RRL, LXIII, 3, p. 281–295, Bucureşti, 2018
EVIDENCE FROM CATALAN DIALECTAL DA TA
1ANNA PARADÍS*
Abstract: This paper analyses descriptively and theoretically the scope of clitic climbing in Catalan varieties. Dialectal data presented show a new extension of this phenomenon, which lies beyond the traditionally so-called restructuring class.
Furthermore, the linguistic facts observed seem to indicate the existence of an ongoing syntactic change promoted by young speakers. Ultimately, microsyntactic data support the assumption that CC triggering verbs involve a bi-clausal structure headed by a Cdef/Tdef embedded domain.
Keywords: restructuring, clitic climbing, phases, Catalan varieties, syntactic microvariation.
1. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims to examine Catalan microsyntactic data in order to analyse which contexts may give rise to clitic climbing and which are the constraining factors. As it will be shown, novel data presented indicate that clitic climbing does not occur only with the traditionally so-called restructuring class, that is, modals, aspectuals and some verbs of motion (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976; Rizzi 1982 and Cinque 2006, among others), which seems to indicate the existence of an ongoing syntactic change in the scope of this phenomenon promoted by young generations.
Ultimately, this paper attempts to present a formal account, under a phase-based approach, of the linguistic facts observed. Namely, it argues that the data collected provide evidence for the claim that clitic climbing triggering verbs involve a bi-clausal structure with a defective embedded domain.
* Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, [email protected].
I would like to express my gratitude to the numerous Catalan informants for their valuable help with dialectal data. I am also grateful to the audience at Workshop on Formal Approaches on Romance Microvariation in Bucharest. Finally, I would like to thank Gemma Rigau for her helpful comments and suggestions on an early draft of this paper.
This study was supported by the grant FI-DGR 2015 AGAUR (Generalitat de Catalunya) and funded by the projects FFI2014-56968-C4-1-P (MINECO) and SGR 2014-1013 AGAUR (Generalitat de Catalunya).
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces restructuring contexts and clitic climbing in Catalan. Section 3 offers a description of the data and results obtained.
Section 4 presents a theoretical proposal. Section 5 concludes the paper.
2. RESTRUCTURING AND CLITIC CLIMBING IN Catalan
2.1. Catalan restructuring contexts
Restructuring is a widely researched topic in linguistics, especially in Romance languages (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976; Rizzi 1982; Zubizarreta 1982; Picallo 1990;
Wurmbrand 2001; Cinque 2006, Grano 2015, among others). The main property of restructuring predicates is the transparency between the main verb, which acts similarly to an auxiliary, and its infinitival embedded complement. Originally, the term “restructuring”
was used to describe these contexts as the result of the transformation of an initial bi- clausal structure into a mono-clausal structure (Rizzi 1976). Here, we use the label
‘restructuring’ to refer to those contexts in which the embedded infinitival clause is transparent, that is, in which it exhibits a set of long-distance dependencies and clause- bound processes, such as auxiliary-switch, which is attested when a matrix verb may inherit the auxiliary associated with the embedded verb (aver ‘have’ in (1) and ser ‘be’ in (2–3)).
(1) Tots los barons d’Alamanya l’ agren all the knights from Germany CL.ACC.M.3SG. have.3PL vengut ver.1
come see
‘All the barons from Germany have come to visit him’ [Medieval Catalan]
(2) Es pas pogut venir
is.AUX PresNeg can.PPT come.INF
‘He was not able to come’ [Occitan] (Alibèrt 1935: 317) (3) Gli invitati sono cominciato di arrivare alle cinque.
the guests be.AUX start.PPT of arrive.INF at five
‘The guests started to arrive at 5’ [Italian] (Rizzi 1976: 2) As these examples show, auxiliary switch is not a valid test for restructuring in Modern Catalan, unlike in Occitan (2) and Italian (3). Thus, the fundamental question that we address is how to determine the relevant facts that define restructuring in Catalan. For this purpose, we present a set of transparency effects that we consider to be a reliable test for the diagnosis of restructuring verbs: i) long tough-movement (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976; Rizzi 1982); ii) subject inversion (Solà-Pujols 1992); and iii) embedded presuppositional negative marker pas (Llop and Paradís 2017, forth.).
