Accusative Clitic Doubling in Dominican Spanish

A Thesis

Presented to

The Division of Philosophy, Religion, Psychology, and Linguistics

Reed College

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Bachelor of Arts

Manuel Abreu

May 2014

Approved for the Division

(Linguistics)

Matt Pearson

Acknowledgments

Thanks first and foremost to my family. Thanks to my interlocutors in the Bronx.

Thanks to everyone who also loves the Dominican ways of talking. Thanks to my friends

who kept me sane. Thanks for guidance to my adviser Matt Pearson— it's been an honor

working with you and I'm grateful for your patience throughout the year. Thanks to my

second reader Katy McKinney-Bock, as well as to my third and fourth readers, Elizabeth

Drumm and Morgan Luker. Thanks to Reed College for what I could say has been a

thoroughly transformative experience.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction..................................................................................................................10

1.1 What is a clitic?........................................................................................................15

1.2 ACC and DAT clitics...............................................................................................20

1.3 What is clitic doubling? ......................................................................................... 23

1.3.1. Distinguishing doubling from dislocation....................................................... 26

1.4. What is object marker a?........................................................................................ 31

1.4.1. Animacy and definiteness................................................................................ 32

1.4.2. Object marker vs. preposition.......................................................................... 35

1.4.3. Specificity........................................................................................................ 38

1.5. Summary.................................................................................................................41

2. Analyzing DOCD......................................................................................................... 44

2.1. Movement vs. base-generation............................................................................... 45

2.2. Specificity and clitics..............................................................................................52

2.2.1. Partitivity effects..............................................................................................59

2.2.2. Scope and presuppositionality......................................................................... 65

2.3. Modifying Sportiche for my proposal.................................................................... 72

2.4. Summary.................................................................................................................83

3. Dominican Spanish...................................................................................................... 85

3.1. Dominican ACC Clitics.......................................................................................... 85

3.2. Intensionality & mood............................................................................................ 88

3.3. The syntax of DOCD.............................................................................................. 94

3.4. Summary...............................................................................................................101

4. Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 103

4.1. Summary of the study........................................................................................... 104

4.2. A potential alternative...........................................................................................106

4.3. Notes for further research..................................................................................... 109

4.3. Final remarks........................................................................................................ 113

Bibliography................................................................................................................... 115

List of Abbreviations

1/2/3 = first-/second-/third- personACC = AccusativeCL = clitic (in syntax trees)CP = Complementizer PhraseDAT = DativeDet = DeterminerDOCD = Direct object clitic doublingDP = Determiner PhraseDS = Dominican SpanishF = Female (as in 3pF, 3rd-person plural female)FP = Functional ProjectionFUT = Future tenseIMP = Imperative moodIMPRS = ImpersonalINF = Infinitive IOCD = Indirect object clitic doublingKG = Kayne's GeneralizationLF = Logical FormM = Male (as in 3sM, 3rd-person singular male)Neg = NegationOM = Object Markers or SG = singularp or PL = pluralPF = Phonological FormPP = Prepositional PhrasePFV = Perfective aspectPRG = Progressive aspectPRES = Present tensePST = Past tenseQP = Quantifier PhraseRFLX = ReflexiveSUBJ = Subjunctive moodTP = Tense PhraseVP = Verb Phrase

List of Figures

Abstract

Dominican Spanish violates Kayne's Generalization (Jaeggli 1986) by allowing clitic doubling without a licensing preposition preceding the doubled object. Thisis notable, since most dialects of Spanish abide by Kayne's Generalization. Building on investigations into clitics as agreement markers (Borer 1984) which evidence specificity effects (Suñer 1988), I adopt an Independence Hypothesis (Bleam 1999) which argues there is no causal connection between clitic doubling and differential object marking: separate grammaticality conditions license the two phenomena. I show that object marker a obligatorily marks specific animate objects, that across dialects clitics are only available for specific arguments, and that in Dominican Spanish (DS) clitic doubling is optionally available for specific direct objects, both animate and inanimate.

I argue that the object marker does not assign case, and that clitics do not receive case (Suñer 1988). Instead, building on Suñer's research on specificity effects, I posit that clitics head functional projections (Sportiche 1993). Third-person accusative clitics head one kind of FP and other clitics head another kind. The 3ACC functional head probes into its c-command domain for an element which can land in its Spec position and check its uninterpretable features. Doubled objects evacuate the VP at logical form (LF) in order to take VP-external scope and thus specific interpretation, and I argue that specific arguments land in the Spec position of the functional projection headed by the clitic.

Whether the functional head has any corresponding material at phonological form (PF) is determined by a parameter the settings of which differ across dialects: so for Standard Spanish, the clitic only emerges at PF if it is in an agreement relation with a [+strong pronoun] or empty category (ec). Kayne's Generalization in this analysis reduces to an epiphenomenon of this parameter, and my argument entails that any time an argument 'wants' specific interpretation, the derivation builds the 3ACC clitic functional projection to facilitate VP-evacuation, regardless of whether the functional head has any corresponding material at PF.

This thesis is dedicated to Michael Raven. Rest in Power, brother.

1. Introduction

Clitics are weak pronominal elements which express arguments and require

adjunction to a host (Toivonen 2002). Clitic doubling is the co-occurrence of a

clitic with a coindexed argument such that the clitic and the doubled argument

bear the same argument relation.

In Standard Spanish, accusative clitic doubling is obligatory for strong

pronouns and available with universal quantifier todos, and arguments modified

by it (Franco 2003), but ungrammatical in all other contexts. In dialects that have

looser restrictions on clitic doubling, it is typically only available for animates,

and because Spanish animates are marked by object marker a, Kayne notes that

clitic doubling is only grammatical when the doubled object is preceded by a

licensing preposition (a in Spanish). This is known as Kayne's Generalization

(Jaeggli 1982).

Dominican Spanish is a dialect of Spanish spoken in the Dominican

Republic. I elicited grammaticality judgments from 21 Dominicans in the

Norwood neighborhood of the Bronx, ranging in age from 18 to 60, and found

that seven speakers, all under 30, allowed doubling with definite inanimates.

This grammaticality is notable, since these sentences, as in (1) below, violate

Kayne's Generalization (Jaeggli 1986), Thus Dominican Spanish (DS henceforth),

like Porteño and Balkan languages such as Greek and Albanian, presents

empirical evidence against Kayne's Generalization, and necessitates an analysis

of clitics as agreement markers.

I argue that a change in progress seems to be occurring which increasingly

allows accusative (ACC) clitics to double inanimate objects in Dominican Spanish

10

(DS). Consider the following. For clarity, the clitic is bolded and the doubled

object italicized, and I follow this convention throughout. As well, the % symbol

is used to signify cross-dialectal disagreement with respect to grammaticality:

(1) % la leí (*a) la revista

3sF.ACC read.1sPST OM Det.sM magazine

'I read the magazine.'

(1) is ungrammatical for older speakers but grammatical for younger speakers.

Because the presence of object marker a is ungrammatical for inanimates, as

indicated by the star inside the parentheses above, this change in progress

violates Kayne's Generalization.

Kayne's analysis of clitics is that they are arguments and thus receive case

from the verb. They are generated in verbal complement position and move to

their surface positions because of prosodic weakness. Government of the

doubled object by the object marker licenses doubling because the object marker

assigns the object case. But if clitics are case-receiving arguments, what licenses

doubling for younger DS speakers in (1) above?

Prima facie there are a number of alternative explanations which might

work, potentially in tandem: it could be that the object marker does not in fact

assign case, or that clitics do not in fact absorb case, or that the example in (1)

does not constitute true clitic doubling, but is an instance of clitic right-

dislocation, in which the doubled object is in an adjunct position, not an

argument position. I ultimately argue that (1) above is a case of true clitic

doubling, from my tests in section 1.4 below for distinguishing doubling from

dislocation. Following Suñer (1988), I argue that clitics do not receive case and

are not arguments.

11

As well, important data from Suñer (1988) show that DOCD is limited to

specific arguments— only definites, partitives, and quantifier phrases patterning

as “strong” (in Milsark's terms) may be ACC-doubled. DS speakers use the object

marker in similar ways to uses of it attested in the literature (it obligatorily heads

specific animates), and even though DS violates KG, it only allows doubling with

specific arguments.

In light of this I posit that clitics head functional projections and do not

absorb case. The Spec position of the ACC clitic's functional projection must be

filled, in order for it to receive gender features from its associate, and since only

VP-external arguments are interpreted as specific, the doubled argument moves

into the Spec position of the ACC clitic. DAT functional heads do not have a

similar requirement on their Specifiers being filled.

The phonological realization of the ACC functional head is determined by

a parameter which only allows ACC clitics of certain features to be overt at PF.

By positing that the overt realization of clitics is an aspect of the phonology and

not the syntax, I assume here that the ACC functional projection is always

present when a specific-interpreted argument is present in the tree, in order to

motivate raising of that argument, but that this functional head is only

phonologically realized if the parameter in question allows it to. Thus, all dialects

of Spanish employ this means of making specific readings available— but, for

instance, Standard Spanish only allows the overt realization of ACC clitics

doubling strong pronouns, and Rioplatense only allows the overt realization of

ACC clitics doubling animates.

In order to present this analysis for the grammaticality of (1) in DS, I must

first define my terms, which I do in the following sections of this chapter: what

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are clitics, what kinds are there, what is clitic doubling, and what is the role of

the object marker?

In chapter 2, I consider ways of analyzing Spanish accusative (ACC)

clitics. Assuming an Independence Hypothesis (Bleam 1999) according to which

the grammaticality of clitic doubling and the Spanish object marker are governed

by separate sets of conditions, I review various theoretical positions and analytic

inquiries with respect to direct object clitic doubling (DOCD).

Kayne holds that clitics are arguments which move to their surface

positions as verbal adjuncts, while other analyses (Borer 1984, Suñer 1988) hold

that clitics are base-generated in their surface, adjunct positions. Approaches like

Borer's (1984) account for Kayne's Generalization by holding that clitics receive

case, but I discuss the importance of Suñer's “caseless” approach to clitic

doubling. For her, clitics do not receive case and the object marker does not

assign case. She shows evidence from Porteño, a dialect spoken in Argentina and

Uruguay, which, like DS, violates Kayne's Generalization. Her data regarding

specificity effects, in tandem with the proliferation of functional projections and

the expansion of INFL, catalyzed new approaches to clitic doubling which

allowed for reconciliation of the base-generation and movement approaches.

Armed with a theoretical background, chapter 2 concludes with my

proposal following Sportiche (1996). I posit that clitics head functional

projections, and license the doubled object's 'evacuation' from complement-to-

verb position to the Specifier of the functional projection headed by the clitic.

This is what allows doubled objects to have a presuppositional, specific reading.

However, the Spell-out of this functional head (the clitic) across dialects is subject

to a parameter regarding which kinds of F-heads can have corresponding PF

material.

13

In chapter 3, I present the data from Dominican Spanish. DS speakers only

allow DOCD with specific arguments, but there are cross-generational

differences with respect to whether animacy is a factor in the grammatically of

the functional head being spelled out at PF. I show that my proposal from

chapter 2 can account for both generations of DS data: a functional head licenses

specific arguments to evacuate the VP and land in the specifier of that head's

functional projection, and the generational distinction regarding the presence of

corresponding PF material is accounted for as a difference with respect to the

“PF parameter.” For older speakers, only functional heads in agreement relations

with [+animate] arguments can be spelled out at PF. In this way, older speakers

pattern with Rioplatense speakers (I discuss this dialect in detail later). This is

not the case for younger speakers, and the functional head may optionally be

spelled out at PF for inanimate specifics.

Chapter 4 concludes the study with a summary of the results, a

consideration of an alternative analysis, and some notes for future research. The

primary purpose of this study is to provide data for DOCD in Dominican

Spanish, a dialect whose accusative clitic behavior has never been analyzed let

alone presented before. Even as the DS pattern might seem aberrant, I show that

my analysis may actually account for DOCD variation across dialects, as well as

across generations of DS speakers, if a unificationist approach to the clitic syntax

is adopted. I also consider a potential alternative, a variationist account where

the syntactic status of the clitic changes across dialects.

