## On the Position of Romance Clitics

## 1. Introduction 1

Cliticization  is  one  of  the  most  striking  properties  of  Romance  languages. It is very difficult to determine why this property experienced such great development in this linguistic area, and also why there are now so many differences on this point between the different modern Romance languages.

The study of the morphological and syntactical properties of these pronouns in early Romance was a matter of controversy in classical diachronic  research  at  the  end  of  the  19th  and  the  first  half  of  this century,  between  Meyer-Lübke's  analysis  and  Lerch:  see  Ramsden, 1963.

Recently, this difficult and still unresolved problem came up again in discussion, mostly in the generative framework (Zwicky 1987; Halpern & Zwicky, 1995; Rouveret,1989; Kayne, 1991, 1992). Despite the progress this new research accomplished,  their results are problematic. It is unclear, if one does not accept the whole of the theory, to determine what in the explanations depends on the problem itself, and what on the theory. Thus, it is possible to explain a lot of the positionning of clitics by verb movements, in combination with clitic movements, but if one is not convinced of the necessity of such movements, not much remains of these explanations.

1 This article is a revised version of a lecture which was first presented at the Handelshøjskolen i Århus, in September 1997. I must thank Povl Skårup, for very helpful comments thereon during my stay in the University of  Århus.  I am also indebted to Henning Nølke and Kjær Jensen for their invitation, their comments during and after the lecture, and for having provided me with the text of Ingmar Söhrman's article on the same subject. This paper gives an excellent overview of the position of Romance clitics, with a focus on infinitive clauses.

* Claude Muller Université de Bordeaux 3 F-33000  Bordeaux

In what follows, I want to avoid such problems, by postulating only what is  strictly  necessary,  and  so  I  shall  speak  of  'clitic  placement' without supposing anything of the grammatical processing, movement or direct placement. What I suppose is a type of modular grammar, in the way Henning Nølke defined it, but with a stress on the syntactic modules. Quite roughly, I need at least two different modules in interrelation: one, of the predicate-argument type, with an extended notion of  'predicate',  more  like  the  transformational  grammars  of  Zellig Harris, than the more traditional definition of Tesnière. This module is a framework, which gives the dependancy relations between predicates and the scope-relations; but nothing of the agreement rules, nor of the grammatical functions, like subject, nor of more superficial structures like  theme  and  rheme or topic and focus. I see it as a source of the grammatical  structure  of  the  sentence,  in  which  peculiar  operators  predicates in my view- like tenses determine relations like that of subject, the existence or not of conjunctions, and thus select those predicates which play a central role in that syntactic level -the verbs-, opposed to predicates like adverbs. Syntactic relations at that level, like the relative position of adverbs, show that the predicate-argument level remains active in the building of the syntactic level. That peculiar type of governing relationship is quite important to our discussion, as we will see below.

In the case, to which I now return, of Romance clitics, I suppose that they are selected as full pronouns in the predicate-argument level, like nominals. Therefore, clitics appear only at the syntactic level as variants of these full nominals.

In  what  follows,  I  shall  try  to  describe  the  parameters  at  work  in cliticization. I see these parameters as functional, having a cumulative value. I shall at first explain what I mean by 'clitic', then I shall successively examine the verb form parameter, the diachronic parameter, and the secondary relations of dependancy. From the values of these parameters, a system of rules describes the possibilities of clitic placement.

Romance languages here examined are essentially French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, but it does not seem to me that other Romance languages,  like  Catalan,  Roumanian  or  Rhaeto-Romance,  as  far  as  I know, should contradict what follows.

## 2. Clitics

This word currently designates terms which have special prosodic and syntactic properties. They are reduced allomorphs, which cannot stand alone, like affixes. 'As in most instances of allomorphy, clitics and their corresponding full forms display complementary distribution' (Napoli, 1996).

And for the prosodic properties: 'clitics further have the property that they must be phonologically attached to a host' (Napoli, ibid).

They are sometimes described as unstressed terms. It seems better to say that they have no accent of their own. So we can continue to call 'clitics' the French pronouns that appear on the right of the imperative in sentences like:

- (1) Donne-le

although such pronouns are stressed: the stress does not come from the word, but from the sentence, as a final stress. Besides, such pronouns certainly share with other clitics the typical property of inseparability from the verb, thus excluding any insertion:

## (2) *Donne donc le  /  Donne-le donc

According to these criteria, not only pronouns are clitics, but also, for instance, French negative ne (as an allomorph of the full term non ) and the interrogative pronoun que (allomorph of the full form quoi ). On the other hand, such words like the general conjunction que or the definite articles le la les , although identical to the pronoun clitics, are not clitics; or  may  belong  to  another  category  of  clitics,  because  they  have  no corresponding full words in the present-day French.

I  will  not  discuss  these  criteria  any  further,  because  it  is  simply  a question of definition. For the purpose of my argument, I must recall another frequent distinction, first made by Zwicky in 1977, between 'simple  clitics'  and  'special  clitics'.  The  simple  clitic  is  a  mere phonological variant of the full term, having a reduced distribution in comparison with the full term: for example, English n't for not , 'm for them . The special clitic has a different distribution, as is the case with all the Romance clitics we will consider.