i) Long tough-movement is argued to constitute a valid test to distinguish restructuring verbs (4a) from non-restructuring verbs (4b) (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976;
1 Example from Desclot, Crònica (II:6), provided by Massanell and Mateu (2015: 195).
Rizzi 1982). In this type of movement relation, the object of the embedded clause appears to have raised to the matrix subject position2.
(4) a. Aquesta llei és difícil de tornar a aplicar.
‘This law is difficult to apply again’
b. *Aquesta llei és difícil de prometre (d’)aplicar.
‘This law is difficult to promise to apply’
ii) The second relevant fact is subject inversion (see Solà-Pujols 2002), which in Catalan is possible only with restructuring verbs (5a). These verbs allow the inverted subject to occur in the infinitival clause3, unlike non-restructuring verbs (5b).
(5) a. Va poder contactar- hi
AUX.PAST.3SG can.INF contact.INF CL.OBL la Mariona per correu.
the Mariona by mail
‘Mariona managed to contact her by mail.’
b. *Va insistir a contactar- hi
AUX.PAST.3SG insist.INF to contact CL.OBL la Mariona per correu.
the Mariona by mail
‘Mariona insisted on contacting her by mail.’
iii) Finally, we argue that the possibility of long-distance licensing of the embedded presuppositional negative marker pas as a Negative Polarity Item is a reliable test to determine which verbs allow restructuring in Catalan (Llop and Paradís 2017, forth.)4. This is illustrated by the minimal pair (6a-b) below.
(6) a. No vol treballar pas
NEG want.3SG.PRES.IND work.INF PRES.NEG quan hi ha vaga.
when there is strike
2 Due to space limitations, we will not dwell on this phenomenon here. For the purposes of this paper, we note only that long tough-movement is attested with the so-called restructuring verbs, as illustrated by the contrast between (4a) and (4b).
3 Some speakers find (5a) to be marginal. Nevertheless, these same speakers sense a contrast between (5a) and (5b). These facts indicate that postverbal subject positions in infinitival clauses are more restricted in Catalan than in Spanish. See Herbeck (2013) and Ordóñez (in press) for an analysis of the subject position in verbal complexes in the two languages.
4 As shown in Llop and Paradís (2017), not all Catalan varieties display embedded pas.
Rousselloinese, Pallarese and North-Western Catalan varieties the only position available is the canonical one, between both verbs, as in (i).
(i) No vol pas treballar quan hi ha vaga.
NEG want.3SG.PRESI PRESNEG work.INF when there is strike
‘She does not want to work at all when there is a strike.’
b. *No admet treballar pas NEG agree.3SG.PRES.IND work.INF PRESNEG quan hi ha vaga.
when there is strike
‘She does not want/agree to work at all when there is a strike.’
2.2 On Clitic Climbing
Apart from the aforementioned tests, Clitic Climbing (henceforth CC), wherein the clitic associated with the infinitive is attached to a verb that is not its θ-role assigner (7b), is considered to be a bona fide diagnosis for restructuring verbs (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976;
Rizzi 1982; Cinque 2006), as examples (7) and (8) illustrate5. While the restructuring verb començar a ‘start’ displays CC (7b), the non-restructuring verb admetre ‘accept, agree’
rejects it (8b).
(7) a. Començaré a pensar-hi. [Catalan]
start.FUT.1SG to think CL.OBL
b. Hi començaré a pensar. (Hernanz and Rigau 1984: 31) CL.OBL start. FUT.1SG to think
‘I’ll start to think about it’
(8) a. Va admetre pensar-hi. [Catalan]
AUX.PAST.3SG admit.INF think.INF CL.OBL
b. *Hi va admetre pensar.