Does the difference in clitic behaviors, both cross-dialectally and within

the proposed change in progress for younger DS speakers, amount to a lexical

parameter (some difference in the featural matrix specifications of clitics in

different dialectal lexicons) or a grammatical parameter (some difference in the

14

grammars of Spanish dialects)? The cross-dialectal uniformity of specificity

effects in Spanish leads me toward a unification approach clitics are the same in

all Spanish dialects, and in which specificity is grammatically-parametric. My

argument is thus that the role of animacy with respect to the PF realization of

clitics is lexically-parametric across dialects. But I note in chapter 4 that the

variationist hypothesis is nevertheless available. I conclude the project with some

notes for further research, discussing clitic clustering and climbing behaviors

along with linguistic ideology.

1.1 What is a clitic?

Clitics are syntactic elements which encode an argument's φ-features (gender,

person, number) and attach to some prosodic or phonological host (Toivonen

2002: 204). In Spanish, clitics attach to the edges of verbs. Unlike Italian, Spanish

does not have subject clitics, only object and reflexive clitics (Gerlach 2002: 83).

Only third-person accusative clitics encode gender, as in the following:

(2) lo / la conozco

3sM.ACC / 3sF.ACC know.1sPRES

'I know him/her.'

Even as clitics act like pronouns in that they express arguments, we can

distinguish the two in five ways:

clitics cannot be coordinated; pronouns can

clitics cannot be modified; pronouns can

clitics cannot bear stress; pronouns are inherently stressed

clitics are morphologically marked for case; pronouns are not

the clitic-Verb sequence cannot be disrupted; pronouns need not be adjacent to verb

15

Consider the following:

(3) clitics cannot be coordinated

a. * la y lo ví

3sF.ACC and 3sM.ACC know.1sPST

'I saw him and her.'

b. ella y él salieron tarde

she and he leave.3pPST late

'She and he left late.'

(4) clitics cannot be modified

a. él solo sobrevivió

he alone survive.3sPST

'He alone survived.'

b. * lo solo vimos

3sM.ACC alone saw.3pPST

'We saw only him.'

Another difference between clitics and pronouns is that the latter are

inherently stressed (Anagnostopoulou 2005). In fact, stress is necessary to

distinguish the male pronoun from the male definite determiner in discourse.

Clitics, on the other hand, cannot bear stress. Thus, consider the following:

(5) a. * el fue

Det.sM go.3sPST

'He went.'

b. * ló conozco

3sM.ACC know.1sPRES

'I know him.'

16

As well, third-person clitics are morphologically-marked for case in

Spanish, while pronouns are not. Thus third-person clitics are la/lo for accusative

and le for dative, while pronouns are invariably él/ella. Finally, Anagnastopoulou

(2005: 25) points out that the clitic-Verb sequence cannot be interrupted, while

pronouns have freer word order. Consider the following:

(6) * te mucho quiero

2sACC very.much want.1sPRES

'I love you very much.'

Thus, five behavioral differences motivate a distinction clitics and

pronouns: clitics cannot be coordinated, modified, or stressed; pronouns, on the

other hand, can. In fact, for pronouns stress is obligatory. As well, clitics are

marked for case, while pronouns are not, and clitics have more rigid word order

than pronouns, since clitics must appear immediately to the left or right edge of

the verb.

In Spanish, finite verbs require procliticization (attachment to the left edge

of the verb), while non-finite verbs require encliticization (attachment to the right

edge of the verb) (Lipski 1996). However, when a non-finite clause is selected by

a finite higher verb, the clitic may be realized as either a proclitic or an enclitic.

Consider the following:

(7) clitics attach to the left edges of finite verbs

a. te quiero

2sACC love.1sPRES

'I love you.'

b. * quiero -te

love.1sPRES-2sACC

'I love you.'

17

Clitics attach to the right edges of nonfinite verbs. Consider the following

examples, with the case of imperatives in (8), the case of infinitives in (9), and the

case of progressive participles in (10):

(8) clitics attach to the right edges of imperatives

a. cóme -te -lo

eat.IMP-2sDAT-3sM.ACC

'Eat it' (command).

b. * te lo cóme

2sDAT 3sM.ACC eat.IMP

'Eat it' (command).

(9) clitics attach to the right edges of infinitives

a. para entender -lo, uno tiene que...

Cmpl understand.INF-3sM.ACC one must Cmpl

'In order to understand it, one must...'

b. * para lo entender uno tiene que...

Cmpl 3sM.ACC understand.INF one must Cmpl

'In order to understand it, one must...'

(10) clitics attach to the right edges of participles

a. mirando -lo es difícil

look.PRG-3sM.ACC be.3sPRES difficult

'Looking at it is difficult.'

b. * lo mirando es difícil

3sM.ACC look.PRG be.3sPRES difficult

'Looking at it is difficult.'

18

However, when a higher verb selects a non-finite clause, a clitic denoting a

semantic argument of the lower clause can raise to surface attached to the higher

verb. This phenomenon is called clitic climbing (Anagnostopoulou 2005: 12).

Consider the following:

(11) a. quiero comprar-lo

want.1sPRES buy.INF-3sM.ACC

'I want to buy it.'

b. lo quiero comprar

3sM.ACC want.1sPRES buy.INF

c. * para lo querer comprar

Cmpl 3sM.ACC want.INF buy.INF

'To want to buy it...'

(11a-b) show that just in case a higher verb selects a non-finite clause, a clitic may

variably realize as a proclitic or an enclitic. (11c) shows that the matrix verb must

be finite for “climbing” to be grammatical.

Thus, investigating the properties of clitics allows them to be

distinguished from pronouns, but also calls into question the syntactic status of

the clitic. They have both the properties of bare heads or affixes— prosodic

weakness, inability to be coordinated, modified, or bear stress— and at least one

property of heads of phrases — head-to-head movement as evidenced by clitic

climbing. As I discuss in chapter 2, much past research regarding the syntax of

clitics has been split along these lines: either clitics are phrasal arguments that

move to their surface position, or they are base-generated affixes. Before delving

into these analyses as well as my own for DS, I first discuss the two kinds of

19

Spanish clitics (1.2), define clitic doubling (1.3), and define object marker a and its

properties (1.4).

1.2 ACC and DAT clitics

Spanish has two kinds of clitics: accusative (ACC) and dative (DAT). This

distinction is only phonologically realized for third-person clitics. Only in the

third-person singular does a gender distinction emerge. Clusters may contain at

most two clitics, and if an ACC clitic is present it must be third-person. Finally,

clusters follow a strict IMP-DAT-ACC order.The data are captured in the

following table, and I go on to give examples of the paradigms:

DAT ACC

SG PL SG

1 me nos 1 me

2 te les 2 te

3 lo los 3MASC lo

3 la las 3FEM la

RFLX/

IMPRS

se

Fig. 1. Spanish clitics

(12) below shows that first- and second-person clitics are homophonous in both

ACC and DAT roles. (13) shows that third-person clitics phonologically

distinguish case roles, and that third-person singular clitics distinguish gender

features.

(12) 1/2ACC clitics...

a. me /nos dieron

1sACC/1pACC hit.2sPST

'They hit me/us.'

20

b. te / les dieron

2sACC / 2pACC hit.3pPST

'They hit you/y'all.'

...are homophonous with 1/2DAT clitics:

c. me / nos mandaron un regalo

1sDAT / 1pDAT send.3pPST one gift

'They sent me/us a gift.'

d. te / les mandaron un regalo

2sDAT 2pDAT send.3pPST one gift

'They sent you/y'all a gift.'

These examples do not motivate positing a case distinction for Spanish verbal

objects. But consider the clear phonological distinction between case roles

Spanish makes in the third person, and that a gender distinction is only

evidenced in the third-person singular paradigm:

(13) a. la / lo / los vieron

3sF.ACC / 3sM.ACC / 3pACC see.3pPST

'They saw her/him/them.'

b. le / les dieron un regalo

3sDAT / 3pDAT give.3pPST one gift

'They gave her/him/them a gift.'

It is this distinction which motivates labeling first/second-person clitics as

ACC/DAT based on sentential context, as in (12). This distinction can be tested

by considering clitic co-occurrence restrictions (Franco 2003, Anagnostopoulou

2005).

21

The Person-Case Constraint determines what kinds of clitic clusters can

occur. It predominantly follows two patterns:

If the cluster is DAT, ACC, then the ACC argument must be 3rd-person, otherwise clustering is impossible

all cluster combinations are allowed except for {3DAT, 1/2ACC}

Spanish tends more toward the first pattern. This is clear because first/second-

person clitics cannot co-occur with each other, and because when the cluster is

{3DAT, 3ACC, the DAT} takes the se form instead of le. Consider the following:

(14) * te me mandaron

2s.ACC 1s.DAT send.3pPST

'They sent you to me.'

My Dominican speakers shared this judgment. Third-person clitics can, however,

co-occur with homophonous clitics. Consider the following:

(15) me lo mandaste

1s.DAT 3sM.ACC send.2sPST

'You sent me it.'

There is a strict ordering to this occurrence such that the first/second-person clitic

must always precede the third-person clitic (16a), and the reflexive must precede

the dative (16b). As well, Spanish allows no more than two clitics to a cluster, as

in (16c) (Belloro 2007). Consider the following:

(16) a. * lo me mandaste

3sM.ACC 1s.DAT send.2sPST

'You sent me it.'

b. * me se olvidó1

1sACC 3IMPRS forget.3sPST

'It was forgotten by me.'

1 Compare with se me olvidó

22

c. * te me la mandaron

2sDAT 1sDAT 3s.ACC

'They sent her to you for me.'

An appeal to a template of three slots for clitics could be made here, where the

reflexive/impersonal always precedes the dative, which always precedes the

accusative, and some other set of conditions governs their complementary

distribution such that clusters contain at most two clitics. Later, I show that my

analysis, in which two kinds of functional projections with featural differences

correspond to the two kinds of clitics, accounts for this clustering maximum.

In conclusion, Spanish has ACC and DAT case roles, but only third-person

clitics phonologically distinguish for ACC and DAT case, and only third-person

singular clitics bear gender features. Clitics can co-occur at a max of two clitics

per cluster, and clusters evidence a range of restrictions. First, when ACC clitics

cluster, they must be 3ACC. Second, first/second-person clitics cannot co-occur

with each other. Finally, clusters evidence a strict ordering of IMPRS/RFLX

>DAT>ACC. These rigid ordering properties seem to indicate that clitics are non-

projecting heads which adjoin to their hosts, but their movement properties, as

shown by clitic climbing, suggest that they are phrasal heads.

Having considered the ACC/DAT distinction, I discuss the two kinds of clitic

doubling in the next section.

1.3 What is clitic doubling?

Clitic doubling is the co-occurrence of a clitic with a co-indexed nominal

argument such that they express the same argument relation. In the larger

linguistic context, clitic doubling has been attested in Romance, Semitic, Slavic,

23

Albanian, and Greek (Aoun 1981; Jaeggli 1982, 1986; Borer 1984; Suñer 1988;

Uriagereka 1988; Anagnostopulou 1994, 2005; Kallulli & Tasmowski 2008).

In Spanish, indirect object clitic doubling (IOCD) and direct object clitic

doubling (DOCD) are attested. 'IO' and 'DO' respectively correspond to my

DAT/ACC categorization in section 1.2. Consider the following, with the doubled

object italicized:

(17) a. lo ví a Juan

3sM.ACC see.1sPST OM Juan

'I saw Juan.'

b. le mandé un regalo a Juan

3sDAT send.1sPST one gift OM Juan

'I sent Juan a gift.'

IOCD is always an unmarked option in most dialects of Spanish, but DOCD, in

contrast, is much more restricted (Jaeggli 1981: 11, Fontana 1993: 221). In the

strictest dialects of Standard Spanish, DOCD is ungrammatical in all contexts the

case of strong pronouns, in which case DOCD is obligatory. Consider the

following, which shows that without lo, the sentence is ungrammatical:

(18) * (lo) ví a él

3sM.ACC see.1sPST OM him

'I saw him.'