## 2.1. Subclasses of special clitics

The  classification  must  also  take  into  account  the  type  of  cohesion which  links  the  clitic  to  its  support:  we  must  distinguish  the  three following cases:

1: The  clitic  is  free  in  syntax,  but  obeys  phonological  laws,  like Wackernagel's:  this  law,  discovered  by  Wackernagel  in  1892,  establishes that free unstressed reduced forms, in old stages of Indo-European, attach as enclitic (that is to say, on the right) upon the first stressed term of the clause or of the sentence. This was perhaps the situation in early stages of Romance, if we follow de Dardel & de Kok, 1996 2 , but it is no longer true in any present-day Romance language, although the law still holds good in many languages in the world.

2: The clitic is loosely linked in the phrase, remaining separable from its support. It is what happens with the French negative ne in the infinitive clause:

- (3) Promets-moi de ne plus toujours immédiatement te plaindre de ce que je fais

cf. the clitic te in the same sentence:

- (4) *...de ne te plus toujours plaindre

3:  The clitic is linked in a morphological way: it forms a single word with its host, like ne with finite verbs or present participles:

- (5) *Il  ne  plus  toujours  se  plaint  /    correct:  Il  ne  se  plaint  plus toujours
- (6) Ne pas fumer  vs.:  *Ne pas fumant / correct: Ne fumant pas...

It  is  also  the  case  with  the  French  subject je  tu  il :  in  the  following example, the whole sentence, except pas , is a single word (morphemes are not separable):

- (7) Je ne le lui donnerai pas I not it to-(him/her) give+FUT  NEG: I shall not give it to him / to her

This last category must be subdivided into two subclasses:

2 This was the opinion of Meyer-Lübke in his famous paper of 1897. This analysis was  strongly  challenged,  by  Lerch  and  later  by  Ramsden.  The  respective  positions crucially depend on what is considered: that is to say, attested texts of late Latin, or reconstructed structures following comparative methods (« Proto-Romance » ).

-Firstly: clitics which obey syntactic procedures of reduction, that is to say,  those  clitics  which  can  be  omitted  in  coordinated  or  elliptical structures, for example the French subject pronoun on the left:

- (8) Il mange et boit de bon appétit  / =Il mange et il boit...

-Secondly: clitics which cannot be omitted, like affixes, as complement clitics or as the subject clitic on the right of the verb:

- (9) *Mange-t-il et boit? *Mange et boit-il? /vs.: Mange-t-il et boitil?...

In any case, there remain distinctive properties between clitics and affixes, like the placement other than that determined by the word-formation  rules  (here,  for  the  clitics,  the  predicate/arguments  relationships): compare the following:

- (10) Jean le lui donne / Jean le lui a donné / Jean le lui a fait donner

In  these  sentences,  the  clitics  come  from  the  argument  structure  of donner , but they must occupy the finite verb position. Compare with:

- (11) Jean recommence / Jean a recommencé

It is impossible to say, with the prefix re-:

- (12) *Jean ra (re-a) commencé

We see from the foregoing that clitics have several functional relationships (at least one with grammatical verb form), and not just that of argument to predicate. We will now examine that.

## 3. The cliticization in Romance: a verb form-directed relation

The bulk of clitics found in Romance are pronominal arguments, either complements or adverbials. French adds the pronoun subject and the negative particle. All these terms are cliticized in relation to the tense (or, more generally, the verbal inflection), independently of the predicate-argument relationship. In fact, cliticization is not possible with a nominal equivalent of the predicate, and is generally excluded with the past participle 3 :

3 This  construction  is  attested  in  Belgian  French: Les  documents leur envoyés,  la somme me due (Grevisse, § 1057,1). In standard French, the locative clitic y is  also possible in: la  lettre  y  incluse .  Another locative clitic, ci ,  is  restricted  to  this  verbal collocation: la lettre ci-jointe , but also occurs with adjectives: les témoins ci-présents.

- (13) Une personne à lui présentée  / *Une personne lui présentée A person to-him (pron) presented / A person to-him (clitic) presented

In general, the clitic must 'climb' to the auxiliary:

- (14) *Elle a été me présentée  /  Elle m'a été présentée
2. vs.: Elle a été présentée à moi (?..à moi présentée)/ *Elle à moi a été présentée

However,  there  are  some  cases  which  permit  the  construction  past participle+clitic in Romance. In Spanish:

- (15) Cuando volvió, Nicolás habí a comido y marchádo se (J.Bouzet, Grammaire Espagnole, Belin, 1960)

The usual context is that of a vebal ellipsis, but in some cases, it seems possible  to  attach  the  pronoun  to  the  past  participle  even  when  the auxiliary is present 4 :

- (16) No se habí a hecho cargo / No habí a se hecho cargo / No habí a hecho se cargo (not he-had made-to himself account = he had not realised it)

The use of a past participle as an host for clitics is also found in Italian:

- (17) Una volta conosciuta mi , Gianni... (from Kayne, 1991, 659)

and Italian dialects offer other possibilities, as does Piedmontese, which repeats the clitic on the past participle:

- (18) L 'ei savü lu trop tart (=l'ho saputo tropo tardi) (De Dardel & de Kok, p.314,from Rohlfs)

Kayne, 1991, gives also an example 5 in the Franco-Provençal dialect of the Val d'Aoste:

- (19) Dz'i batiala tot solet

(I-had built-it all alone)

Therefore, we cannot exclude the past participle as host for clitics. We could see it as a verb form having a very weak parametric value for any of  the  two  positions  of  cliticization  which  it  nevertheless  contains. Thus, the « climbing »  to an upper position is almost obligatory.

