LingLunch : Zeljko Boskovic

Zeljko Boskovic (U. du Connecticut)
On clitics, ellipsis, and nominal structure crosslinguistically

The talk examines factors that are responsible for the availability of second position clitic systems crosslinguistically based on a variety of unrelated languages (altogether fifty-two languages with second position clitics), including (but not limited to) Pama-Nyungan, Uto-Aztecan, Slavic, Romance, and Iranian languages. It also examines factors involved in clitic doubling. The proposed accounts of second-position cliticization and clitic doubling have consequences for a variety of phenomena, including the Lobeck (1990)/Saito and Murasugi (1990) generalization that functional heads can license ellipsis of their complement only when they undergo Spec-Head agreement, preposition-stranding, the licensing of pro, and argument ellipsis.