Most dialects of Spanish allow DOCD with proper names (Lipski 1996, Zagona

2002), and I later analyze dialects with a further 'loosening' of doubling

constraints: these dialects allow DOCD with animate nominal expressions,

including those denoting nonhuman animals. Consider the following, from

Rioplatense Spanish, spoken in Argentina and Uruguay (Jaeggli 1986, Suñer

1988, Bleam 1999, Gutiérrez-Rexach 2000, Belloro 2007):

24

(19) a. lo conozco a -l hombre

3sM.ACC know.1sPRES OM -Det.sM man

'I know the man.'

b. lo conozco a -l perro

3sM.ACC know.1sPRES OM -Det.sM dog

'I recognize the dog.'

Dominican Spanish (DS) proves even more radical with respect to DOCD, in

allowing it with inanimates. Consider (1) again, repeated as (20) below:

(20) la leí (*a) la revista

3sF.ACC read.1sPST OM Det.sM magazine

'I read the magazine.'

Most dialects abide by Kayne's Generalization (KG), which argues that clitic

doubling is only grammatical when the doubled object is preceded by a

preposition (Jaeggli 1986). Dominican Spanish, like Porteño, violates KG.

Consider the following brief typology of cross-dialectal grammaticality variation

in Spanish DOCD (Anagnostopoulou 2005). The featural values noted for each

pattern are obligatory for clitic doubling to be an option.

Strict Standard Standard Spanish Rioplatense Porteño/DS

[+strong pronoun]

[+specific]

[+human]

[+specific]

[+animate]

[+specific]

[+specific]

Fig. 2. Typology of Spanish DOCD.

In order to delve into the behaviors noted in Fig. 2 in more detail, I must

consider this apparent instance of Kayne's licensing preposition in Spanish,

object marker a (section 1.4). But before this I offer diagnostics for distinguishing

25

true clitic doubling from clitic left- and right-dislocation in the next section, in

order to confirm that phenomena such as in (19)-(20) are in fact instances of clitic

doubling.

1.3.1. Distinguishing doubling from dislocation

Clitic dislocation is when a clitic co-occurs with an XP at the sentential periphery

(Anagnostopoulou 2005: 523). Co-occurring objects can be dislocated to the left

edge as in (21a), or to the right edge as in (21b). Consider the following, in which

# is used to signify an intonational break stranding the dislocated element at the

edge of the sentence:

(21) a. a Juan # le mandaron un regalo

a Juan, 3sDAT send.3pPST one gift

'John, they sent him a gift.'

b. * le mandaron un regalo el otro dia # a Juan

3sDAT send.3pPST one gift Det.sM other day, OM Juan

'They sent him a gift the other day, John.'

Dislocated elements are often analyzed as being in adjunct positions, as opposed

to argument positions (Kayne 1975). With this in mind, consider the following

minimal pair for Standard Spanish:

(22) a. * lo leímos el libro

3sM.ACC see.1pPST Det.sM book

'We read the book.'

b. lo leímos # el libro

3sM.ACC see.1pPST Det.sM book

'We read it, the book.'

(22) shows that for Standard Spanish, doubling abides by Kayne's Generalization

in most dialects, while dislocation does not (Anagnostopoulou 2005: 529).

26

Because this suggests that the grammaticality of (22) for DS involves dislocation,

criteria for distinguishing doubling from dislocation become necessary in order

to argue, as I do, that doubled objects are in fact arguments. There are four ways

to distinguish doubling from dislocation:

dislocation requires an intonational break between the dislocated element and the sentential nucleus (Suñer 1988: 344), signified by # in (21) above, and with commas in the English translations

doubled objects can be stressed; dislocated ones cannot

doubled objects can precede a focus phrase; dislocated ones cannot

doubled objects can precede a negative polarity items; dislocated ones cannot

Another way of distinguishing doubling from dislocation is that

dislocated elements cannot bear stress. With stressed elements underlined and

intonational break indicated by #, (23a) shows that that a doubled dative may

carry nuclear stress, while (23b) shows that dislocated elements cannot be

stressed.

(23) a. se lo envió a mamá # María # el

3IMPRS 3sM.ACC send.3sPST to mama Maria Det.sM

regalo

gift

'She sent it to mom, Maria, the gift.'

b. * se lo envió a mamá # María # el

3IMPRS 3sM.ACC send.3sPST to mama Maria Det.sM

gift

regalo

'She sent it to mom, Maria, the gift.'

27

As well, true doubled arguments can precede a focus phrase (Zubizarreta 1988).

Consider the following. (24a) shows that a doubled accusative can precede a

right-edge focus phrase, while (24b) shows that a dislocated element may not. I

indicate contrastive focus with [ F … ] in the Spanish, and with italics and

parentheticals in the translation:

(24) a. esta mañana lo castigó a él [F la madre

this morning 3sM.ACC punish.3sPST OM him Det.sM mother

de Juan]

of Juan

'Juan's mother (and no-one else) punished him this morning.'

b. * esta mañana lo castigó # a él [F la

this morning 3sM.ACC punish.3sPST OM him Det.sM

madre de Juan]

mother of Juan

'Juan's mother (and no-one else) punished him this morning.'

(Zubizarreta 1988: 186)

Assuming the focused phrase is not dislocated, the doubled DO preceding it

must also not be dislocated. And there is good reason to believe focused phrases

aren't dislocated: (24b) shows that focused phrases cannot be separated from the

sentence by an intonational break, which means that focused phrases are not

themselves dislocated. Thus, doubled arguments have the same intonation and

distribution as arguments, can take nuclear stress, and can precede a focus

phrase, while dislocated elements cannot be stressed, cannot precede a focus

phrase and must be separated from the rest of the sentence with an intonational

break.

28

One final test for distinguishing doubling from dislocation is the case of

polarity items. Generally, polarity items must be c-commanded by a licensing

operator in order to surface grammatically (Ladusaw 1979). This holds true in the

case of Spanish negative-polarity items, which must be licensed by no:

(25) a. no conozco a nadie

Neg know.1sPRES OM no-one

'I don't know anyone.'

b. * conozco a nadie

know.1sPRES OM no-one

'I don't know anyone.'

In Limeño Spanish, spoken in Lima (Mayer 2008), the negative polarity item can

be clitic-doubled if a partitive discourse context is established such that nadie

quantifies over a definite larger set of entities (I discuss partitivity in more detail

later). Consider the following:

(26) no lo vieron a nadie en esta playa

no 3sM.ACC see.3pPST OM no-one in this beach

'They didn't see any of them at this beach.'

Given that a nadie would be outside of the c-command domain of the licensing

operator no if it were dislocated, the grammaticality of (26) is good evidence that

the doubled negative polarity item is in a non-dislocated position.

Mayer (2008) further notes that the marginality of (26) if uttered with an

intonational break separating the negative polarity item from the first part of the

sentence, as in the following:

(27) ?* no lo vieron # a nadie en esta playa

no 3sM.ACC see.3pPST OM no-one in this beach

'They didn't see any of them at this beach.'

29

If one deduces from (26)-(27) that negative polarity items are in non-

dislocated positions— since dislocated elements are adjuncts and negative

polarity items must reside in the c-command domains of their licensing

operators—then a doubled object preceding a negative polarity item is also in a

non-dislocated position. This means that in the following sentence, which was

grammatical for my younger DS speakers, the direct object el libro is in a non-

dislocated position:

(28) no se lo dimos el libro a nadie

no 3IMPRS 3sM.ACC give.1pPST Det.sM book OM no-one

'We didn't give the book to anyone.'

And as further evidence that both the doubled object and the negative polarity

item are in nondislocated positions, my consultants agreed with Mayer's data for

Limeño with respect to the marginality of separating the negative polarity item

from the rest of the sentence with an intonational break:

(29) ?* no se lo dimos # el libro a nadie

no 3IMPRS 3sM.ACC give.1pPST Det.sM book OM no-one

'We didn't give the book to anyone.'

In summary, I have shown that there are four ways in which doubling and

dislocation differ: dislocated elements are separated from the rest of the sentence

by an intonational break; doubled objects can bear stress while dislocated

elements cannot; doubled objects can directly precede focused phrases and

negative polarity items while dislocated elements cannot. The behavior that

distinguishes doubling from dislocation are similar to the behavior of arguments,

which can also bear stress, precede focused phrases and negative polarity items,

and are uttered with an unbroken intonational curve with respect to the rest of

30

the sentence (Suñer 1988). Thus, having shown that doubled objects are in non-

dislocated positions and that they pattern like arguments, I assume doubled

objects are arguments. I go on to discuss the Spanish object marker.

1.4. What is object marker a?

In Spanish, an instance of differential object marking (DOM) is attested. DOM is

the morphological marking of certain kinds of arguments based on their features.

The Spanish object marker a obligatorily marks specific animate arguments

(Suñer 1988).

I showed in the last section that doubled objects are not dislocated.

However, this does not automatically imply that they are arguments, even

though I assume this to be so. It could be, as Kayne would have it, that doubled

objects are non-dislocated adjuncts. This assumes, for dialects that abide by KG

(according to which doubling is only grammatical if the doubled object is headed

by a preposition), that the preposition heading the doubled object is a case-

assigner. Is this so?

It is the object marker which is an ostensible instance of a licensing

preposition for DOCD (Jaeggli 1982). Data from Porteño and DS strongly

motivate an analysis in which the object marker is not a case assigner, since in

these dialects DOCD is grammatical without DOM. In this section, I consider this

ostensible licensing preposition further, I first discuss the roles of animacy and

definiteness in DOM. Then I go on to show that it can be distinguished from the

homophonous preposition a. Finally, I introduce the notion of specificity and

discuss its role in DOM.

31

In discussing the object marker's properties, I forward my investigation

regarding whether there is a causal link between the constraints governing

DOCD and those for DOM, as in KG, or if there is no causal relationship between

the two constraint sets, as in the Independence Hypothesis (Bleam 1999). I

ultimately follow the latter.

1.4.1. Animacy and definiteness

It would seem at first glance that the object marker is obligatory for animate

objects and ungrammatical for inanimate objects. Consider the following:

(30) a. object marker a is obligatory for animates

ví *(a) Juan / la perra

see.1sPST OM Juan / Det.sM dog.f

'I saw Juan/the dog.'

b. object marker a is ungrammatical for inanimates

compramos (*a) la mesa

buy.1pPST OM Det.sF table

'We bought the table.'

However, not all animates take the object marker. (31) below shows that the

object marker is not obligatory for indefinite animates, and an analysis becomes

necessary for the apparent optionality of the object marker with respect to

indefinite animates:

(31) busco (a) una mujer

seek.1sPST OM one woman

'I'm looking for a woman.' (Suñer 1988)

32

This apparent optionality is available not only for animates headed by indefinite

determiners, but also for animates headed by different sorts of quantifiers, as

well as bare plurals. Consider the following. (32a) shows that animate bare

plurals do not require the object marker, (32b) shows this for animates headed by

cardinal quantifiers, (32c) shows this for animates headed by the existential

quantifier some, and (32d) shows this for the existential quantifier many.

(32) a. veo personas

see.1sPRES people

'I see people.'

b. veo (a) dos personas

see.1sPRES OM two persons

'I see two people.'

c. veo (a) alguna-s personas

see.1sPRES OM some-PL persons

'I see two people.'

d. veo (a) mucha-s personas

see.1sPRES OM many-PL people

'I see many people.'

Bare plurals, cardinal quantifiers, and the existential quantifiers as in (32a-

d) correspond to what Milsark (1974) calls “weak” quantificational expressions.

“Weak” expressions can occur in existential clauses ('there are...'), while Milsark's

“strong” expressions — universal quantifiers, proper names, strong pronouns,

and definite expressions— cannot occur in existential clauses (in Spanish, haber

clauses). Consider the following:

33

(33) “weak” quantifiers can occur in existential clauses:

a. hay personas en el parque

Aux.3pPres people in Det.sM park

'There are people in the park.'

b. hay algunas /dos personas en el parque

Aux.3pPRES some /two people in Det.sM park

'There are two people in the park.'

c. hay muchas personas en el parque

Aux.3pPRES many people in Det.sM park

'There are many people in the park.'

