LINGUIST List 20.1608

Mon Apr 27 2009

Diss: Historical Ling/Phonology: Kuchenbrandt: 'Prosodische Aspekte...'

Editor for this issue: Nick Prokup <nicklinguistlist.org>


        1.    Imme Kuchenbrandt, Prosodische Aspekte in der Entwicklung der spanischen und französischen Klitika

Message 1: Prosodische Aspekte in der Entwicklung der spanischen und französischen Klitika
Date: 24-Apr-2009
From: Imme Kuchenbrandt <immekuchenbrandt.de>
Subject: Prosodische Aspekte in der Entwicklung der spanischen und französischen Klitika
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Institution: Universität Hamburg Program: Department of Languages, Literature and Media Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2009

Author: Imme Kuchenbrandt

Dissertation Title: Prosodische Aspekte in der Entwicklung der spanischen und französischen Klitika

Dissertation URL: http://www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/opus/volltexte/2009/4070/

Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics                             Linguistic Theories                             Phonology
Subject Language(s): Old French (fro)                             Old Spanish (osp)
Dissertation Director:
Christoph Gabriel Conxita Lleó
Dissertation Abstract:

Clitic pronouns have received much attention during the past decades. Theirprosodic and phonological characteristics are often used as theiridentifying properties, which serve as a motivation for their speciallinguistic behaviour. This holds for the clitic pro­nouns in Old Romance,too. They are subject to the so-called Tobler-Mussafia Law (TML), whichprohibits their occurrence in sentence-initial position. This specialposi­tioning is traditionally motiva­ted through the assumption that theseclitics are inherently enclitic (Enclisis Theory, Meyer-Lübke 1897, a.o.).Even recent publications adopt this view without questioning itsimplica­tions for current phonological frameworks. The presentinvestigation focuses on the domains of phonology and prosody, but itintegrates morphological, syntactic and semantic insights, as well. Theaims of the study are two-fold. First, we investigate the properties ofseveral clitic types and interpret them in the light of cur­rent linguisticmodels. It is shown that the 'special' behaviour of clitics results fromtheir independently assumed properties. This means that a class of clitics,different from words and from affixes, is neither needed nor theoreticallymotivated. Second, we investigate the proper­ties and the positioning ofclitic object pro­nouns in Old Spanish and Old French prose texts from thelate 13th century. Although Old Spanish clitic pronouns are subject to theTobler-Mussafia Law, they may occur within structures where a phonologicalbinding to the left is impossible. We therefore reject the Enclisis Theoryas a motivation for the TML. The Old French object clitics do not undergothe Tobler-Mussafia Law any longer. Like the Old Spanish clitics, they donot show a constant phonological binding. For both languages, objectclitics are best analysed as functional heads (X°) from the 13th centuryon; this entails that the Tobler-Mussafia Law does not depend on thephrasal status (XP) of the clitic pronouns.