The clitic string as a Pair Merge sequence

Abstract

We argue that clitics are structured by Pair Merge, rather than by Set Merge. This contrasts with classical approaches treating the head status of clitics as derived from a fundamentally phrasal syntax. We show that different structures of merger for clitics and phrasal arguments (including full pronouns) can explain well-known empirical differences that otherwise need to be stipulated or derived via extra-syntactic—viz. morphological—mechanisms. This view of cliticization seems to run into immediate problems once we move away from object clitics in finite declarative sentences in Italian or French and tackle slightly less familiar linguistic systems that allow interpolation, enclisis (inversion), and allow clitic sequences to split (object vs. subject clitics). We argue that the above phenomena receive a principled explanation under the assumption that clitics are pair merged with different phase heads.

Romance pronominal clitics as pure heads

“…By construction, no member of the sequence can be singled out by grammatical operationswhich is the essence of incorporation. Crucially, Manzini and Pescarini's (2021) model presupposes that clitics are pure heads, as argued here.…”

“…However, incorporation is undesirable in present terms, since it reintroduces operations of head movement that are otherwise avoided in the generation of the clitic string. A promising alternative approached is proposed by Manzini & Pescarini (2021), whose key assumption is that clitic heads are not introduced into the derivation by Set Merge, but rather by Pair Merge. Specifically <Cl, H> merge pairs, where H is a verbal head (say v) are built into Pair Merge sequences, in the sense of Chomsky (2020).…”

“…The literature generally accounts for these facts in terms of head movement (Kayne 1991;Roberts 2010)which is undesirable here for the same reasons as incorporation above. Manzini & Pescarini (2021) again offer an alternative based on the idea that clitic strings correspond to Pair Merge sequences. Specifically, they propose that the Pair Merge sequence can be built with any phase head as a Link (in the sense of Chomsky 2020)hence with v or with (C-)I.…”