(34) “strong” quantifiers cannot occur in existential clauses:

a. * hay todos en el parque

Aux.3pPRES all in Det.sM park

'There are all in the park.'

b. * hay él / Juan / las gatas en el parque

Aux.3pPRES him / Juan / Det.pF cats in Det.sM park

'There is him / Juan / the woman in the park.'

Therefore, following Milsark's terminology, “strong” expressions— the

expressions modified by the universal quantifier, strong pronouns, proper

names, and definite expressions— obligatorily take the object marker, while the

object marker is not obligatory for “weak” expressions— bare plurals along with

expressions modified by cardinal and existential quantifiers. Before considering

the nature of this apparent optionality, I first distinguish the object marker a from

the homophonous preposition a.

34

1.4.2. Object marker vs. preposition

The form a in Spanish marks certain objects of the verb. I have shown that at least

one use is for animates, though so far it seems only obligatory for definite

animates. But is the object marker a preposition?

Prima facie, it is plausible to posit that there are different morphemes

homophonously expressed as a by considering evidence with respect to

dislocation. For example, dislocated goal PPs cannot be coreferential with a clitic,

as in (35a) below, while indirect and direct object patients can, as in (35b) below

(Anagnostopoulou 2005: 524):

(35) a. * a Londres, lo fuí

to Lonon 3sM.ACC go.1sPST

'To London, I went.'

b. a Juan # creo que le quiero mandar

OM Juan think.1sPRES Cmpl 3sDAT want.1sPRES send.INF

un gift

one regalo

'John, I think I want to send him a gift.'

c. a Juan # creo que lo quiero ver

OM Juan, think.1sPRES Cmpl 3sM.ACC want.1sPRES see.INF

'John, I think I want to see him.'

Further, the form in (35a), which precedes goal PPs, can in fact be grammatically

replaced with other prepositions. Not so for the form in (35b)-(35c) preceding

animate patients, as (36b) below shows:

(36) a. fuimos a / hacia Juan

go.1pPST to / toward Juan

'We went to / toward Juan.'

35

b. queremos a / * hacia Juan

want.1pPRES OM / toward Juan

'We want Juan / We want toward (?) Juan.'

Suñer (1988) points out further evidence of a number of behaviors which

distinguish the object marker from a preposition. She uses IOCD to justify her

claims, and I proceed cautiously, since just because the a which marks indirect

objects of ditransitives in IOCD contexts is not a preposition, it doesn't

necessarily follow that the object marker for direct objects of monotransitives in

DOCD contexts isn't a preposition either. But the arguments are nevertheless

relevant here. Suñer (1988) shows that the object marker is not a governing

category, and that the complement of a preposition cannot bind an anaphor

which is outside the PP headed by that preposition.

Pronominals headed by true prepositions can be freely coindexed

(indicated by subscripts in the examples below) with subjects of clauses, as in

(37a), while doubled indirect object pronominals cannot be coindexed with

subjects, and must be disjoint in reference, as in (37b).

In (37a), Suñer shows that the preposition de is a governing category for

the prepositional complement: because él can be bound by the PRO subject, it

must the that PRO is outside the governing category for él, since the pronoun is

subject to Principle B (a pronominal must be free in its governing category). In

(37b), ella cannot be bound by Maria, which means that Mara must be inside the

governing category for the pronoun. This means the object marker cannot head

the governing category for ella, unlike the preposition de in (32a), which can. This

suggests that the object marker a is not a preposition:

36

(37) a. ese señori nunca se cansa de PROi hablar

that man never Rflx tire.3sPRES of PRO speak.INF

[PP de éli/j ]

[ of 3sM]

'That man never gets tired of speaking about him/himself.'

b. Mariai lej aceptó la invitación

Maria3s.DAT accept.3sPST Det.sF invitation

[a ella j/*i ]

[OM 3sF ]

'Maria accept the invitation from her/*herself.'

Further, the complement of a preposition cannot bind an anaphor which is

outside the PP headed by that preposition, as in (38a). Indirect objects marked by

object marker a are not restricted in this way, as in (38b):

(38) a. Pacoi habló con el profesorj de sí mismo i/*j

Paco speak.3sPST with Det.sM professor about himself/*him

'Paco talked with the professor about himself.'

b. Pacoi le habló a-l profesorj de

Paco 3s.DAT speak.3sPST OM-Det.sM professor about

sí mismo i/j

himself/him

'Paco talked with the professor about himself.'

(Belloro 2007: 22)

This test actually works for DOCD as well, as I found with my speakers. (39)

below shows that an anaphor can take bath coreference and disjoint reference

with respect to the clitic-doubled argument:

37

(39) Pacoi lo encontró a-l profesorj viendo

Paco 3sM.ACC find.3sPST OM-Det.sM professor watch.PRG

la pelicula de sí mismo i/j

Det.sF movie of himself/him

'Paco found the professor watching the movie about himself/him.'

From her governing category and anaphor tests Suñer concludes that the object

marker a is not, in fact, a preposition, since it patterns differently from them. I

adopt her proposal, according to which there are at least two a morphemes: one

which marks goals such as locations and selected by verbs of motion, and one

which marks specific animate arguments.

In conclusion, I have shown evidence that the object marker is not a

preposition. However, it is important to point out that even if the object marker

can be shown not to be a preposition, and even as Suñer's approach is “caseless”

(as I later discuss), the above evidence does not necessarily show that object

marker a is not a case-assigner: Suñer's insights do not necessarily contradict

Kayne's proposal, but they do motivate further analysis. In the following

subsection I consider the role of specificity with respect to the object marker.

1.4.3. Specificity

Specificity is an important factor at play in DOCD as well as in DOM, and I

discuss it in more detail later. For my discussion of DOM a brief overview will

suffice.

Suñer (1988: 397) provides evidence from Rioplatense speakers of the

following minimal pair. She argues that for her speakers, (40a) did not refer to a

particular man who speaks French, while (40b) did. I tested this pair for DS

speakers and their judgments aligned with those of Suñer's speakers.

38

(40) a. busco un hombre que sabe francés

seek.1sPRES one man Cmpl know.3sPRES French

'I'm looking for a man who speaks French (any man).'

b. busco a un hombre que sabe francés

seek.1sPRES OM one man Cmpl know.3sPRES French

'I'm looking for a man who speaks French (one in particular).'

Suñer argues that the form a which is not a preposition is an object marker which

obligatorily heads specific animates (Suñer 1988, Anagnostopoulou 2005, Belloro

2007). By 'specific' Suñer means having a particular, referential entity identifiable

in the discourse. Her hypothesis is that specificity is a formal feature of the

syntax, encoded on animates by object marker a. The immediate assumption here

would be definite animates are inherently specific, since they are obligatorily

headed by the object marker. Thus, a connection to Milsark's strong/weak

distinction emerges: strong expressions pattern like specifics.

Weak expressions, on the other hand, are not inherently specific, and this

is why the object marker is optional for animates headed by indefinites and

cardinal quantifiers: it is precisely the presence of a that renders these arguments

with a specific interpretation. For Suñer, then, specificity is a formal feature of

the syntax, and in Spanish it is encoded with a (she as well argues that it is

encoded, independently, by clitics, as I discuss later).

Suñer says specific expressions are referential. What factors might be

relevant with respect to referentiality? There are at least two: mood and

intensionality. Broadly speaking, Spanish has three moods: imperative, realis

(indicative) and irrealis (subjunctive). Intensional verbs such as seek set up scope

domains in which complements modified by relative clauses in the subjunctive

mood can reside. Only intensional verbs can take these kinds of complements.

39

Therefore, consider the following. (41a) shows that 'know' cannot take a

complement modified by a subjunctive-mood relative clause (and that the object

marker's presence does not save the sentence), while (41b) shows that 'seek,' an

intensional verb, can take such a complement:

(41) a. * conozco (a) un hombre que sepa francés

know.1sPRES OM one man Cmpl know.3sSUBJ French

'I know/see a man who would know French.'

b. busco un hombre que sepa francés

want.1sPRES one man Cmpl know.3sSUBJ French

'I want to meet a man who knows French.'

As well, we can see from (42) that the object marker cannot grammatically head

intensional-verb complements modified by subjunctive-mood relative clauses.

The intensional verb here is the higher verb 'want,' which sets up a scope domain

in which a complement headed by the object marker is not grammatical:

(42) quiero conocer (*a) un hombre que sepa francés

want.1sPRES know.INF OM one man Cmpl know.3sSUBJ French

'I want to meet a man who speaks French (a particular man).'

(Suñer 1988: 400)

It seems that objects modified by subjunctive-mood relative clauses must reside

within the scopal domain of their c-commanding verb. If only intensional verbs

can set up scope domains, this explains the ungrammaticality of (41a), and why

the object marker is ungrammatical in (42). The complements of intensional verbs

are therefore not inherently referential, and since modification by a subjunctive

(irrealis) mood relative clause renders such complements nonreferential, these

complements cannot be specific. This is why Suñer claims that specific

arguments must be referential. At least with respect to animates, this seems to be

true from (42).

40

I have shown that object marker a obligatorily heads “strong” expressions

(in Milsark's sense). It distinguishes specific indefinites for nonspecific ones. As

well, I have shown that specificity, which I discuss in much more detail later, is

available only for referential arguments. Nonreferential ones cannot, as I showed

with the case of intensional-verb complements modified by subjunctive-mood

relative clauses. I leave open for now the question of whether the object marker

assigns case, since this question is not relevant for instances of grammatical

DOCD without the object marker, as in DS and Porteño.

1.5. Summary

Kayne's Generalization (KG) posits that clitic doubling is only grammatical if the

doubled object is headed by a licensing preposition (Jaeggli 1982). Dominican

Spanish (DS) violates KG, and in order to analyze this phenomenon, in chapter 1

I introduced the terms of analysis in this paper: clitics, DOCD, DOM, and

specificity effects.

Clitics encode φ-features of an argument. Clitics can be distinguished

from pronouns, which also encode argumental features in five ways: clitics are

prosodically weak and must be directly adjacent to their verbal host, while

pronouns require no prosodic host; clitics cannot be stressed, coordinated or

modified, while pronouns can (Zwicky and Pullum 1983); and clitics are

morphologically marked for case, while pronouns are not. These four behaviors

make them pattern like non-projecting heads, but their clitic climbing properties

(head-to-head movement) make them seem like phrasal heads (heads of XPs).

41

I discussed the ACC and DAT clitics, showing that only the third person

distinguished for case, and only the third-person singular distinguished for

gender. I introduced clitic doubling, noting the wide dialectal variation

regarding the grammaticality of DOCD for certain arguments. Because the novel

DS DOCD data could be dismissed as a case of clitic dislocation, I showed four

ways in which doubling and dislocation differ: dislocated elements are separated

from the rest of the sentence by an intonational break; doubled objects can bear

stress while dislocated elements cannot; doubled objects can directly precede

focused phrases and negative polarity items while dislocated elements cannot.

These distinguishing behaviors are the same as those of arguments, indicating

that doubled objects are arguments (Suñer 1988).

With this in mind, I introduced the object marker a, the ostensible

licensing preposition for DOCD, according to Kayne. I showed that the object

marker is obligatory for definite animates. I discussed its apparent optionality

with inanimates, but first distinguished it from the homophonous preposition a

by means of Suñer's (1988) evidence that prepositions but not the object marker

are a governing category, and that the complement of a preposition cannot bind

an anaphor which is outside the PP headed by that preposition, while the object

marker's complement can. Finally, I introduced Milsark's strong/weak expression

distinction: the latter can appear in existential clauses, while the former cannot.

Using this framework I discussed DOM specificity effects, showing that for

“weak” animate expressions such as those headed by indefinite determiners and

cardinal and existential quantifiers, the object marker encodes specificity. Specific

interpretation is only available for referential objects.

For now I leave open questions of whether the object marker assigns case

or whether specificity is a formal feature of the syntax (as opposed to an

42

emergent, syntax-determined semantic-pragmatic interpretation). Given DS and

Porteño examples of DOCD without a, however, it seems clear that the object

marker's function is to mark specific animates, not assign case— though this

leaves open the possibility that there is another homophonous, case-assigner a,

since IOCD always abides by Kayne's Generalization (Suñer 1988).

With cursory definitions of the terms of analysis in mind, in the next

section I review the literature on DOCD and its cross-dialectal variation in

Spanish.