4 The following sentence is a variant of a sentence given by de Dardel & de Kok (p.314):

... pues aún no habí a hécho selo cargo

My informants contest the acceptability of this sentence, with the two clitics.

5 From A. Chenal, 1986: Le franco-provençal valdôtain , Aoste.

In contrast, the infinitive can keep clitics; but the same phenomenon exists, namely the possibility of changing the support, as we whall see below. This could also depend on the relative « weakness »  of the infinitive compared with finite verb forms. This « weakness »  of infinitive constructions  has  independent  symptoms:  for  example,  in  French,  it does  not  cliticize  the  negative  morpheme ne ,  at  least  as  an  attached morpheme.  We  suppose  that  the  properties  of  (finite)  verb  forms consisting of building subjects positions and occurrences of nominative pronouns, are related to the same parameter which reinforces, in the same conditions, the proclitic position for complement clitics. Another example: the present participle in French has the same construction as finite verbs with the negation ne , but it never allows subject clitics.

Let us now examine wether the changing of the verbal host could be related to the same parameter which does or does not allow the anteposition. The « weakness »  of a type of verbal inflection, like tenseless forms, would thus lead either to a situation of enclisis on the weak verb form, or to the « climbing »  to an auxiliary. It is in fact the case with past participles,  and  the  same  situation  is  observed  with  other  non-finite verbal forms, like gerunds or infinitives, in Spanish, Italian or Portuguese 6 . Because of the action of an interfering parameter, namely that of the diachronic stage of development from early Romance to the modern stage, the situation can vary: thus, French has no longer the climbing construction with infinitives, which existed in classical French:

## (20) Je le veux faire (Je veux le faire)

but we observe that the alternative was between the choice of the auxiliary and the proclitic construction, not directly between auxiliary and enclisis (situation in the early stages of medieval French). This could be seen as an argument against the linking of the two possibilities: choice of the position or choice of the support. However, it can also be interpreted as a result of the strengthening of the proclitic position before non-finite verbal forms in French, resulting in the gradual abolition of the climbing construction. In languages opposing enclisis to climbing, the  situation  (a  free  variation)  seems  more  stable,  as  in  Spanish  and Italian:

6 But in  Belgian  French,  as  we  noticed  above  (also,  Kayne  1991),  the  pronoun  is proclitic with past participles, maybe because of the « language parameter » : proclisis had early a maximal extension in French (see § 4 below).  However, full pronouns can sometimes occur before the past participle in these constructions: Les documents à eux présentés...

- (21) Spanish: ¿Quieres traer me el gabán? / ¿ Me

quieres traer el gabán?

(Will-you bring-me the coat?)

Voy a traér telo / Te lo voy a traer

(I-come to bring-you-it)

- (22) Italian: Devi far lo / Lo devi fare (you-must  do-it) Te lo puoi figurare / Puoi figurar telo (to-yourself it you-can imagine)

The same variation is observed in Portuguese, except that the enclitic construction can also appear with finite forms of the verb:

- (23) Pode levantarse /  Podese levantar He-can  stand up (himself) Nâo pode levantarse /  Nâo se pode levantar

The possibility of enclisis with finite verb forms leads us to suppose that, in the languages allowing this, the climbing could also appear with dependent tensed verbs. It is in fact what marginally happens, at least in some dialects, according to these sentences (North-Western Portuguese dialect, Barbosa 1996, p.15):

- (24) ?Quanto dinheiro lhe achas que devo dar? how-much money to-him (you) think that (I) must give
- (25) ?A quem a queres que eu apresente? to-whom her (you) think that I introduce

Thus the type of verb form plays a role in the different constructions of pronominal clitics.

Although  cliticization  differs  from  one  Romance  language  to  another, we will suppose the same hierarchy of  verb forms in relation to the cliticization process for all of them.

## 3.1. Criteria for a hierarchy of verb forms 7

The criteria for establishing such a hierarchy are the following: A verb form is a 'stronger' support of cliticization if:

7 This term covers all the verbal inflections, mood, tense, and tenseless forms.

- 1 - It allows more clitics (for example, finite verb forms in French opposed to non finite ones)
- 2 - It binds more narrowly some clitics (for example in French, tensed forms and present participle, opposed to the infinitive, because of the negative particle ne , loosely linked to the infinitive, as we have seen).
- 3 - It possibly attracts to itself a clitic that would normally be attached to another (lower) verb form.
- 4 - It does not allow the attraction of another higher verb form, or of another support (such as a preposition in some cases).

