A Curious Case of Third Person Auxiliary Clitic
Jana Willer-Gold and Anita Peti-Stantić
Research question/Theory
In Croatian clitic clusters, nominal clitic(s) interact with the verbal clitic to produce what is often taken to be a predictable order of the prosodically weak element. And, while the two object clitics are argued to show preference for indirect>direct clitic order, of particular interest in this study are the orders where the (third person singular) auxiliary can be left unpronounced, and, moreover, the featural values of the nominal clitics involved (Stanojević 2011, Franks 2017). We refer to this phenomenon of dropping the auxiliary clitic as aux-drop. The study has two aims. First, to experimentally establish the order of double object clitics, (1), and object and auxiliary clitics, (2), in the clitic clusters. Secondly, to posit the factors that constrain the preferred order(s), and provide the right featural setup for the aux-drop.
(1a) On ti ga je preporučio.
he cl.Dat.Masc.2Sg cl.Acc.Masc.3sg cl.aux.3sg recommended.Masc.3sg
‘He recommended him to you.’
(1b) *%On mu me/te je preporučio.
he cl.Dat.Masc.3Sg cl.Acc.Masc.1/2sg cl.aux.3sg recommended.Masc.3sg
‘He recommended me/you to him.’
(2a) *On ti ga ∅ preporučio.
he cl.Dat.Masc.2Sg cl.Acc.Masc.3sg cl.aux.3sg recommended.Masc.3sg
‘He recommended him to you.’
(2b) On mu me/te je/∅ preporučio.
he cl.Dat.Masc.3Sg cl.Acc.Masc.1/2sg cl.aux.3sg recommended.Masc.3sg
‘He recommended me/you to him.’
(2c) Ja sam ti ga preporučio.
I cl.aux.1sg cl.Dat.Masc.2Sg cl.Acc.Masc.3sg recommended.Masc.3s
‘I recommended him to you.’
(2d) Ja sam mu te preporučio.
I cl.Dat.Masc.3Sg cl.Acc.Masc.1/2sg cl.aux.3sg recommended.Masc.3sg
‘I recommended you to him.’
Methodology
A large-scale experimental study was designed to probe the grammaticality of double object, (1), and categorially mixed, (2a/b), clitic clusters by native speakers of Croatian. The study, the first of its kind, comprises four experiments spread across two tasks – an acceptability judgment task and two-option forced choice task. The motivation for the introduction of two types of tasks was multifold: firstly, to assign psycholinguistic (naturalness ratings, preferences and reaction times) measures to this basic set of linguistics data; secondly, to gain an indication of the present-day status of the scope of the person ordering constraint (i.e. preference for first and second person to be ordered before the third person) and the optionality of aux-drop in Croatian based on a large number of native speakers; and thirdly, to measure the extent of optionality of aux-drop in a single vs. double object environments in order to verify and capture the preferential (vs. prescriptive vs. errors) nature observed for instances of the aux-drop in clitic clusters.
Materials were designed specifically for this study crossing three factors: Case [Acc>Dat, Dat>Acc], Person [1.2>3, 3>1.2, 3>3] and aux-drop [yes, no]. The same set of materials was used to ensure comparability across tasks, data collection, measures and analysis. Participants were university students, native speakers of Croatian (N(Total)=150, Age(Mean): 24, F/M: 115/35).
Results
The results of the acceptability judgments tasks are indicated in (1) and (2a/b) by [*=low in naturalness] and [%=not high in naturalness]. The results of the forced choice tasks highlight the optionality of the aux-drop, as no preference is observed for je vs ∅ in (2b). In addition, longer reaction times were recorded for (2b)-je compared to (2b)-∅, suggesting preference or processing facilitation of the sentences when the auxiliary is dropped (potentially due to high frequency of je). Finally, the results confirm the effect of the Person ordering constraint in double-object clitic clusters in (1); suggesting that additional restrictions on the ordering of pronominal clitics is imposed in addition to case or the thematic role hierarchy (i.e. dat>acc) (Runić 2013).
Discussion
By analysing the (narrower) set of data in (2a) and (2b), the results could be accounted for by a simple phonological rule of je-deletion (Barić et al. 1990:284–285, Silić 2006). Je is deleted after similar sounding syllables (clitics) me, te, se. However, by expanding the data under analysis to (2c) and (2d) (which show that the first and second person auxiliary has to precede the double object clitics and cannot be dropped), we aim to dig deeper under the surface phonological rule to show that a pattern emerges – one of the person ordering constraint already observed for the double-object clitic clusters in Croatian, as well as in a large number of other unrelated languages. Therefore, once a full paradigm in (2) is taken into consideration, it allows us to consider aux-drop under a larger family of (syntactically powered) person ordering constraint phenomena. The proposed analysis hinges on the ordering of first and second vs third person auxiliary and the proposed Gender-Person Implicational Split generalisation that derives (i) the observed order inside the mixed category clitic clusters and (ii) the categorial difference between nominal and verbal clitics.
References:
Barić, Eugenija, Mijo Lončarić, Dragica Malić, Slavko Pavešić, Mirko Peti, Vesna Zećević, and Marija Znika. 1990. Gramatika hrvatskoga književnog jezika. 2nd ed. Zagreb: Školska knjiga.
Franks, Steven. 2017. Syntax and Spell-Out in Slavic. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers.
Franks, Steven. 2018. PCC Violations and Their Resolutions. In T. Ionin and J. MacDonald (Eds.) Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Urbana-Champaign Meeting. Champaign: Michigan Slavic Materials.
Runić, Jelena. 2013. The Person-Case Constraint: A Morphological Consensus. LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts Vol 4., 37: 1-5.
Silić, Josip. 2006. Funkcionalni stilovi hrvatskog jezika. Zagreb: Disput.
Stanojević, Milan-Mateusz. 2011. Modeling epistemic distance: the Croatian l–participle, Suvremena lingvistika 72: 219-239.
Stegovec, Adrian. 2020. Taking Case out of the Person-Case Constraint, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 38: 261–311.
Stjepanović, Sandra. 1999. What do Second Position Cliticization, Scrambling, and Multiple wh–fronting Have in Common? Doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut.
Škarić, Ivo. 1985. Slovo, glas i fonem j. Jezik, 32: 132-138.
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