Speaker: Stanislao Zompì
Title: On some interactions between verb movement and clitic ordering
Time: Tuesday, September 17th, 1pm – 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: Clitic ordering is notoriously subject to intricate cross-linguistic variation. Among other patterns, we know there are languages (call them “type 1”) that generally allow only DAT<ACC, and others (“type 2”) that generally allow only ACC<DAT. In this work-in-progress report, I focus on a phenomenon that cuts across this split: both types include languages that, while permitting only one order preverbally, turn out to allow both ACC<DAT and DAT<ACC postverbally. We can make sense of this if these languages choose one clitic order as their only basic order (only DAT over ACC in type 1, only ACC over DAT in type 2) but accord verb movement the option of either pied-piping or not pied-piping the lower clitic along the way. I discuss several possible implementations of this idea, and explore potential applications of it to some interactions between verb placement and PCC-like restrictions.