As we have seen, not much remains of theses possibilities in French. But, in certain limited cases, the criterion of attraction has some residual expressions: a preposition or the negative can attract a clitic normally tied to an infinitive, in a literary (or pretentious or conceited) style; but it was common in classical French:

- (26) Nous tâcherons d' en bien mesurer les conséquences (...de bien en mesurer les conséquences)
- (27) Désireux d' y mieux parvenir  /  ...de les mieux servir
- (28) J'avoue n' y rien comprendre (standard French: ...ne rien y comprendre)

## Compare with:

- (29) *Nous en bien mesurons les conséquences (vs.: nous en mesurons bien...)
- (30) ??Je souhaite y mieux parvenir (...mieux y parvenir) *J'admets y tout comprendre (...tout y comprendre)

That possibility concerns only the permutation with a small list of adverbs (it is known in the literature under the name of 'residual interpolation' -see Barbosa). Like climbing to an auxiliary, that possibility was more widespread in earlier stages of French. Here also, the gradual disappearance of that construction is related to the strengthening of the proclitic  position:  in  the  first  stages  of  Old  French,  the  pronoun  in anteposition was governed by the preposition 8 , and received a stress, resulting in the strong form:

- (31) ...pour moi veoir

8 After the first, reconstructed level of Proto-Romance, following the Wackernagel law (according to de Dardel & de Kok): the pronoun is first unstressed and enclitic on the preposition :... pro me videre .

But the future evolution shows the growing influence of the infinitive, leading to a cliticization on the verb, with the following steps: first, a loose linking 9 , XX being interpolated material, secondly, the proclisis:

- (32) Prep lui (XX) voir /  Prep le (XX) voir  /  Prep le voir (XX) as in the following sentences (De Dardel & de Kok)
- (33) a lui en droiture endoctriner > a le en droiture endoctriner > a l'endoctriner en droiture to-him  rightly (to) teach.
3. With these criteria, we obtain for French the following hierarchy 10 : Finite verb forms >  Present participle, Imperative > Infinitive  > (Past participle)

## 3.2. The opposition between enclisis and proclisis

If we observe what happens in Spanish and Italian, we see that enclisis is the most usual position with infinitives and gerunds, and we already know that these verb forms are weak governors of clitics. At this point, we can therefore suppose that enclisis, in modern Romance, is tied to the weakness of the government by the verbal inflection. In languages which maintain enclisis, and in the case of a 'weak' verb form, the governent by the verbal inflection is reinforced by the direct government by the verb itself. In the case of a 'strong' verb form, the government by the verb form doesn't need any reinforcement, so the proclisis could be obtained.

In  some  cases,  this  opposition  is  the  only  one  which  can  be  expressed; thus in Italian, between the indicative and the imperative:

9 That type of linking explains what happened with ne : while the pronouns became enclitic  on  the  infinitive,  the  negative  clitic  has  kept  that  type  of  linking,  perhaps because of the possibility of being attached to an adverbial position, whose occurrence is usually pas .

Different explanations have been proposed  of the peculiar construction of infinitives, either on a synchronic point of view, or on a diachronic one: see Skårup 1990. It also concerns the place of adverbs before infinitives. Skårup's analysis (the presence of a verbal « zone » ) anticipates recent analysis of an empty Tense position (Rouveret 1989 among others; see also Kayne 1992 postulating an « empty modal »  in Italian negative infinitival imperatives).

10 Within tenses, a more detailed analysis would place indicative before subjunctive: P.Skårup noticed that enclisis was longer in use with subjunctive than with indicative in Old French.

## (34) Glielo prendiamo  / Prendiamo glielo ! (Renzi, III, p.157)

Although finite, the imperative appears to be a « weak »  verb form. The « weakness »  of the imperative has nothing to do with the absence of the subject, or with the speech act that it expresses: the polite form of the imperative, which uses the subjunctive, shows it in Italian:

## (35) Mi dia la penna!  /  Da mmi la penna!

(Give me the pen!)

We must suppose that the imperative  is  a  weak  governor,  and  more generally that enclisis is an indicator of the weakness of the verb form, among other factors.

We shall admit that, generally speaking, the Romance hierarchy of verb forms will be:

Finite verb forms> Non finite verb forms, Imperative > Past participle

## 4. Grammaticalization of cliticization: the language parameter

The overall evolution shows a gradual replacement of the purely prosodic factors, such as the Wackernagel law, by syntactic ones, increasingly restrictive. In the first steps, interpolation would have been possible  (inclusion  of  intermediate  terms  between  clitics  and  the  verb); type:

## (36) pater me hodie videt  (De dardel & de Kok)

That possibility has nearly disappeared 11 . But some constructions of this  type  remain,  belonging  to  the  most  conservative  Romance  languages: principally the dialects of Northern Portugal and Galician, according to Barbosa 1996:

- (37) O livro que lhe ainda não entreguei

The book that to-him yet not (I) delivered The book that I haven't given to him yet

Even this possibility is tightly controlled. In other Romance languages, clitic  placement  no  longer  obeys  prosodic  rules.  A  tie  is  established with the verb, though not necessarily the one whose clitic is an argument as we have seen. In a certain stage of cliticization, this tie prevents any breaking, leading to the present situation of most Romance languages.

