The Person-Case constraint and repair strategies

Abstract

Eulàlia Bonet the Person-Case constraint (PCC). This constraint, claimed there to be universal, is present in languages that have pronominal clitics, like the Romance languages, languages with weakened pronouns, like English, and languages that have a rich agreement system, like Southern Tiwa. The constraint, thus, affects complexes of ϕ-features related to the argumental structure of the verb. The most common context for the Person-Case Constraint is ditransitive clauses, even though other constructions that can trigger it are causative constructions, and constructions with datives of inalienable possession, for instance. In (1) the effects of the Person-Case Constraint are shown with a first person clitic corresponding to the Direct Object, but ungrammaticality would also arise with a second person clitic (singular or plural). Combinations of two third person clitics do not usually lead to ungrammaticality, even though they often trigger changes not relevant here. The judgements on combinations of first and second person clitics, illustrated in (4), seem to vary a lot. In some languages, these combinations are ungrammatical, while in others, like Catalan, they are grammatical for some speakers, and plainly ungrammatical for others. An additional set of speakers of Catalan accept them in only one of the possible readings, but the judgements as to which one is preferrable seem to vary from speaker to speaker. 3,4 (4) (*) Te m' ha recomanat la Mireia 2Sg 1Sg has recommended the Mireia a. 'Mireia has recommended me to you' b. 'Mireia has recommended you to me' This difference in behavior led Bonet (1991) to posit a strong version of the constraint, for speakers who do not accept sentences like (4), and a weak version of it, for speakers who do accept such combinations. These two versions were stated as follows ((5) corresponds to Bonet 1991: 182, (11)). (5) *Me lui / I-II Constraint a. STRONG VERSION: the direct object has to be third person b. WEAK VERSION: if there is a third person it has to be the direct object

Clitics in Grecia Salentina Greek: A dynamic account

“…There is however another version the weak version of the PCC according to which, 1st/2nd person accusative clitics cannot combine with a 3rd person dative clitic but they can do so with a 1st/2nd person dative clitic. This is true for languages like Catalan even though disputed by some speakers (Bonet, 2008) 39 :…”

“…In that respect, conditions on tree unfolding or on partial trees are perfectly legitimate. It is a good challenge to check whether our triggering restrictions extend to other languages as well, and if 39 Example from Bonet (2008). 40 An anonymous reviewer asks whether Polish is a clitic language at all.…”

Standard Modern and Pontic Greek Person Restrictions: A Feature-Free Dynamic Account

“…Th e account so far cannot be right for those languages in which 1st/2nd person clitics can co-occur; and these include some speakers of Spanish (Ormazabal and Romero 2007 ), Italian (Bianchi 2006 ;Cardinaletti 2008 ) and Catalan (Bonet 2007 ). According to such speakers, co-occurrence of a 1st/2nd person clitic is allowed.…”

“…me.CL-DAT you.CL-ACC has given 'S/He/It has given you to me.' [SMG] Another weaker version of the PCC has been claimed to exist in some varieties of Catalan, Italian, and Spanish (Bonet 2007 ;Bianchi 2006 andCuervo 2002 respectively). Under this looser version, the ban is not against datives in general but only against 3rd person datives, reported as precluding clusters of a 3rd person dative plus a 1st/2nd person accusative clitic but allowing combinations of a 1st/2nd person dative plus a 1st/2nd person accusative: 1…”

Elsewhere in Romance: Evidence from Clitic Clusters

“…In these dialects, the clitic cU-which is a syncretic exponent (see Prediction 3)-replaces the 3rd person dative form (re) when clustered with an identical accusative clitic. Bonet (1991Bonet ( , 1995Bonet ( , 2008-can be accounted for by suggesting that the locative /i/ -written hi-is the default exponent. It replaces en (partitive and/or ablative) when it cooccurs with an identical en exponent or when it is clustered with a 3rd person clitic.…”