CL.OBL AUX.PAST.3SG admit.INF think.INF
‘(S)he agreed to think about it’
Contrary to the common assumption that restructuring contexts correspond to those in which CC is triggered (Aissen and Perlmutter 1976; Napoli 1981; Rizzi 1982, among others), we argue that CC is an optional phenomenon in restructuring contexts in Catalan.
The following data provide evidence for this claim: despite the presence of two transparency effects, such as embedded pas (9) and subject inversion ((5a) repeated here as (10)), clitics may be hosted by the infinitive.
(9) En Pau no ha de fer- ho pas, si
the Pau NEG has-to do.INF CL.ACC.NEUT PRESNEG if no vol.
NEG wants
‘Pau doesn’t have to do it, if he doesn’t want to.
(10) Va poder contactar- hi
AUX.PAST.3SG can.INF contact.INF CL-OBL la Mariona per correu.
the Mariona by mail
‘Mariona managed to contact her by mail’
5 In this paper we do not discuss Catalan causative and perception verbs, which also trigger CC. We refer the reader to Villalba (1994) and Ciutescu (2013).
Conversely, in other Romance varieties, such as Neapolitan, CC is obligatory (11), while in other varieties, such as Brazilian Portuguese (12) and Borgomanerese (13), CC is ruled out. In other languages, like Romanian, CC is only available in few contexts, like the putea + bare infinitive construction (14).
(11) O jamm’ a chiammà [Neapolitan]
,,,,,,,,, CL.ACC.3SG go.1SG to call.INF
We are going to call him’ (Ledgeway 2000: 83) (12) *Me quis telefonar ontem. [Brazilian Portuguese]
CL.DAT.1SG wanted call.INF yesterday
‘I wanted to call you up yesterday’ (Cyrino 2010: 189)
(13) *I gu vori de par Nadal [Borgomanerese]
SCL CL.ACC.M.SG want to.give for Christmas
‘I want to give it to him for Christmas’ (Tortora 2014: 141) (14) Cartea o pot citi acum. [Romanian]
book.DEF.ACC CL.ACC.F.3SG can.I read.INF now
‘I can read the book now’ (Dragomirescu 2013: 194) Considering this scenario, the question that arises is whether there is a homogenous picture in Catalan varieties. We examine this in the next section.
3. DATA
3.1. The sample
In order to analyze the distribution of CC in Catalan, we focused on the following main Catalan dialects: Balearic, Central Cat., North-Western and Valencian (See figure 1)6.
Figure 1
6 Due to space limitations, we leave the Rousillenese and Alguerese varieties for further research (see Paradís, in prep.).
The data presented is based on two corpora sources (Corpus Oral Dialectal del Català/COD and Corpus Oral Col·loquial del Català/COC, Universitat de Barcelona).
Apart from these sources, and due to the reduced number of relevant contexts found in these corpora, we also collected data using short questionnaires7.
3.2. Results
The analysis of the results obtained resulted in the following observations.
1. An ongoing syntactic change in the scope of CC. We found empirical evidence that, although CC is expected to arise only with the so-called restructuring verbs (Rizzi 1982; Cinque 2006), there are some lexical verbs that allow CC (e.g. aprendre ‘learn, decidir ‘decide’).
(14) Algun dia ho aprendrem a fer.
some day CL.ACC.NEUT learn.FUT.1SG.PL to do
‘Some day, we will learn to do it’ [N.W Cat./Central Cat.]
(15) El varen decidir fer abans.
CL.ACC.M.3SG AUX.PAST.3PL decide.INF do.INF before
‘They decided to do it before.’ [Balearic]
In the majority of cases, this tendency was observed in young speakers, while older informants often rejected it. Aside from that, a striking related fact was the observation of clitic reduplication with these verbs (16).
(16) El va decidir
CL.ACC.M.3SG AUX.PAST.3SG decide.INF
portar- lo a un altre lloc.
bring.INF CL.ACC.M.3SG to an other place
‘He/she decided to bring him to another place’ [Central Cat.]