43

2. Analyzing DOCD

Early work on clitics, seeking a unified analysis of the phenomenon in spite of

the diverse behaviors of clitics cross-linguistically, focused on whether they were

(i) pronouns which were generated as complements to the verb and, because of

their prosodic weakness, moved upward out of their deep structure positions to

adjoin to the verb (Kayne 1975), or (ii) inflections which were base-generated in

their surface positions (Borer 1984, Jaeggli 1986, Suñer 1988). Position (i), the

Movement hypothesis, analyzed doubled objects as adjuncts, while position (ii),

the Base-generation hypothesis, analyzed them as arguments.

For both of these early approaches, clitics recived case from the verb.

Kayne's Generalization noted that clitic doubling was only grammatical if the

doubled object was headed by a licensing preposition. The underlying

assumption here was that this 'licensing preposition' assigned the object case.

Further research developments moved away from Case-theoretic

approaches. In a “caseless” analysis according to which clitics where agreement

affixes and doubled objects were arguments, Suñer (1988) showed evidence of

specificity effects with respect to Spanish DOCD, and not in IOCD. I discuss

some phenomena relevant to specificity such as partitivity, referentiality, and

most importantly, scope. Building on Suñer's data, later 'mixed' analyses of clitic

doubling argue that the different properties of DOCD as opposed to IOCD

motivate analysis of ACC and DAT clitics as different syntactic elements: for

example, Uriagereka's Big DP hypothesis (1995) posits that ACC clitics are

determiners, while DAT clitics are inflections (Bleam 1999).

44

After reviewing the literature on clitic doubling, I present my analysis.

Focusing on Suñer's claims about DOCD specificity effects, which hold true in

DS, I posit an analysis in the minimalist spirit (Chomsky 1993) which might

account for all of the different behaviors of clitics. My analysis builds on

Sportiche's (1993) “clitic voices,” proposal, according to which clitics head

functional projections. I argue ACC clitics enter the derivation with an

uninterpretable feature that must be valued against a DP. The clitic probes its c-

command domain for a goal with matching features which can lend in its

Specifier position, but the clitic can only select as a goal an argument that seeks

to raise out of the VP to take specific interpretation (VP-external scope). I argue

that this functional projection is always present if an expression has a specific

interpretation, but that whether the functional head has any corresponding PF

material is determined by the “PF parameter” which only lets F-heads in

agreement relations with certain kinds of heads be spelled out at PF.

2.1. Movement vs. base-generation

Kayne (1975) showed that in French, clitics and non-clitic arguments are in

complementary distribution (they cannot co-occur). Consider the following:

(43) a. je le vois

I 3sM.ACC see.1sPRES

'I see him.'

b. je vois Jean

I see.1sPRES Jean

'I see Jean.'

45

c. * je le vois Jean

I 3sM.ACC see.1sPRES Jean

'I see Jean.'

The morpheme le patterns as a clitic— it cannot be stressed, coordinated, or

modified, and nothing can interrupt the clitic-verb sequence (Kayne 1975: 83). To

account for the complementarity of clitics and non-clitic arguments in French,

Kayne posits the Movement hypothesis: clitics are generated as complements to

the verb, receiving case in that position, and move upward to adjoin to the verb

because of their prosodic weakness.

Since clitics originate as heads of phrasal complements and receive case,

this entails that case is not available for its nominal counterpart, at least not from

the verb— hence the ungrammaticality of (43c). For Kayne, then, clitics are

pronominal heads of phrases, and receive case and theta-role assignment as

verbal complements. They adjoin to the verb because they are prosodically weak.

This accounts for French. The following tree illustrates Kayne's analysis:

(44)

46

However, the complementary distribution of clitics and DPs in French

does not hold for Spanish, Albanian, Hebrew, Greek, and other languages with

clitic doubling (Strozer 1976, Rivas 1977, Jaeggli 1982). Consider the following,

(45a) from Rioplatense Spanish and (45b) from Romanian:

(45) a. lo vimos a Juan Rioplatense

3sM.ACC see.1pPST OM Juan

'We saw Juan.'

b. l - am văzut pe Popescu Romanian

3sM.ACC- Aux.1pPST see.PFV OM Popescu

'I have seen Popescu.'

The existence of clitic doubling challenges the universality of a movement

hypothesis for clitics. In order to reconcile this data with a movement

explanation, analysts like Aoun (1981) posited that doubled objects were

adjuncts, not arguments. Kayne argued this as well, showing that clitic doubling

was only grammatical in Romance when a doubling-licensing preposition

preceded the doubled object (Kayne's Generalization).

As we have seen, however, doubled objects pattern like arguments.

Arguing against Aoun (1981) and Kayne (1975), and with the view that doubled

objects were arguments, Borer (1984) and Jaeggli (1986) posit that the clitic was

base-generated in its surface position as an adjunct to V. These analyses account

for Kayne's Generalization by arguing, like Movement analyists, that the clitic is

a case-absorber, which motivates the presence of the licensing preposition, which

is a case-assigner. The following tree captures the base-generation approach to

clitic doubling:

47

(46)

(Anagnostopoulou 2005: 532)

Analysts arguing that clitics are base-generated in their surface positions

also hold their positions for non-doubled clitic constructions such as (43a) above.

They posit that the only difference is that in non-doubled clitic constructions, the

complement to the verb is an empty category. In both cases, the base-generated

clitic is coindexed with complement c-commanded by the verb to which the clitic

is adjoined, whether that complement be a full DP or an empty category.

Consider the following tree (Anagnostopoulou 2005), with ec signifying the

empty category:

(47)

For Borer (1984: 35), the clitic is a spell-out of features of the verb and its

arguments (case, φ-features), and therefore receives case but not a theta role: this

48

allows the doubled object, in argument position, to be assigned a theta role in the

normal way. Since it seems to capture the clitic doubling data, the base-

generation hypothesis is appealing. But what conditions the difference between

languages that allow DOCD like Spanish, and those that do not, like French?

Kayne points out that even as certain Romance languages did allow clitic

doubling, DOCD and IOCD were only grammatical if the doubled object was

preceded by a licensing preposition. In (43) above, these apparent prepositions

are object marker a for Spanish (43a), and pe for Romanian (43b). As we have

seen, the Spanish object marker obligatorily marks specific animate objects.

Dobrovie-Sorin (1994b) makes the same argument for the Romanian object

marker pe.

Kayne's Generalization (Jaeggli 1986), then, states that clitic doubling is

only grammatical when a licensing preposition heads the doubled object. For

Spanish, some interaction between clitics and the object marker renders most

dialects subject to Kayne's Generalization (Anagnostopoulou 2005). Kayne's

point is to show that the movement analysis could still apply to cases of clitic

doubling: he argues that doubled objects, headed by the licensing preposition,

are adjuncts.

This can be shown in the following tree, in which the clitic, an NP verbal

complement, receives case from the verb and adjoins to it from prosodic

weakness, while the doubled object, in adjunct position, receives its case from the

object marker and its theta role from the verb:

49

(48)

But I have shown that the object marker is not a preposition, and that DS and

Porteño allow DOCD without the object marker in the case of inanimates. Not

only do these two dialects of Spanish, as well as others such as Mixoachan

Spanish (Pardo & Santa Anna 2002), optionally allow such violations of Kayne's

Generalization, but Greek in fact systematically violates it. Consider the

following. (49a) is from DS, a variation from (1) earlier in this paper; (49c) is from

Mixoachan Spanish; and (49c) is from Greek. The Greek example differs from the

Spanish ones in that the verbal complement is animate, but all three examples are

nevertheless violations of KG:

(49) a. lo leí el libro Dominican Spanish

3sM.ACC read1sPST Det.sM book

'I read the book.'

50

b. la tienen la herramienta Mixoachan Spanish

3sF.ACC have.3pPRES Det.sF tool

'They have the tool.'

c. ton idame to Iannis Greek

3sM.ACC see.1pPST Det.sM Iannis

'I saw John.'

A movement analysis of Spanish clitics, where clitics are case-absorbing heads of

phrasal complements to the verb, depends on interpreting the object marker a as

a case-assigner. However, (49) presents a clear challenge to the movement

hypothesis, and prima facie motivates a preference for the base-generation

hypothesis. But paradoxically, (49) also calls into question base-generation

hypotheses along the lines of Borer (1984), where clitics are case-absorbers. If

clitics absorb case, how do the doubled objects in (49) get their case?

Even if one proposed that the doubled objects are arguments and the

'licensing preposition' for DOCD is not in fact a preposition, but assigns the

doubled object case by some other means, object marker a is not available to

assign case for doubled inanimates, since it only marks specific animate objects.

I have shown here that languages such as French where clitics and direct

objects are in complementary distribution support movement hypotheses, while

languages with clitic doubling which abides by KG support certain base-

generation hypotheses. However, instances of DOCD which violate KG present a

problem for both approaches. Before considering a solution, I first discuss

Suñer's groundbreaking research into DOCD specificity effects, which moved

work on clitics away from case-theoretic approaches.

51

2.2. Specificity and clitics

In order to better characterize the nature of clitics in the face of the dialectal

variation, investigating their behaviors more closely becomes necessary. This

section discusses Suñer's research into the specificity effects of DOCD. She

argues that ACC clitics are [+specific] in the lexicon, while DAT clitics are not.

Since a clitic must match the features of its associate such that they both bear the

same argument relation, ACC clitics may only double [+specific] arguments. I

show the evidence for such claims and consider the plausibility of the claim that

specificity is a formal feature of the syntax. As well, I consider three phenomena

at play with respect to DOCD: partitivity, presuppositionality, and scope.

Any analysis of Spanish which tries to account for KG posits a causal

connection between clitic doubling and differential object marking (DOM): clitic

doubling can only ever occur in a subset of the environments in which

differential object marking occurs, since the latter licenses the former.

And this seems to account for the facts in standard Spanish and dialects

like Rioplatense which, as I will show, allow doubling only for specific animates.

However, connection between DOCD and DOM is called into question by

dialects like Porteño and Dominican Spanish (DS), where DOCD is allowed

without a preposition heading the doubled object, as in the following from

Porteño (Suñer 1988: 399-400):

(50) yo lo voy a comprar el diario justo

1s 3sM.ACC go.1sPRES to buy.INF Det.sM newspaper just

antes de subir

before of rise.INF

'I'm going to buy the newspaper right before coming up.'

52

The grammaticality of such sentences shows that, at least in Porteño, clitics do

not absorb case, since the doubled object in (50) is in argument position, and is

uttered, Suñer claims, with unbroken intonation. As well, (50) shows that the

object marker does not assign case, since it does not head the doubled object

(recall that the object marker is ungrammatical with inanimates).

Examining data from Rioplatense and Porteño, Suñer (1988) follows the

spirit of Borer's (1984) analysis, but argues that clitics do not receive case or

theta-roles. Suñer consequently rejects KG (Suñer 1988: 344). I follow suit on the

basis of evidence from DS, in Porteño and Balkan languages like Greek,

Albanian, and Macedonian (Kallulli 2001, Anagnastopoulou 2005, Kallulli &

Tasmowski 2008). Bleam dubs this the Independence Hypothesis (1999)— clitic

doubling and differential object marking are not inherently connected.

Instead Suñer posits that clitics are agreement affixes base-generated in

their surface positions which must match in features with coindexed doubled

objects such that they bear the same argument relation (the Matching Principle).

In examples like (50) above, because the clitic does not receive case, the doubled

object's case is checked as it would when the clitic is not present. As a result,

Suñer argues against the proposal that the object marker is a case-assigner.

