Clitics in Grecia Salentina Greek: A dynamic account

In this paper, we attempt an analysis of Grecia Salentina Greek (GSG) clitics within the Dynamic Syntax (DS) framework (Kempson et al., 2001; Cann et al., 2005). We argue that the use of a parsing oriented framework can provide us with an account of a number of puzzling phenomena regarding GSG clitics and clitics in general. In specific, we will argue that the proclisis–enclisis alternation is the result of two different parsing triggers being available in the lexical entries for GSG clitics. The parsing triggers posited will be argued to be the outcome of a routinization process in the sense of Pickering and Garrod (2004), with the pragmatics atrophying over time within such a process (Bouzouita, 2008a). We furthermore discuss sequences of clitics, and argue that strict dat–acc ordering can be accounted by assuming an analysis where dative clitics as well as 1st/2nd person accusative clitics compete for the first fixed node in the tree, while 3rd person accusative clitics on the other hand do not. These assumptions will straightforwardly account for strict dat–acc ordering. Finally the Person Case Constraint (PCC) is taken to derive from the same ordering principles that give rise to dat–acc ordering by further positing that 1st/2nd person accusative like dative clitics compete for the first fixed position in the tree structure.