This may be a reflection of this ongoing syntactic change, in which the pattern of enclisis in the infinitive is being replaced by proclisis to the matrix verb.
2. A trend in some variaties (Balearic, Ribagorzan and Central Catalan) towards CC with some non-restructuring verbs.
(17) La varen demanar veure dues
voltes. CL.ACC.F.SG AUX.PAST.3PL demand.INF see.INF two.times
‘They demand to see her twice’ [Balearic]
(18) No nyavia dia que no la
NEG there-was day that NEG CL.ACC.F.3SG
7 Data provided by Corpus Oral Dialectal del Català and Corpus Oral Col·loquial del Català (Universitat de Barcelona) are scarce. Nonetheless, the few occurrences we found and the data obtained through questionnaires show similar patterns.
supliqués anar a veure.
begged go.INF to see
‘There was not a day he didn’t beg to go see her.’ [Ribagorzan]
(19) Dic si allò m' ho
say.PRES.IND1Sif that CL.DAT.1SG CL.ACC.NEUT ensenyaràs a fer el cap de semana.
teach.FUT.2SG to do the weekend
‘I mean if you will teach me to do that over the weekend?’
[Central] (1568-1579, Conversation 5, COC) 3. Some clitics are more likely to climb.
The data reveal that a relevant factor for the analysis of CC is the nature of the clitic.
Specifically, person features and case seem to be two of the main constraining factors.
Thus, 1st and 2nd person clitics and locative clitics are more likely to climb than 3rd person accusative (see the contrast between 20–21)8.
(20) Jo hi vaig proposar
I CL.LOC AUX.PAST.1SG propose.INF
(d’) anar ahir.
DE go.INF yesterday
‘I proposed to go there yesterday’
(21) ?La va proposar (de) veure
CL.ACC.F.3SG AUX.PAST.3SG propose.INF DE see.INF l’altre dia.
the other day
‘He/she proposes to see her the other day’
Apart from these observations, the data indicate the following three dependent particular facts.
i) There is a tendency towards proclisis in Catalan (Borja Moll 1952). Thus, the data seem to evince that clitics prefer a finite host. This preference is visible, mainly, in those contexts involving anar ‘go’ (past auxiliary) + INF. In fact, data gathered from COD and COC reveal that in these contexts, in the majority of cases, the clitic is attached to the auxiliary instead of the infinitive, as exemplified in (22).
(22) Ens vem dutxar i després
CL.1PL AUX.PAST.1PL have-shower.INF and then
li vaig fer un susto an aquesta.
CL.DAT.3SG AUX. PAST.1SG make.INF a scare to her
8 More data is required for an in-depth analysis of how the nature of the clitic constrains CC.
Nevertheless, it seems plausible to relate CC to the tendency of 1st and 2nd clitics to occur in proclisis, given that these clitics refer to discourse-participants (see § 4.2).
Et vaig espantar, eh?
CL.ACC.2SG AUX. PAST.1SG scare.INF uh?
‘We had a shower and then I scared her. I scare you, didn’t I?’
(1331–1336, Conv. 5, COC)
This trend is so strong that in some cases the variant with enclisis appears to be little used (23).
(23) Gràcies pel regal; va agradar-
thank you for-the present AUX.PAST.3SG like.INF me tant!
CL.1SG a lot!
‘Thank you for the present; I liked it a lot!’
ii) In some Balearic varieties, this tendency is extended to contexts with gerunds, in which CC is obligatory, as example (24) shows.
(24) No veus que no (t’) estan NEG. see.2SG that NEG CL.ACC.2SG AUX.be.3PL
escoltant-(*te)? [Bal.]
listening.CL.ACC.2SG
‘Don’t you see that they aren’t listen to you?’
iii) The data collected show that in Ribagorzan Catalan the scope of CC is wider than in the other varieties considered in this study. As previously reported by Rigau (2005), in Ribagorzan, CC may be triggered by the verb caldre ‘need’ (25). This is ruled out in the other varieties analyzed here.