Finally, she argues that ACC clitics, unlike DAT clitics, are inherently

specific. Therefore, ACC clitics cannot double [-specific] objects. Consider the

following from Rioplatense Spanish, spoken in Argentina. (51a) shows that

DOCD is grammatical with proper names and definite animates (human and

non-human). (51b) shows it is grammatical with indefinite animates established

as specific: if the object marker a is absent, the sentence is ungrammatical. (51c)

and (51d) show that regardless of the object marker's presence, DOCD is

ungrammatical with alguien and definite non-specifics, since as I discussed

53

earlier, verbal complements modified by subjunctive-mood relative clauses are

nonreferential and therefore cannot be specific:

(51) a. proper names, definite humans, and definite animals may be doubled

la oían a { Maria / la niña

3sF.ACC hear.3pPST.PRG OM Maria / Det.sF girl

/ la gata }

/ Det.sF cat }

'They heard Maria / the girl / the cat.'

b. indefinite animates established as specific may be doubled

diariamente, la escuchaba *(a) una mujer que

daily 3sF.ACC hear.3sPST.PRG OM one woman who

cantaba tangos

sing.3sPST tangos

'Daily, s/he heard a woman who sang tangos.'

c. alguien cannot be doubled

(*lo) buscaban a alguien

3sM.ACC seek.3pPST.PRG OM someone

'They were looking for someone.'

d. definite non-specifics cannot be doubled

(*la) alabarán a la niña que

3sF.ACC worship.3pFUT OM Det.sF girl Cmpl

termine primero

finish.3sPRES.SUBJ first

'They will praise the girl who finishes first.'

54

IOCD, on the other hand, is grammatical with alguien and objects in subjunctive-

mood clauses:

(52) a. le darán algo a alguien

3sDAT give.3pFUT something OM someone

'They will give something to someone.'

b. le darán algo a-l niño que

3sDAT give.3pFUT something OM-Det.sM boy Cmpl

termine primero

finish.3sPRES.SUBJ first

'They will give a prize to the boy who finishes first.'

(51) shows definiteness cross-cuts specificity, so to speak: Spanish can have

definite specifics as in (51a), indefinite specifics as in (51b) (and conversely,

indefinite nonspecifics, as (51b) without the object marker a would be

ungrammatical), and definite nonspecifics, as in (51d). But these data are also

problematic in that they call into question the notion of the object marker as an

encoder of specificity in the syntax, since the presence of it in (51c) and (51d)

does not render these sentences grammatical, and the object marker is obligatory

for the grammatical, non-doubled counterparts of these, as in the following:

(53) a. buscaban a alguien

seek.3pPST.PRG OM someone

'They were looking for someone.'

b. alabarán a la niña que

worship.3pFUT OM Det.sF girl Cmpl

termine primero

finish.3sPRES.SUBJ first

'They will praise the girl who finishes first.'

55

Perhaps, then, it is animacy which is the guiding factor for the

obligatoriness of the object marker, and its specificity effects are not syntactically

encoded, but simply arise from interpretation and discourse context. In fact, the

evidence from (51c), (51d), and (52) is strong support for the Independence

hypothesis (Bleam 1999), as well as for Suñer's claim that ACC clitics are

“inherently specific.” The set of constraints determining the object marker's

grammaticality is separate from the set for DOCD's grammaticality.

And since the DS DOCD data I'm analyzing does not involve the object

marker, the set of constraints governing its grammaticality (my current

characterization of which has been called into question by (53) above) is not

causally related to the set of DS DOCD constraints I am analyzing.

(51c) and (51d) indicate that referentiality may be necessary (but perhaps

not sufficient) for DOCD, while referentiality is not necessary for DOM.

Following Suñer's claim, this means that the lexical entry for the ACC clitics

contains [+specific], while the lexical entry for DAT clitics does not.

Further evidence that specificity is at play with respect to DOCD is the

following, which shows that wh-extraction of a doubled object is ungrammatical

unless the doubled object is a partitive construction. Consider the following:

(54) a. ¿a quién (*lo) entrevistaron?

OM who 3sM.ACC interview.3pPST

'Who did they interview?'

b. ¿a cuál candidato (*lo) entrevistaron?

OM which candidate 3sM.ACC interview.3pPST

'Which candidate did they interview?'

c. ¿a cuál de los candidatos lo entrevistaron?

56

OM which of Det.pM candidates 3sM.ACC interview.3pPST

'Which of the two candidates did they interview?'

However, IOCD is perfectly grammatical for wh-extracted objects:

(55) a. ¿a quién le dieron el premio?

OM who 3sDAT give.3pPST Det.sM prize

'To whom did they give the prize?'

b. ¿a cuál candidato le dieron el premio?

OM which candidate 3sDAT give.3pPST Det.sM prize

'Which candidate did they interview?'

c. ¿a cuál de los candidatos le dieron

OM which of Det.pM candidates 3sDAT give.3pPST

el premio?

Det.sM prize

'Which of the two candidates did they interview?'

Under the assumption that partitive constructions are inherently specific,

analyzing ACC clitics as [+specific] and DAT clitics as underspecified for

specificity captures these data nicely. Does partitivity make DOCD of wh-

extracted arguments grammatical, as (54c) seems to show? The relationship

between specificity and partitivity can be further elucidated by considering

quantifiers. I do so briefly in the following subsection.

2.2.1. Partitivity effects

I have shown that DOCD is only grammatical with for wh-extracted arguments if

they are partitive, while no such restriction on IOCD exists. Assuming that

partitive constructions are inherently specific, and since it seems that partititvity

57

allows DOCD for a wh-extracted argument, it is important to consider partitivity

with respect to other arguments which I have shown cannot be ACC-doubled,

such as existential quantifiers. Recall that existential quantifiers are “weak”

according to Milsark's distinction, and that these kinds of expressions cannot be

ACC-doubled. I show below that an ACC clitic may only be present with

existential quantifiers if they head overt or covert partitive expressions, just like

wh-extracted arguments. However, I ultimately go on to argue that this ACC-

partitive construction is not an instance of clitic doubling.

As I previously mentioned, DOCD is optional with the universal

quantifier and expressions headed by it across all Spanish dialects (Franco 1993,

Anagnostopoulou 2005):

(56) a. los vimos a todos

3pM.ACC see.1pPST OM all

'We saw them all.'

b. los vimos a todos los hombres

3pM.ACC see.1pPST OM all Det.sM men

'We saw all the men.'

What about other quantifiers? Recall Milsark's strong/weak quantified

expression distinction and consider the following. (57) shows that in Porteño

(Suñer 1988), DOCD is ungrammatical with existential (weak) quantifiers which

don't appear in a partitive construction, while (58) shows that if the quantifier

does head a partitive construction, the object may be doubled. I tested this for my

DS speakers and the judgments were shared: DOCD is only grammatical for

existential quantifiers if they head a partitive construction.

(57) a. * la examino a una

3sF.ACC examine.3sPST OM one

'S/he examined one.'

58

b. * las examino a { algunas / muchas / varias }

3sP.ACC examine.3sPST OM some / many / various

'S/he examined some / many / several.'

(58) a. la examino a una de ellas

3sF.ACC examine.3sPST OM one of them.f

'S/he examined one of them.'

b. las examino a { algunas / muchas / varias }

3sP.ACC examine.3sPST OM some / many / various

de ellas

of them.f

'S/he examined some / many / several of them.'

All of these, however, are grammatical with IOCD, regardless of whether the

existential quantifier heads a partitive:

(59) a. le dieron un premio a una (de ellas)

3s.DAT give.3pPST one prize OM one (of them.f)

'They gave a prize to one (of them).'

b. le dieron un premio a { algunas / muchas / varias }

3s.DAT give.3pPST one prize OM some / many / various

(de ellas)

(of them.f)

'They gave a prize to some/many/several of them.'

If both ACC clitics and partitive constructions are [+specific], it makes sense that

DOCD with existential quantifiers (which are weak and thus not inherently

specific) would only be grammatical if the quantifiers head partitive expressions.

And since DAT clitics are not [+specific] inherently, they “don't care” about the

59

whether the existential quantifier heads a partitive, and IOCD is grammatical in

both cases, as (59) shows.

First/second-person clitics may be used in conjunction with existential

quantifiers to construct a partitive reading (Hurtado 1984), as in the following:

(60) a. nos examinaron a algunos

1p.ACC examine.3pPST OM some

'They examined some of us.'

b. nos examinaron a algunos de nosotros

1p.ACC examine.3pPST OM some of us

'They examined some of us.'

This is also the case for wh-extracted objects, which are grammatical with

first/second-person clitics, as in the following:

(61) ¿a quién nos dieron el premio?

OM who 2pACC give.3pPST Det.sM prize

'Which of us will they give the prize to?'

(Suñer 1988: 418)

This can be analyzed as an instance of 'covert partitivity,' though notably this is

context-contingent. Uttered without context, (60a) could be interpreted as

containing a 1pDAT clitic, which would render the sentence 'They examined

some for us,' that is, as a benefactive. An example in which covert partitivity

would be the more clearly-intended reading would be as follows:

(62) vinieron a nuestro pueblo y nos examinaron a algunos

come.3pPST to our village & 1p.ACC examine.3pPST OM some

'They came to our village and examined some of us.'

60

In the case of 3ACC clitics, a covert partitive reading similarly arises in such a

context. The following sentence was judged grammatical by both generations of

my DS speakers:

(63) encontraron cinco monos y los examinaron a algunos

find.3pPST five monkeys & 3pM.ACC examine.3pPST OM some

'They found five monkeys and examined some of them.'

This covert partitivity in (62) and (63) can be analyzed as an instance of the clitic

doubling a partitive empty category (the complement to the existential

quantifier) which occupies the same position that the analogous, explicit partitive

PP (de nosotros 'of us' and de elllos 'of them', respectively) occupies. Since the

assumption here is that this position is an adjunct one, (58), (62) and (63) are not

instances of true clitic doubling. Therefore, consider the following. (64) shows the

coindexation relationship for the clitic and its associate for (62), and (65) shows it

for (63). e here signifies an empty category.

(64) a. nosi examinaron a [QP algunos [ PP de nosotrosi ] ]

'They examined some of us.'

b. nosi examinaron a [QP algunos [ ei ] ]

'They examined some of us.'

(65) a. losi examinaron a [QP algunos [ PP de ellosi ] ]

'They examined some of them.'

b. losi examinaron a [QP algunos [ PP ei ] ]

'They examined some of them.'

This means that partitivity, whether overt or covert, can render the presence of

an ACC clitic grammatical. But because the associate of the clitic in such partitive

examples is an adjunct complement to a QP, these examples are not instances of

true DOCD, but more like dislocation. The relationship is nevertheless telling,

61

since the partitive complement of a modifying quantifier must always be a strong

expression, in Milsark's terms. This can be seen in the following:

(66) a. three [of [the boys]] d. * three [of [some boys]]

b. three [of [these boys]] e. * three [of [few/many boys]]

c. three of [my friends]] f. * three [of [boys]]

Since this is a general property of partitives, the same strong/weak contrast

appears in Spanish.

(67) a. tres [de [los niños]] d. * tres [de [algunos niños]]

b. tres [de [estos niños]] e. * tres [de [pocos/muchos niños]]

c. tres [de [mis amigos]] f. * tres [de [niños]

In summary, I have shown that in the case of weak quantified expressions, covert

or overt partitivity allows a clitic to coindex with the QP complement. But I reject

these cases as instances of dislocation, not doubling, since the element with

which the clitic bears the same argument relation is in an adjunct position, not an

argument position. In order to make this clearer, consider the following tree, in

which the verb does not select a complement, and the QP is attached to the tree

in an adjunct position:

(68)

62

Indeed, if the co-occurrence of a clitic with an existential quantifier modifying

partitive expressions is as in (68) above, Kayne's movement hypothesis becomes

available as a potential analysis. This can be seen in the following tree:

(69)

Thus, even as an important relationship between specificity and partitivity does

exist, in that the partitive complement modified by a quantifier must always be a

strong expression in Milsark's sense, these constructions seem more like

examples of clitic dislocation than clitic doubling, and my goal in this section was

to show that partitivity is not a useful test for the role of specificity in DS DOCD.

But there are other factors at play determining specific interpretation. In

the next subsection, I consider the relationship between specificity,

presuppositionality, and scope.

63

2.2.2. Scope and presuppositionality

Suñer's research showed that in Spanish, indefinites are ambiguous with respect

to being interpreted as presuppositional or exisential— that is, certain indefinites

presuppose the existence of an entity, while other indefinites assert that entity's

existence. Those indefinites which assert an entity's existence are those which

correspond to Milsark's weak quantified expressions, while indefinites which

presuppose an entity's existence correspond to Milsark's strong quantified

expressions. Suñer's claim is that ACC clitics are [+specific], and the presence of

an ACC clitic is what gives an expression that would otherwise pattern as weak a

strong interpretation. With this in mind, consider the following minimal pair.