11 If  it  existed  at  all.  The  reconstruction  of  Proto-Romance  remains  hypothetical: Meyer-Lübke and the pertinence of  the Wackernagel law for Romance have been contested (Ramsden, Skårup 1975). The existence of interpolations is seen as happening in a relatively late stage of Spanish or Portuguese by Ramsden, and not as a remainder of an archaic construction.

The precise reasons for that tie with the verb are discussed. According to De Dardel & de Kok, following Lausberg, the first step of purely prosodic laws would have been followed by a stage of double-binding (named 'emphiclisis' by Lausberg), where the weak pronoun would have a prosodic relation with the preceding term, and a syntactic one with the following, this one being the verb. So interpolation (for example (38)) would have been ruled out:

- (38) pater me hodie videt

and the authorized configurations exhibit this double relation:

- (39) pater me videt nunc me videt pater

with the enclitic position when the verb comes first (which we can also consider a case of double relation, but with the first term only):

- (40) videt me pater

This stage is what is known in the litterature as the Tobler-Mussafia law: the clitic does not occupy the first position (but it doesn't exclude that the clitic could be in a third or more position).

From  this  stage,  the  evolution  of  modern  Romance  languages  is divergent.

Portuguese is the closest; but it does not seem possible to say that it has remained at this stage: the prosodic link has been replaced by a syntactic one, as can be seen by the difference in clitic placement when the first term is a definite or an indefinite noun phrase:

- (41) O Pedro viuo /  *O Pedro o viu (The) Pedro saw him
- (42) Alguem o viu  /  *Alguem viuo Somebody him saw

But Portuguese remains the only language to have maintained enclisis with finite verb forms on a large scale. At the opposite end of the scale, French  had  the  strongest  evolution  towards  a  grammaticalization  of cliticization, and jointly to proclisis. At a median stage, in Italian and Spanish,  we  find  enclisis  still  being  used  with  non-finite  verbs,  and some remains of this construction are still possible with certain finite verbs.

Let  us  suppose  that  there  is  a  parameter  characteristic  of  the  language, which we shall call the 'language parameter'. It will be fixed for each Romance language according to the following properties:

- -the  degree  of  extension  of  cliticization  (to  adverbial  pronouns,  to negation, to subject);
- -the degree of use of initial proclisis;
- -the type of cliticization (i.e. the relative autonomy of clitics in the sentence).

According to these properties, French has the strongest parameter of cliticization: maximal extension, proclisis with non finite verb forms and in first position (type: le voilà ), strong binding between clitics and the verb. Italian and Spanish are in a median position with a larger use of enclisis (for example, eccolo in Italian). European Portuguese has the weakest parameter, with a wide use of enclisis, and a loose binding between clitics and verb. For example, it is the only language which permits, though marginally (in dialects), a clitic movement from a dependent finite verb to a dominant one; it is also the only one allowing an interpolation with a negation (not a clitic in Portuguese):

- (43) É porque não o conheço / É porque o não conheço It-is why not him I-know / It-is why him not I know ( It is why I don't know him)

It seems also easier in Portuguese than in Spanish or in Italian not to repeat clitics under clausal coordination:

## Italian (Barbosa)

- (44) Lo vedo spesso   e    *( lo ) sento tutti i giorni him  I-see often and  him  I-hear all the days

## Portuguese (ibid.):

- (45) O Carlo disse que te traz         às   segundas  e   leva as sextas

the Carlos said that you he-brings on Mondays and takes on Fridays

- 'Carlos said that he will bring you on Mondays and take you on Fridays'

The Portuguese weak pronouns seem then more autonomous in cases of anteposition, and here it is difficult even to speak of proclisis, as interpolation clearly shows.

## 5. Anteposition and multiple dependancy relationships

Thus, we can describe cliticization in the modern Romance languages as the result of the combination of the language parameter with the verb form parameter, which we suppose invariable. But another parameter can interfere, that of possible secondary relationships of dependancy, which we call multiple dependancy relationships: the weak pronoun is possibly moved before its natural host, if such a relationship exists, in contrast  with  cases  where  no  such  relationships  intervene.  As  we supposed above, if the values of the two parameters first described are « weak » , the basic position of a weak pronoun is enclitic (as if the direct government by the verb were necessary). A secondary relationship thus  acts  as  a  reinforcement  of  the  proclitic  position,  reinforcement added to the pronoun-verb relation 12 .

## 5.1. Asymetry between enclisis and proclisis

Before coming to these secondary relationships, we must examine what is the basic position of clitics. It is easy to notice that clitics never go down, either towards a subordinate verb, or towards any host situated on the right of the predicate of which they are arguments (there are no interpolations on the right, if we admit that all the words between the verb and a weak pronoun in enclitic position must be cliticized).