(25) No te la cal veure, ixa part. [Rib.]
NEG CL.2SG CL.ACC.F.3SG needs see.INF this.F.SG part
‘You do not need to see this part’
These observations lend support to the claim that in these varieties the preference for a [+Fin] host is being further extended to non-restructuring verbs, in comparison with the other varieties analyzed.
3.3. Summary
In a nutshell, the data collected seem to suggest the existence of an ongoing syntactic change in the scope of CC carried out by young generations. Hence, not only modals, aspectuals and some verbs of motion allow CC, but also some control verbs, such as proposar ‘propose’ or decidir ‘decide’. Aside from this, the data not only indicate age as a relevant factor for this change but also the nature of the clitic and the place of origin of speakers; that is, the correlation observed between the high occurrences of proclisis and the tendency to use CC with non-restructuring verbs in some varieties reveals that some dialects are further ahead in this syntactic change. Considering these linguistic facts, we
claim that it is necessary to reanalyze the scope of CC and present a formal approach that takes into account those contexts in which CC is exhibited with some control verbs that have not been traditionally considered restructuring verbs.
4. TOWARDS A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
Considering the aforementioned linguistic facts, we present ananalysis of these structures under a phase-based approach. We consider that CC triggering control verbs are lexical and select a weak phasal complement headed by a Cdef/Tdef. We discuss this theoretical approach below.
4.1. On the lexical nature of CC triggering verbs
In this section, we present a set of empirical facts to support the idea that, contrary to what is assumed by some authors (Rosen 1989; Napoli 1981 and Cinque 2006), control verbs that may give rise to CC – whether it is a restructuring verb, such as voler ‘want’, or not, such as decide ‘decide’ – are unlikely to be analyzable as functional or auxiliary verbs (in line with Monachesi 1998; Gonçalves 1999; Wurmbrand 2004; Balza 2012).
i) Unlike auxiliaries (26), they may license independent events. Thus, they allow two possible readings involving two independent events (27).
(26) El govern ho va dir moltes vegades.
the government CL.NEUT AUX.PAST.3SG say.INF several times
‘The government said that several times’
(27) El govern ho va voler dir
the government CL.NEUT AUX.PAST.3SG want.INFsay.INF moltes vegades.
several times
‘The government wanted to say that several times’
Reading A: There were several times that the government wanted to say that.
Reading B: The government wanted to say that several times.
Napoli (1981: 874) claims that the only reading available with CC is the one in which the adverb takes scope over the matrix verb. We reject this view. As (27) shows both readings are available, regardless of the presence of CC.
ii) In contrast with auxiliaries (28), they do not cluster (29).
(28) *El que vaig és fer- ho bé.
DET what AUX.PAST.3SG is do.INF CL.ACC.NEUT well
‘What I did was to do it well’
(29) El que intento és fer- ho
DET what try.1SG.PRES.IND is do.INF CL.ACC.NEUT
bé.
well
‘What I try is to do it well’
iii) They take an external argument (30) and establish thematic relations with their arguments. Hence, it seems unlikely that they are equivalent to raising verbs (31)9. (30) La Núria/*El tren vol marxar a les 6.
‘Núria/*The train wants to leave at 6’
(31) La Núria/ El tren va marxar a les 6.
‘Núria/The train left at 6’
Likewise, it is difficult to maintain a functional analysis for those CC triggering verbs that take an internal argument, like ensenyar ‘teach’.
(32) Uns amics m’ hi van ensenyar a jugar.
DET friends CL.DAT.1SG CL.OBL AUX.PAST.3PL teach.INF to play
‘Some friends taught me how to play’
iv) Cinque (2006) determines the position of a predicate in the hierarchy by its meaning.