(70) a. lo he visto a un marinero.

3sM.ACC Aux.1sPST see.PFV OM one sailor

'I have seen one of the sailors.'

b. he visto a un marinero.

Aux.1sPST see.PFV OM one sailor

'I have seen a sailor.'

As indicated by the glosses, the doubled referent in (70a) is a member of an

already-introduced discourse set: the existence of the doubled object is

presupposed. This makes sense if partitives are [+specific], as I have mentioned

before. Franco (1993) analyzes this minimal pair as follows, in the spirit of Suñer

(1988): since most dialects of Spanish which allow doubling abide by Kayne's

Generalization, it is only in the case of human indefinites where DOCD has

interpretive effects, serving as a disambiguator between existential and

presuppositional readings. And, in fact, later work by Suñer (1999) argues that

DOCD is obligatory for strong pronouns in standard Spanish precisely because

64

strong pronouns refer to presupposed entities (Belloro 2007). As for the object

marker, Franco posits that its central role is marking animacy, not specificity.

How is it that the clitic indicates the presuppositionality of the doubled

object (70a)? First, given that it is only grammatical in a felicitious discourse

context, I argue that presuppositionality can be activated by discourse-linking,

later going on to show that the answer to a question may contain a doubled

object if that object is mentioned in the question, thus rendering it

presuppositional by discourse-linking.

I also argue that a specific interpretation emerges from VP-external scope.

Following Diesing's Mapping Hypothesis (1992), I argue that VP-internal

information is novel and focused, while VP-external information is presupposed.

Therefore, specific DPs must be projected external to the VP at LF in order to

licitly map to semantic representations (Diesing 1992). The non-doubled verbal

complement in (70b) above is novel information because it remains within the

scope of the verb (von Heusinger 2003). DOCD is available in this context

because the verb is not intensional and thus does not set up a scope domain, and

I argue that in (70a) the object has evacuated the VP in order to take wide scope

and thus a presuppositional, specific (partitive) reading. Of course, if I am right

that covert partitives like (70a) are not instances of clitic doubling, then in order

to consider my claim regarding scope and presuppositionality I must look at

scopal interactions between arguments, not adjuncts. I do so below.

Following Hurtado 1984, Suñer claims that quantified IOCD constructions

are ambiguous between a wide and narrow scope reading as in (71), while

quantified DOCD constructions only receive wide scope interpretation as in (72).

Therefore, in (72b) below, the only interpretation available to the sentence is the

65

wide-scope one in which every voter selects the same set of candidates (Suñer

1988: 423).

(71) cada candidato le dijo la verdad a algunos electores

every candidate 3s.DAT say.3sPST Det.sM truth OM some voters

'Every candidate told the truth to some voters.'

a. Narrow scope: every candidate told some voters the truth

b. Wide scope: every candidate told the same set of voters the truth

(72) cada elector los eligio a algunos candidatos

Det.sM voter 3pM.ACC elect.3sPST OM some candidates

'Every voter elected some of the candidates.'

* a. Narrow scope: Every voter has elected some subset of the set of candidates

b. Every voter has selected the same subset of candidates

Why is it that the ACC-doubled QP in (72) must take wide scope? I posit that it is

because specific arguments must 'evacuate' the VP, landing in the Spec of the

functional projection headed by the clitic in order to take VP-external scope.

But only certain kinds of objects can take VP-external scope. Others must

stay within the scope domain set up by the verb. Recall my earlier discussion

regarding verbal complements modified by relative-mood subjunctive clauses.

As evidence for this consider Suñer's data regarding the effect that clausal mood

has on the availability of DOCD. She shows that in Rioplatense, indefinite

inanimates modified by a relative clause may undergo DOCD only if that relative

clause is in the indicative mood. My DS speakers also shared these judgments.

Consider the following (Leonetti 2007):

66

(73) a. lo busco a un doctor que sabe

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES OM one doctor Cmpl know.3sPRES

francés

French

'I'm looking for a doctor who speaks French.'

b. * lo busco a un doctor que sepa

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES OM one doctor Cmpl know.3sSUBJ

francés

French

'I'm looking for a doctor who speaks French.'

A subjunctive-mood relative clause does not presuppose the existence of

the referent it modifies (because it is nonreferential), while an indicative-mood

relative clause does. That is, the doubled argument in (73a) has a referent, and

because its existence is presupposed I take this argument to have evacuated the

VP. DOCD is ungrammatical in (73b) because for various reasons, the doubled

argument must stay within the VP: it is novel information and is modified by a

subjunctive-mood relative clause, thus must remain in the scopal domain set up

by its c-commanding verb. Therefore only referential, presuppositional

arguments can undergo DOCD in order to take a specific reading. This reading is

achieved by evacuating the VP to take VP-external scope. As such, consider the

following. Even though the indefinite animates are modified by indicative-mood

relative clauses, the DPs cannot scope out of the VP because the information is

novel, and not presupposed:

67

(74) a. * lo busca a un médico que vino

3sM.ACC seek.3sPRES OM one doctor who come.3sPST de NY ayer

from NY yesterday

'S/he is looking for a doctor that came from N.Y. yesterday.'

b. * lo busca a un hombre que lleva

3sM.ACC seek.3sPRES OM one man who wear.3sPRES

camisa azul

shirt blue

'S/he is looking for a man wearing a blue shirt.'

To account for these facts, and in the spirit of Milsark 1977 and Diesing's 1992

Mapping Hypothesis, Franco claims that DOCD is used as a disambiguating

mechanism in the case of arguments headed by weak quantifiers such as un,

unos, alguno, etc (that is, those which are 'nonspecific' in that they can appear in

existential clauses as we have previously defined). These kinds of arguments are

ambiguous with respect to whether they are to be interpreted as

presuppositional or not, and the DO clitic serves to encode presuppositionality.

Thus, Franco's argument (1993, 2003) is that clitics guarantee that an

argument cannot be interpreted existentially, only presuppositionally.

Gutiérrez-Rexach (2001) and Kallulli & Tasmowski (2008), for Spanish and

Balkan languages respectively, show that presuppositionality and focus are

mutually exclusive. Therefore, focalized arguments (i.e., Focus Phrases) cannot

undergo DOCD. I build on this claim for my analysis of DS, since

presuppositionality seems like a requirement for arguments which seek to

evacuate the VP in order to take a specific interpretation.

68

Evidence of presuppositionality being a prerequisite for DOCD can be

seen from Balkan and Slavic languages. In the following examples, I show that in

Albanian and Greek, DOCD is only grammatical if the doubled object is

presupposed and thus not in the focus domain. In (75), the question frames the

focus as the occurring event: the answer to the question (that is, what is in the

focused phrase) cannot undergo clitic doubling. However, I show in (76) that

DOCD is perfectly grammatical in Albanian and Greek (without an object

marker, notably) if the question mentions the answer's doubled object, which

renders it presuppositional:

(75) What happened? / What did Jan do?

a. Jan-i (*i) hëngri fasule-t Albanian

Jan-NOM 3pM.ACC eat.3sPST beans-Det.p

'Jan ate the beans.'

b. o Yánnis (*ta) éfaye ta fasólia Greek

Det.sM Yannis 3pF.ACC eat.3sPST Det.pF beans

'Yannis ate the beans.'

Again, DOCD is grammatical if the question mentions the object doubled in the

answer, rendering it presuppositional and thus mutually exclusive with the focus

domain (which in this case is the identity of the agent of the presupposed action):

(76) Who read the book? / What did Ana do with the book?

a. Ana e lexoi libr-in Albanian

Ana 3sM.ACC read.3sPST book-Det.ACC

'Ana read the book.'

b. i Ana to diavase to vivlio Greek

Det.sF Ana 3sM.ACC read.3sPST Det.sM book

'Ana read the book.'

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This is also true for Bulgarian (Franco 2000, Belloro 2007). (77) below shows that

pismoto can only be ACC-doubled in the answer if it has been mentioned in the

question, and is thus presupposed, that is, not part of the focus domain:

(77) a. What happened? / What did Ivo do?

Ivo (*go) napisa pismoto

Ivo 3sM.ACC write.3sPST letter.ACC

‘Ivo wrote the letter.’

b. What happened to the letter? / Who wrote the letter?

Ivo (go) napisa pismoto

Ivo 3sM.ACC write.3sPST letter.ACC

‘Ivo wrote the letter.’

Finally, Romanian presents similar facts (Gierling 1997: 67):

(78) a. What are you doing?

* il caut pe John

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES OM John

'I'm looking for John.'

b. Who are you looking for? / Where's John?

(il) caut pe John

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES OM John

'I'm looking for John.'

In conclusion, specific interpretation (wide or VP-external scope) is only

available to referential, presuppositional arguments. Presuppositionality is often

activated by discourse-linking. The reason only presuppositional arguments

may be specific is because novel information remains within the VP, and thus

this novel information cannot evacuate the VP in order to take VP-external scope

(specific interpretation). Evidence showing the ungrammaticality of DOCD for

70

arguments modified by subjunctive-mood relative clauses, as well as arguments

within the focus domain framed by a question, supports this claim.

Thus one might put it informally as follows: since certain determiners

have quantificational features, it is only when these quantifiers scope over a set

of of familiar or presupposed objects that DOCD is grammatical. An element

achieves presuppositionality and specificity by evacuating the VP. In the next

section, I propose my analysis for DOCD, in light of the previous literature I have

discussed.

2.3. Modifying Sportiche for my proposal

In order to account for the DS data, and in hopes of constructing the machinery

for developing a unified analysis of cross-linguistic DOCD variation, I adopt

aspects of Sportiche's (1993) “clitic voices” proposal. I argue that clitics head

functional projections. The AccP needs its uninterpretable feature to be checked,

and it probes its c-command domain for a goal with a matching interpretable

feature which can land in its Specifier position. Along the lines of Sportiche's

Doubly-Filled Voice Filter (1993), I argue that AccP must have its Specifier

position filled. Since only presupposed, referential expressions can take a specific

interpretation, DOCD is only grammatical with specific arguments. Whether the

functional head of this AccP has corresponding PF material is determined by a

“PF Parameter” which only allows the spellout of heads that are in agreement

relations with arguments that have certain kinds of features. In order to develop

my analysis, I first discuss Sportiche's (1993).

In light of Suñer's work, specificity becomes the guiding factor for a

unification analysis of cross-dialectal differences in DOCD behavior. Suñer

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showed that regardless of this dialectal variation with respect to what kinds of

arguments could be ACC-doubled, DOCD is only for specific arguments. Further,

the development of the theoretical machinery such as Pollock's 'expansion' of the

INFL-head and the proliferation of functional categories (Pollock 1989), allowed

for the possibility of (i) reconciling base-generation and movement approaches

and (ii) positing 'split' analyses of clitics, where these two classes constitute

different syntactic elements (Franco 1993, Uriagereka 1995, Gutiérrez Rexach 2000)

in order to account for Suñer's discoveries regarding specificity effects. Two

influential, contrasting examples of reconciling base-generation and movement

are Uriagereka's Big DP hypothesis (1995) and Sportiche's Clitic Voices proposal

(1996).

Noting the similarities between determiners and 3ACC clitics, Uriagereka

argues that an ACC clitic is a determiner head with a pro complement, and that

the doubled object is in the specifier of the DP. DAT clitics are simply inflections.

Both move upward in the tree during the course of the derivation. He wants to

argue that clitics are arguments (D-heads which receive case in verbal

complement position), but that doubled objects are not consequently adjuncts.

Therefore consider the following trees, the 'Big DP' on the left and a regular

determiner phrase on the right. The double is parenthetical on the left to indicate

that non-doubled clitic constructions use the same big DP, except with an empty

Specifier position.

(79) a. b.

72

I do not consider this proposal further, since I do not want to argue that clitics

receive case. Instead, I elaborate on a proposal Sportiche (1993), the “clitic

voices” analysis.

