affix combinations: Theoretical perspectives, 81–102. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/la.74.05heaSearch in Google Scholar
Leben, William Ronald. 1973. Suprasegmental phonology. Barcelona: MIT PhD dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Mascaró, Joan. 1986. Morfologia, Vol. 5. Enciclopèdia catalana.Search in Google Scholar
Nevins, Andrew. 2012. Haplological dissimilation at distinct stages of exponence. In Jochen Trommer (ed.), The morphology and phonology of exponence, 84–116. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199573721.003.0003Search in Google Scholar
Noyer, Rolf. 1992. Features, Positions and Affixes in Autonomous Morphological Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Rigau, Gemma. 1982. Inanimate indirect Object in Catalan. Linguistic Inquiry 13(1). 146–150.Search in Google Scholar
Rivero, María Luisa. 2008. Oblique subjects and person restrictions in Spanish: A morphological approach. In Roberta D’Alessandro, Susann Fischer & Hrafn Hrafnbjanson (eds.), Agreement restrictions 215–250. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110207835.215Search in Google Scholar
Roberge, Yves & Marie-Thérèse Vinet. 1989. La variation dialectale en grammaire universelle. Montreal: Presses de l’Universitet de Montreal.Search in Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 2002. To be an oblique subject: Russian Vs. Icelandic. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20(4). 691–724.10.1023/A:1020445016498Search in Google Scholar
Soto-Corominas, Adriana & David Heap. Fission and impoverishment in Vernacular Catalan clitic clusters. CLA 2015 Proceedings.Search in Google Scholar
Vilà i Comajoan, Carme. 1989. El parlar de la Plana de Vic. Manresa: Caixa d’Estalvis de Manresa.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