This account – albeit elegant – is not always tenable. CC triggering verbs are not always subject to restrictions on order. For instance, aconseguir ‘manage’ and intentar ‘try’ may not follow the order frustrative/success (aconseguir ‘manage’) >
conative (intentar ‘try’) predicted by Cinque’s hierarchy, as it is shown in (33) and (34)10. (33) Com a mínim, el comitè va intentar aconseguir negociar-hi.
‘At least, the committee tried to manage to negotiate with him’
(34) Com a mínim, el comitè va aconseguir intentar negociar-hi.
‘At least, the committee managed to try to negotiate with him’
4.2. On the bi-clausal nature of CC triggering verbs
The second theoretical aspect to consider is the categorial status of the infinitival complement. As it has been argued in the previous section, a functional analysis does not fully account for the data collected. Likewise, we argue that an analysis of CC triggering verbs as lexical that, however, assumes a monoclausal structure (Wurmbrand 2004; Grano 2015) is not tenable either11. Conversely, we claim that CC triggering verbs involve a defective embedded domain (Gonçalves 1999; Boeckx and Gallego 2008; Cyrino 2010,
9 An alternative view would be to consider that verbs like intentar ‘try’ and aconseguir
‘manage’ select an adjunct role (Zubizarreta 1982). It seems unlikely that this is the case, given that these verbs clearly lack raising properties.
10 As Wurmbrand (2004) notes, this fact per se does not constitute evidence for an analysis of these verbs as lexical. Nevertheless, as this author points out (2004: 1004), a completely functional analysis à la Cinque would entail the assumption that parts of the functional hierarchy can be repeated in order to explain ordering variability.
11 But see Wurmbrand (2013), where she assumes that restructuring may involve a voice domain.
among others). More concretely, we claim that the infinitive is headed by a phi-incomplete head Cdef/Tdef. The following facts support this analysis.
i) The clitic may climb over non-finite low complementizer de (35).
(35) Hi mirava d’ anar sempre que podia.
CL.LOC tried.3SG COMP go.INF always that could.3SG
‘She tried to go there whenever she could’
Example (35) constitutes a strong piece of evidence for the claim that CC involves a bi-clausal structure, since these complementizers are assumed to be located in Fin (Rizzi 1997).
ii) In some cases, the embedded clause constitutes a minimal government domain for binding relations, as illustrated in (36), where the object clitic may take its reference from the matrix subject.
(36) En Joani em recomanà presentar-
the Joan CL.DAT.1SG recommended introduce.INF loi/j al meu cap.
CL.ACC.M.3SG to my boss
‘Joan recommended that I introduce him to my boss’
iii) There are some contexts in which there is the possibility of conflicting temporal modifiers (37) and (38).
(37) Per ara no ho penso fer demà.
‘By now I do not intend to do it tomorrow’
(38) Ahir es van decidir casar l’estiu vinent.
‘Yesterday they decided to marry next summer’
These facts are straightforwardly explained if we assume a bi-clausal structure with a defective embedded domain, which allows long-distance dependencies and clause-bound processes. Under this approach, the embedded T is defective, carrying an unvalued T-feature (Pesetsky and Torrego 2004), which is valued by matrix T. This temporal dependence is displayed by CC triggering verbs. Consider the following examples.
(39) *Ahir vaig aconseguir/aprendre a dir-ho avui. (simultaneous)
‘*Yesterday, I managed/learnt to say it today’
(40) *Avui he decidit/proposat dir-ho ahir. (future-oriented)
‘*Today I decided/proposed to say it yesterday’
(41) Aquest matí he negat haver-ho dit ahir. (unselected)
‘This morning I denied to have said it yesterday’
As these examples highlight, the scope of CC is being extended to verbs that constrain the temporal location of the embedded clause (Landau 2004; Wiklund 2005;
Gonçalves et al. 2010), that is, verbs that do not allow tense mismatches (39) or future irrealis verbs, which only present future-oriented mismatches (38). Conversely, verbs like deny or defend, which allow not only future but also past-oriented mismatches (41), do not give rise to CC (43).