This has already been noticed by Povl Skarup for Old French 13 . It has been generalized to Romance by De Dardel & De Kok, (p.313): it is impossible to find enclisis with a right disjunction, such as:

12 This relation  is  of  the  command-precede  type  (for  example,  command  when the « governor »  is a matrix verb; precede with a negation or an adverb).

13 P. Skårup,1975, p.36. The pronoun can follow a postposed  nominal subject, but it is then a full pronoun. When weak, however, it can follow a postposed pronominal subject (Skårup, p.38):

Et verai je la?

With a closely reasoned argumentation, P.Skårup shows that the postposed pronominal subject was already a clitic in Old French; differing in that with the same pronoun on the  left  of  the  verb  (along  his  terms,  the  subject  pronoun  on  the  right  is  inside  the « verbal zone » ). Therefore, the complement pronoun is in the same enclitic sequence: it is not a case of interpolation.

- (46) *Videt pater-me  ( Sees  father me:  '(My) father sees me')

Conversely, clitics frequently 'climb' (whatever meaning we agree for this term) to a higher position. It is normally what happens with past participles, as we saw it above.

This could explain the lefthand position, even in imperatives, of the French negative ne : ne refers to a predicate which is « higher »  than the verb on which it bears. Naturally, the negative pas , not being a clitic, can be placed lower, in an adverbial position.

## 5.2. Cumulative value of the parameters

Now we can try  to  describe  the  concrete  placement  of  complement clitics from their argument position, with the general competing rules:

- -enclisis  is  the  default  situation,  when  nothing  else  can  be  used  to support a proclitic placement. It will be found only with a sum of weak parameters, which is the normal consequence of our hypothese. In cases of enclisis, the verb itself (as a lexical term) and not only the verb form, lends its support. With the past participle, even the enclitic position is usually too weak to support any clitic construction in most of the Romance languages.
- -proclisis is the prefered situation and when something permits it, it occurs in most cases. It happens either when the sum of the parameters of the language and of the verb form are strong, or when secondary relationships of dependancy reinforce the proclitic position. Those relationships cause a sort of tide-effect, by attracting the clitic on the left, without a rupture between clitic and verb.

The language parameter defines the intrinsic value of the proclitic position. The verb form parameter adds either a reinforcement, or adds nothing. If there are secondary relationships of dependancy, they can also  add  a  reinforcement,  leading  to  a  possible  anteposition  due  to them. It is  also  possible  that  the  two  positions  are  equally  balanced, allowing a free variation between enclisis and anteposition.

## 5.3. The secondary relationships of dependancy

They play a very reduced role in a language like modern French, where the proclitic position is so strong that nearly all weak pronouns are proclitic.  The  sole  enclitic  construction  of  complement  pronouns  is  the affirmative imperative. It is clear that the imperative is a weak governor of clitics, as is shown by all the Romance languages. With a negation, the French imperative has proclitic pronouns, which is clearly a result of the secondary relationship between negation and the proclitic position, at least in the genesis of the construction.

In  other  Romance languages, these secondary relationships play a very  important  role  when  the  other  parameters  have  a  weak  value. Typically,  this  happens  in  modern  European  Portuguese,  where  this effect of multiple dependancy is important because of the weakness of the language parameter. The relationship must be that of the predicative type, which explains why it is not realized by a definite NP subject, which is intrinsically an argument.

Broadly speaking, the « governors »  of such secondary relationships are:

- -subordination (described as a cause of anteposition by Skårup 1975 (for  Old  French), by Ramsden (for medieval Ibero-Romance); it can also be observed in modern Portuguese.
- -negation (cf.also Ramsden);in modern Romance, in Portuguese, also in Italian and Spanish, and even in French (imperative).
- -adverbs of aspect (cf. Barbosa).
- -indefinites  (pronouns,  and  some  indefinite  determiners):  in  Portuguese.

All those constructions have in common what we can consider as a predicative value: it is quite clear for subordination, but such an analysis is also usual for negation, adverbs and indefinites. I suppose that there remains, in the background of the sentence, the predicative hierarchy of predicate-argument relationships, inducing such secondary relationships on the syntactical level. What is not clear is the reason why some terms also having a predicative value do not trigger the anteposition (as does the indefinite article in Portuguese) 14 .

14 If we look at ancient studies on evolution of early Romance from that point of view, we see that the same secondary relationships seem to have been responsible for the anteposition of weak pronouns; for example Ramsden; while in subordinate clauses, anteposition was dominant in Old Spanish, Ramsden noticed that the two constructions (anteposition and postposition) appeared in matrix or independent clauses. He gives a list of 40 examples (pp.81-82) of postposed weak pronoun: in that list, only one of them has an indefinite subject.

## 6. A sketch of the rules

There are two types of rules: rules of placement on a host other than the verb which is the predicate of the clitic; rules of positioning, before or after the verb.

