Decomposing Spanish dative clitics

In Spanish, dative clitics have standardly been analyzed differently from accusative ones. The apparent different constraints that regulate each of these clitic doubling constructions have been at the base of the differing analyses. In this paper, we will argue that in spite of the alleged differences, clitic doubling in Spanish (both accusative and dative) has more in common than meets the eye. In light of a generally neglected structure in which Spanish dative clitics may not show agreement with their plural double (a.k.a. le-for-les), we will argue for a decompositional analysis of Spanish dative clitics. For us, dative clitics instantiate an applicative (Cuervo 2003, a.o.) morpheme which may be combined with a Dº head (Uriagereka 1995). This analysis will allow us not only to explain the le-for-les phenomenon observed, accounting for its distribution and syntactic licensing, but also the definiteness interpretation that an agreeing dative clitic is subject to, in turn providing a uniform account for the parallelisms between accusative (i.e., purely Dº) and dative (i.e., Applicative + optional Dº) clitic doubling. Finally, certain contexts in which les surfaces and that fail to be accounted for under our proposal are provided an account in terms of “harmonic agreement,” while still keeping the analysis proposed to account for both new and old data and observations.

Anáforas reflexivas y doblado de clíticos en lenguas romances

In this paper I analyze the distribution of the reflexive construction se + a sí mismo in Romance (e.g., ‘Juan se peinó a sí mismo’). I propose that these structures are transitive. Concretely, I argue that in these cases the reflexive anaphor is the internal argument of the predicate, and that the obligatory presence of the clitic se is due to the general phenomenon of clitic doubling with pronominal objects. I show that this approach can account for some asymmetries between these constructions and simple se-reflexives regarding expletive insertion in French, proxy readings, comparative constructions, association with focus, and case distribution in causatives.

Deriving VOS from VSO in Tongan

Research on word order has established several possible ways in which VOS order can be derived from VSO order. This chapter considers the derivational relationship between VSO and VOS in the Polynesian language Tongan. VSO order is basic in Tongan, and we address the derivation of VOS from this basic order in the context of multiple possibilities. We argue that Tongan VOS is better analyzed as rightward displacement of the subject as opposed to leftward displacement of the object proposed by Otsuka (2005a,c). The clause-final subject shows many of the hallmarks of rightward movement, including information-structural restrictions, locality with respect to the matrix clause, lack of clitic doubling, and connectivity with respect to case and binding. Given that rightward movement has an uneasy place in syntactic theory, we take pains to establish that the analysis is successful and worth further scrutiny.

The Diachrony of Differential Object Marking in Romanian

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the beginnings, development, and stabilization of differential object marking (DOM) in Romanian by combining two approaches: diachronic syntax and comparative syntax. The working hypothesis is that Romanian DOM reflects a typological mix of Balkan and Romance DOM patterns, and that the assessment of the mixed structures must separately quantify three DOM mechanisms in this language (through clitic doubling, DOM particle, and the combination of the above). Tests applied to these DOM mechanisms indicated the nominal domain as the repository for DOM triggers in Romanian, as opposed to the verbal domain in other Romance languages. The cross-linguistic perspective adopted in this book is instrumental for revisiting the DOM typologies in light of the variations shown to occur in the location of the DOM particle and the pronominal clitic (i.e., either on the nominal or on the verb spines).

La discordancia de número en el doblado de objeto indirecto: nuevos datos del español de Galicia

The article analyses the loss of agreement between the dative clitic and its plural nominal referent in indirect object clitic-doubling in Spanish spoken in Galicia. On the basis of the previously defended hypothesis that number disagreement makes part of a grammaticalisation process whereby the clitic becomes a case affix, the paper examines some internal factors which lack consensus in previous studies, such as the relation between (in)transitivity and position of the clitic or animacity of nominal referents of the IO, and other external factors. Data analysis reveals that the percentage of disagreement in this area is much higher than in other Spanish speaking areas. This fact might be a consequence of language contact with Galician, a language where number inflection in the dative clitic is neutralised. To verify this hypothesis, the paper explores the relation between the number of occurrences of disagreement and the level of bilingualism of the speakers.

“Ah non, je ne parle pas anglais moi. Je suis française !” Une contribution à la typologie des pragmatèmes

This work presents and discusses the development of the hypothesis according to which clitic doubling (pronominal reduplication), as seen in the sentence “Je ne parle pas anglais moi. / I do not speak English [me]”, has the fundamental structural and pragmatic parameters of the pragmatem (R. D e O l i v e i r a, 2018). Structural, because it is a compositional construction but selected as a whole by the speaker to respond to a communication goal associated with a precise utterance situation (G. F l é c h o n et al., 2012); pragmatic, since this device is a means of acting on the interlocutive context, allowing the accomplishment of a certain number of specific acts (I. M e l’č u k, 2013). In this sense, we argue that, like the pragmatem, the devise called French clitic doubling simultaneously has the following three characteristics, it is (i) fixed, (ii) compositional, and (iii) associated with a specific utterance situation.

Audiovisual translation (dubbing and audio description) as a didactic tool to promote foreign language learning

This empirical study focuses on the use of Spanish clitic pronouns when they function as accusative or as dative clitics in the translation tasks performed by university students of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL). The participants were 35 Belgian Dutch-speaking students of SFL (Level B2) from the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication of Ghent University (Belgium), who are enrolled in the Translation course. They were asked to perform two tasks: (1) to create an audio description script in Spanish, and (2) to translate the English dialogues into Spanish from a sequence taken from the film The Help (Taylor 2011). The written texts they produced were compared to those written by 39 Erasmus Spanish native students, who carried out the same tasks. The results showed that the Belgian students produced significantly fewer clitic pronouns, especially in the case of dative clitic doubling, than those produced by the Spanish natives. As for the differences between the two modes of audiovisual translation, the findings revealed that the Belgians produced more accurate results in the interlingual than in the intersemiotic task. The results of our study also made it clear that more attention should be paid to the use of redundant clitic pronouns in the SFL classroom.

Feature Gluttony

This article develops a new approach to a family of hierarchy-effect inducing configurations, with a focus on Person Case Constraint effects, dative-nominative configurations, and copula constructions. The main line of approach in the recent literature is to attribute these effects to failures of φ-Agree or, more specifically, failures of nominal licensing or case checking. We propose that the problem in these configurations is unrelated to nominal licensing, but is instead the result of a probe participating in more than one Agree dependency, a configuration we refer to as feature gluttony. Feature gluttony does not in and of itself lead to ungrammaticality; rather, it can create irresolvably conflicting requirements for subsequent operations. We argue that in the case of clitic configurations, a probe that agrees with more than one DP creates an intervention problem for clitic doubling. In violations involving morphological agreement, gluttony in features may result in a configuration with no available morphological output.