(42) Hi va intentar/voler/ decidir anar.
CL.LOC AUX.PAST.3SG try.INF want.INF decide.INF go.INF
‘I wanted to go there’
(43) *Hi defensaré anar. (Hernanz and Rigau 1984: 43)
CL.LOC defend.FUT.1SG go.INF
‘I’ll defend that I go there’
In light of these facts, we consider that verbs like defend and deny select an embedded infinitival clause that constitutes a strong phase; thus, they disallow not only CC, which would imply a violation of the Phase Impenetrability Condition (Chomsky 2000), but also other transparency effects, such as the licensing of an embedded presuppositional negative marker pas by a preverbal matrix negative operator (Llop and Paradís 2017, forth.). Indeed, this prediction is borne out in (44a-b).
(44) a. *No va admetre venir pas.
‘She did not agree to come at all’
b. *No va defensar venir pas.
‘She did not defend that she come at all’
Therefore, while verbs without tense restrictions – whose infinitival complements are unselected or free for temporal reference (Landau 2004) – involve a strong phasal embedded complement, CC triggering verbs may allow CC given that the embedded v is phi-defective, making the clitic visible for further computation. Thus, clitic is probed from the edge of v*P by the matrix v* (45)12.
(45) [C [T [EA v* [V [C def [Tdef [EA CL vdef [V tcl ]]]]]]]]
↑ ↑
Regarding the fact that clitics display a hybrid status between X°'s/XP's (Kayne 1991; Chomsky 1994), we argue that cliticization involves an initial stage where the clitic moves as an XP to a phase head. Evidence for this initial stage comes from participial agreement (46). In the second stage, the clitic becomes a head (Sportiche 1996).
(46) Abans d’acabar la tesi, les has d’ haver analitzades.
before finishing the PhD CL.ACC.F.SG have to have analysed.F.PL
‘Before finishing the PhD you must have analysed them.’
Recall that CC is optional in Catalan, as it has been illustrated in section 2.2.
Therefore, we assume that the clitic is always probed by the matrix v* and licensed by Long-distance Agree (see Boeckx and Gallego 2008). This raises the question of what is
12 Following Torrego (1998) and Roberts (2010), we consider phase heads as targets of cliticization. More specifically, we assume v* to be the locus of cliticization.
the nature of CC optionality. An appealing explanation – albeit not conclusive – would be to relate it to information structure, that is, to consider that CC entails interpretative effects, as it has been previously proposed by Uriagereka (1988, 2002) and Gallego (2016). In this sense, it would be tempting to see the tendency of 1st and 2nd clitics to climb as evidence for this claim, as these pronouns are discourse-related, unlike 3rd person clitics (Postal 1969).
Nevertheless, despite being an interesting avenue to examine the optionality of CC in Catalan, we argue that more fine-grained data is needed to verify this hypothesis. Thus, we leave this issue open here.
5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we presented new microsyntactic data suggesting that the scope of the CC phenomenon in Catalan has been extended beyond the so-called restructuring verbs. As it has been shown, this extension is related to different facts, such as the higher tendency for the use of proclisis in some contexts. To summarize, the data analyzed seems to indicate that there is an ongoing syntactic change promoted by young speakers, which is more visible in the Balearic, Central and Ribagorzan Catalan dialects. Nonetheless, more fine-grained data is required to corroborate this claim and examine this process with more detail. Apart from this, the analysis of the wider range of verbs that may give rise to CC in Catalan leads us to claim that CC triggering verbs select a defectiveinfinitival complement, whose tense is dependent on the finite verb. Our account predicts that verbs with unselected tense, like deny and admit, do not trigger CC, which has been shown to be borne out. Some lack of clarity remains as to how explain CC optionality. Hence, it is necessary to continue exploring microvariation and the factors that seem to constrain CC in order to examine exhaustively how UG restricts variation in CC, not only across languages but also within the same language.
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