## 6.1. Choice of the support

The normal support is a verb, but the variability depends on the hierarchy  of  verb  forms.  In  general,  the  clitic  is  only  attracted  by auxiliaries, but there are some exceptions:

We have the following possibilities:

- a) Finite auxiliary  >  Past participle
- b)  Finite auxiliary >  Infinitive / Gerund
- c)  Dominant finite verb > Dependent finite verb
- a) is quite general; (b) depends on the language parameter (marginal in French; frequent in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese); (c) is quite marginal (only in conservative Portuguese dialects)

The choice of a non-verbal host is a result of what we described a secondary relationship of dependancy, in stages of Romance where the weak pronoun could be attached (always as enclitic) to a non verbal term. It makes possible an interpolation, as in the following case (Old Spanish, from D.Wanner,p.554):

- (47) ...Ca sy la yo aun non veo yo morre

(for if her I still not see  I will-die = for if I then do not see her, I will die)

## 6.2. Combination of parameters and clitic placement

| Language   | Language   | L.parameter   | Verb form   | Dependancy   | Position           |
|------------|------------|---------------|-------------|--------------|--------------------|
| Portuguese | Portuguese | weak          | weak        | single       | enclisis           |
| ''         | ''         | ''            | ''          | multiple     | proclisis possible |
| ''         | ''         | ''            | strong      | single       | enclisis           |
| ''         | ''         | ''            | ''          | multiple     | proclisis          |

| Italian/Spanish   | Italian/Spanish   | Italian/Spanish   | medium weak   | single   | enclisis                             |
|-------------------|-------------------|-------------------|---------------|----------|--------------------------------------|
| ''                | ''                | ''                | ''            | multiple | proclisis possible                   |
| ''                | ''                | ''                | strong        | single   | proclisis                            |
| ''                | ''                | ''                | ''            | multipl  | proclisis                            |
| French            | French            | strong            | weak          | singl    | proclisis (enclisis with imperative) |
| ''                | ''                | ''                | ''            | multiple | proclisis                            |
| ''                | ''                | ''                | strong        | single   | proclisis                            |
| ''                | ''                | ''                | ''            | multiple | proclisis                            |

The general rules that we can infer from this table are:

- -multiple dependancy can produce proclisis in every Romance language, and with every verb form. However, that possibility is limited to a narrow group of potential governors, principally negation, in Italian and in Spanish.
- -the combination of a strong language parameter and of a weak verb form, as observed in French, allows proclisis; the positive imperative remains the unique case of enclisis. Within this framework, we can give a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  variation  observed  with  negation  in imperative  clauses:  it  is  clearly  a  case  of  multiple  dependancy.  It  is often described as a survival of the old prosodic Tobler-Mussafia rule. This is ruled out because of such sentences as:

## (48) Le voilà!  / *Voilà-le

In  such  a  case,  the  word voilà is  no  more  imperative,  therefore  the placement of the clitic follows the general pattern in French. In Italian, in such a sentence, enclisis is observed:

## (49) Eccolo!

showing that we are nevertheless at an intermediate state (like infinitives), with a difference in the language parameter.

Nevertheless, what we observe in modern French is the reduction of the formerly wider possibility of a proclitic construction with imperatives. This is rather surprising if we suppose that the overall evolution of Romance goes towards proclisis. In classical French, it was still possible to use a secondary relationship of dependancy with a coordinating conjunction for anteposing the clitic, as we can see in 19th century litterary use:

- (50) Poète, prends ton luth et me donne un baiser  (A.de Musset)

What may explain the further evolution is perhaps the growing grammaticalization  of  the  verbal  constructions,  associating  the  positive imperative with enclitic order.

The general evolution still at work can dissociate two variants of the same language: while European Portuguese makes an extensive use of enclisis,  Brazilian  Portuguese  shows  a  quick  evolution  towards  proclitic constructions.

- other combinations give no surprising results: with a medium or a weak parameter, weak verb forms result in an enclitic placement. In such  cases,  the  secondary  relationships  of  dependancy  are  very  important.

We shall examine now in greater details the situation in Italian and in Portuguese.

## 6.3. Clitics in Italian

In the standard language, clitics include, like in French, adverbial pronouns. Enclisis appears with the positive imperative:

- (51) Quando ti parlo, ascolta mi When  to-you I-speak, listen-to-me
2. and a negation logically entails proclisis:
- (52) Non vi levate Not you(rself)  stand up

Tenseless verb forms produce enclisis:

- (53) Puoi figurar telo (you)can imagine-yourself-it ('you can imagine it')
- (54) Senza figurar melo Without imagine-to myself-it

But the 'weakness' of the support can entail a higher placement, on an auxiliary:

- (22) Te lo puoi figurare to-yourself  it  you-can imagine

Devi far lo / lo devi fare  ('you must do it')

- (55) Gli vado a aprire to-him  (I)go  to open ('I'll go and open to him')

It is also possible that a negation produces proclisis (Pézard, p.65):

- (56) Levando si il vento...  /  Non si levando il vento... getting-up itself the wind...

With an infinitive:

- (57) Promise di non si levare
2. also Söhrman 1997, p.101:
3. ...al pericolo de non ci riuscire (Manzoni)

but these constructions do not seem usual 15 .

Some  idiomatic  constructions  with  finite,  non  imperative  verb forms, are remainders of the older situation, where enclisis was more widespread (which we see now as a stage where the language parameter was weaker):

- (58) affita si legge si dica mi si....

('to let')    one reads...  could anyone tell me...

## 6.4. Clitics in Portuguese

With a finite verb form, we find enclisis in the cases of single-word lefthand  dependancy  (the  weak  pronoun  depends  only  on  the  verb, without any supplementary relationship of dependancy). This happens when the verb has no realized subject, or a definite NP (including  a full pronoun) subject on the left, and no predicative element on the same position.

- (59) Viume (he saw me)

Eles odeiamse (They hate themselves/each other)

O Pedro viuo (Pedro saw him)

Viuo alguem  (somebody saw him)

15 Rohlfs,  1968,(p.172)  explains  such  constructions  by  the  joint  influence  of  the preposition and of the negation, in clauses like per non lo fare, per non la vedere . The action  of  a  preposition  as  a  secondary  « governor»   is  attested  in  dialects,  as  in Neapolitan: pe mme sanà sta capo ( = per guarir mi la testa ).

The presence on the left of the verb of a predicative element: an indefinite pronoun, some (not all) indefinite NPs, a negation, an aspectual adverb, can or must lead to the proclitic placement 16 :

- (60) Nâo me viu  (He didn't see me)
- (61) Alguém o tinha avisado somebody  him  informed (Somebody informed him)
- (62) Viuo alguém (* O viu alguém)
- (63) Só o Pedro o viu (*...viuo ) Only the Peter him saw
- (64) Todos o conhecem

All   him know

- (65) O mesmo se pode dizer de... The same  itself  can say of... (the same can be said of...)
- (66) Ainda o encontrei varias veces Again him I-met several times

Interrogation plays no role:

- (67) Ele escondeuse ?   (Did he hide?)

but the wh-question does:

- (68) Que te disse ele? (What did he tell you?)

In embedded clauses with finite verbs, proclisis is always the case:

- (69) Eu duviddo que ele a visse I   doubt   that    he  her  see+past+subj

We suppose that subordination induces a dependancy relationship leading to the multiple dependancy case, which is sufficient alone to trigger proclisis with strong verb forms. With non finite embedded verbs, subordination does not work (or is not sufficient) and enclisis appears, as in Italian or Spanish, even with an inflected infinitive 17 :

- (70) Nâo é razoável encontrarmonos todos os das Not  it-is reasonable (to-)meet+1stpl-us all the days

But multiple dependancy has a cumulative effect; thus, either it permits or it requires proclisis; negation requires it:

16 Examples from Teyssier, 1984, P. Barbosa, 1996.

17 From Teyssier, 1984.

but:

- (71) Custa-me muito não te ver It-costs me much not you (to-)see

When the infinitive is introduced by a preposition, the position of the clitic depends on the preposition; some of them have no influence on the placement of the clitic:

- (72) Ficou a contemplála He remained contemplating her
- (73) Ao levantarse sentiu uma dor... By getting up, he felt an ache...

With some others, the choice is possible:

- (74) Antes de os ver.../  antes de vêlos before     them  (to-)see

But the adjunction of one more possible governor, or a slight modification, may lead to an obligatory placement; for example, if the tensed infinitive replaces in this context the tenseless one, we must have proclisis:

- (75) Antes de os vermos  (*antes de vermo-los)

As in Italian, it is often possible to build the clitic on the auxiliary, but in  this  case,  the  clitic  must  obey  the  same  placement  rules  as  these already described for independent clauses:

- (23) Não pode levantarse / Não se pode levantar /  Podese levantar (he cannot stand up)

## 7. Conclusion

The language parameter, which is the result of the present stage of evolution of the Romance language, acts like a reinforcement of the proclitic position, just before the verb. When strong, it can be sufficient and proclisis becomes the rule, as it is in modern French, apart from the positive imperative.

In languages with a medium strength language parameter, it is essentially the choice of the verb form which decides wether the clitic will be proclitic or enclitic. We know that a weak verb form does not allow by itself a proclitic position. Here, an external governor, like negation, can reinforce the proclitic solution, thus allowing proclisis. In a language with a weak parameter, even a strong verb form cannot trigger proclisis -or anteposition: the term « proclisis »  is perhaps too strong for a lan- guage like European Portuguese, allowing some interpolations. Here, the external governors play a central role.

Further  investigations  is  naturally  needed  and  the  present  results seem to me a first approach to these complicated problems. But the combination of the three factors taken in account: the intrinsic parameter of the language as a measure of evolution since early Romance; the verb form parameter; the single versus multiple dependancy, plus the predicate/argument structure behind the syntactic level, allowed us to describe the main lines of cliticization in Romance without the help of  operations  like  verb-movements,  verbal  inflection-movements,  or different types of subjects-verb relationships, all things that we find in the existing litterature on that difficult subject.

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