Sportiche (1993) posited that clitics head functional projections, and that

doubled objects move from complement-to-verb position to the Specifier position

of the clitic projection. The Specifier/head relationship of the clitic-phrase

captures the agreement between clitic and doubled object, and the projection for

ACC clitics (AccP, let us say) contains an uninterpretable feature which DatP

does not have, and which the doubled object checks by raising into the

SpecPosition.

Thus, for Sportiche the clitic adjoins to its surface position because of its

prosodic weakness, but not from complement-to-verb position. Instead, it

originates as the head of a functional projection. I adopt a proposal along similar

lines here, but modify it in a number of ways. I argue only the AccP requires its

Specifier position to be filled This is why only specific arguments undergo

DOCD, since it is these arguments which need to be VP-external to attain their

specific interpretation. Thus, the derivation structures the AccP in order to

license specific arguments to evacuate the VP, landing in the Specifier of the

AccP to take specific interpretation. Sportiche assumes, as I do, the Mapping

hypothesis (Diesing 1992), which posits that specific DPs must be projected

external to the VP in order to licitly map to semantic representations (at Logical

Form or LF).

Sportiche argues that in non-doubled clitic constructions, the syntax is the

same, except that the complement to the verb is an empty category. To illustrate

this, I present a tree below for the following sentence:

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(80) te lo mandamos

2sDAT 3sM.ACC send.1pPST

'We sent it to you.'

In (81) below, I take the two functional projections to be between the Tense head

and the V head, since Spanish verbs raise to T and presumably this is where

clitics adjoin to their verbal hosts. The ordering of the functional projection

sreflects the rigid ordering of clitic clustering, if you'll recall from chapter 1:

IMP/RFLX>DAT>ACC.

In this tree, the empty category (ec) in the DP raises to the Specifier

position of the AccP to check the Acc head's uninterpretable feature (indicated by

'uF'). This feature must be valued against a DP. The pronominal subject (in

parentheses because Spanish is pro-drop) raises from VP-internal Specifier

position to SpecTP, following Larson's VP-internal subject hypothesis (I do not

show the movement line for aesthetic purposes). The V head raises to T and the

clitics follow suit from prosodic weakness.

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(81)

As I illustrate above, I am arguing that movement to SpecAccP, driven by

feature-checking, occurs even when the ACC clitic doesn't double anything. This

is, in a sense, what Suñer (1988) means when she argues that ACC clitics are

“inherently specific.” Since DAT clitics do not require such movement and thus

do not require their doubles to be specific, when DAT clitics occur in undoubled

constructions, there is no XP associated with the DatP.

Following Diesing's (1992) Mapping Hypothesis, I argue that the default

position of indefinites at LF mirrors their PF position: they remain in

complement-to-verb position as novel information. I posit that specific

arguments evacuate the VP to land in the specifier of the functional projection

headed by the clitic. In (82) below, I show that movement out of the VP is not

75

possible for the indefinite DP un libro, because it cannot take a specific

interpretation, which arises from DPs taking VP-external scope.

But first, why is DOCD ungrammatical with objects that stay inside the

VP to receive non-specific interpretation? I argue along the lines of Sportiche's

Doubly-Filled Voice Filter (1993). Sportiche's Filter is a cross-linguistic parameter

which determines whether a Clitic Voice can have its Head and Spec positions

simultaneously filled. He argues that in languages without DOCD, the Doubly-

Filled Voice Filter is in effect for the ACC Clitic Voice, while in languages with

DOCD, the Filter is not active.

Following Sportiche's line of analysis, I posit that Spanish 3ACC clitics

head functional projections whose Spec positions must be filled in order to check

an uninterpretable feature with a matching interpretable feature. The functional

head probes its c-command domain for a goal with matching features.

With this in mind, consider the following tree. The / / signify

unavailability of movement, since at LF the indefinite must remain VP-internal to

allow a non-specific interpretation and function as novel information. This makes

sense if one considers that generally, indefinites are used to introduce new

information into discourse (Kallulli & Tasmowski 2008). It is only when

discourse allows them to take a specific, VP-external interpretation that they can

land in the Specifier of the functional projection headed by the clitic. When the

object must stay within the VP, such as in the case of (82) below where un libro is

introducing novel information, DOCD is ungrammatical.

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(82)

The reason the clitic is not grammatical here is because its functional projection is

not necessary to begin with, since un libro does not need to evacuate the VP: it is

nonspecific and novel, not specific and presupposed. Therefore, the derivation

crashes because AccP in (82) above has been generated but can find nothing with

which to fill its Specifier position, rendering the sentence ungrammatical.

My proposal, then, is that for sentences like (*lo) lei un libro, the AccP is

simply not present: it is not entered into the derivation during numeration, since

it is not required to license the movement of the direct object. Indefinites only

evacuate the VP when they take a specific reading, and clitics makes this specific

(VP-external scope) reading unambiguous. Thus, non-specific indefinites remain

in the VP, and the F-head is empty. I posit that the correct tree for (80) above is as

follows:

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(83)

Further, I posit that this syntax is uniform across dialects: any time a Spanish

expression has a specific interpretation, the derivation for that expression

constructs a functional head with an uninterpretable feature which needs to be

checked. This feature-checking motivates the double's raising in order to take

specific, VP-external interpretation. What differs across dialects is not, I argue,

the grammatical status of the clitic, in which case the variation would be a case of

grammaticalization away from clitics being pronouns, as in standard Spanish, to

clitics being agreement markers, as in Porteño or DS. Instead, I posit that for

certain dialects a parameter is active which only allows AccP to surface if

SpecAccP is filled by an empty category, a strong pronoun, or certain kinds of

animates (depending on the strictness of the dialect, the parameter will have

different settings). Therefore, in standard Spanish the parameter only allows the

Acc head to be spelled out at PF if the functional projection is in an agreement

relation with a strong pronoun or an empty category. And since Porteño allows

DOCD just in case the argument is specific, this parameter is not active for these

speakers.

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Kayne's Generalization arises as an epiphenomenon of this parameter:

dialects with the parameter active happen to abide by KG, even though the

constraints determining the grammaticality of DOCD and DOM are independent

(Bleam 1999). Assuming this uniform syntax of DOCD across dialects, it is fair to

assume that this “PF parameter” is not active for my younger DS speakers, for

whom (as I show in chapter 3) DOCD patterns as in Porteño.

As well, the difference between ACC and DAT clitics comes down to the

F-head's optionality with respect to its Spec position being filled: DAT clitics do

not require their position to be full, while ACC clitics do. ACC clitics are thus

probes searching for suitable elements to fill SpecFP, and arguments evacuating

the VP to take specific interpretation serve as prime goals for the probe. In this

way I can posit, as Suñer does, that ACC clitics are 'inherently' specific. While I

need not commit myself to the formal reality of specificity as a feature, I do

assume the formal reality of the uninterpretable driving movement.

I posit that the focus domain at LF consists of VP-internal elements. The

following examples from Albanian illustrate my claim well. (84) shows that in

Albanian, DOCD is obligatory when the direct object is outside the focus domain

(Kallulli 2000, Dočekal & Kallulli 2012)— that is, when it is mentioned in the

preceding question, and rendered presupposed. But when the direct object is in

the focus domain— when it has not been mentioned in the question— it cannot

be clitic-doubled. These examples correspond to the ones I gave from Greek,

Bulgarian, and Romanian earlier.

(84) A: What did Ana do? / What did Ana read?

B: Ana (*e) lexoi librin

Ana 3sM.ACC read.3sPST book.the

‘Anna read the book.’

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(85) A: Who read the book?

B: Ana *(e) lexoi librin.

(86) A: What did Ana do with/to the book?

B: Ana *(e) lexoi librin.

I argue that Spanish is similar to Albanian in that DOCD is only

grammatical for objects which are outside the focus domain and therefore

interpreted as presupposed. But unlike Albanian, DOCD is not obligatory in

Spanish, only optional— and the phonological realization of the functional head

(the clitic) varies cross-dialectally, as determined by the “PF Parameter” settings

in the given dialect.

The grammaticality of ACC-doubling expressions which would normally

remain within the VP and be interpreted as “weak” (in Milsark's terms) is made

possible by their exclusion from the focus domain by discourse, and the presence

of SpecAccP allows the normally-weak expression to evacuate the VP.

I tested whether discourse could render a negative polarity item such as

nadie available for a specific reading through DOCD. I found that ACC-doubling

nadie was grammatical only is a partitive context was established in a previous

clause:

(87) *(Juan está hablando con cinco gente)

Juan Aux.3sPRES speak.PRG with five people

y no lo conozco a nadie

and no 3sM.ACC know.1sPRES OM nobody

'Juan is speaking with five people and I don't know anyone (0 of 5).'

At least on the surface this looks similar to the following:

80

(88) *(Juan está hablando con cinco gente)

Juan Aux.3sPRES speak.PRG with five people

y no los conozco a ningunos

and no 3pM.ACC know.1sPRES OM none

'Juan is speaking with five people and I don't know any of them.'

And prima facie one would argue that this is an example of covert partitivity—

that is, that the clitics in (87)—(88) above are not doubling nadie/ninguno, but are

in an agreement relation with a partitive empty category which the negative

polarity items modify. One should expect that the two examples above

correspond to analogous examples with overt partitives. But, as I show in (90),

(87) above is not in fact grammatical with an overt partitive, indicating that (87) is

an instance of true clitic doubling:

(89) [ no [los conozco [a [ningunos [ de ellos ]

(90) * [ no [los conozco [a [nadie [ de ellos ]

Therefore, (87) actually provides good evidence for the importance of

discourse-linking as regards the grammaticality of DOCD. It is only when the

discourse context renders a partitive semantic context (which (90) above shows

does not need to have a phrasal counterpart, at least not a partitive PP) that the

negative polarity item nadie can evacuate the VP to land in AccP and take specific

interpretation.

In summary, I am proposing that clitics head functional projections which

differ in at least one way: AccP requires its Specifier position to be filled by a DP

to value against its uninterpretable feature, and the Acc head (the clitic) probes

its c-command domain for an available goal. Since arguments seeking specific

interpretation must be VP-external by LF, if the features of such an argument can

check the uninterpretable on the functional head, then the object lands in

SpecAccP. I further argue that AccP is always constructed in the derivation, both

81

when an ACC clitic occurs in a non-doubled construction, and when a specific

argument appears without a clitic. The grammaticality of the AccP head being

spelled out at PF is determined by a parameter that only allows the spelling out

of AccP heads in agreement relations with certain kinds of arguments— empty

categories and strong pronouns in standard Spanish, for example.

2.4. Summary

In this chapter I presented previous analyses of DOCD, moving from early case-

theoretic debates between movement vs. base-generation hypotheses to Suñer's

“caseless” approach focusing on the specificity effects at play in DOCD. I

introduced Sportiche's “clitic voices” proposal (1993) and modified it to present

my own analysis, which in the following chapter will be tested against data from

DS.

The complementary distribution of clitics and nominals in French and

Italian led Kayne (1975) to posit that clitics were generated as complements to the

verb, receiving case in this position, and raising to adjoin to the verb because of

their prosodic weakness. However, the existence of clitic doubling phenomena

challenged this hypothesis, leading analysts like Borer (1984) and Jaeggli (1986)

to posit that clitics were base-generated as adjuncts to the verb. Clitics absorbed

case and doubled objects received case from the preposition that headed them:

Kayne's Generalization posits that clitic doubling is only grammatical when the

doubled object is preceded by a preposition.

Suñer (1988) points out that in Porteño, DOCD was grammatical without

such a preposition. She posits that clitics are not arguments and do not receive

case. Doubled objects pattern differently from dislocated ones, and thus are not

82

adjuncts, but true arguments. The a that according to Kayne's Generalization

assigns case is not in fact a case assigner, but an object marker for specific

animates, an instance of differential object marking. Suñer instead puts forth an

analysis where clitics are inflections, as in Borer (1984), which must match in

features with the associates with which they form a chain. The relationship

between DOM and DOCD is no longer causal in her analysis.

Suñer points out that DOCD is only grammatical with specific arguments,

while IOCD is grammatical with nonspecific arguments. She posits that ACC

clitics are specified in the lexicon as [+specific] and may only form chains with

arguments that match this feature. I discussed her important claims and showed

discussed the relationships between specificity, partivitiy, referentiality, and

scope.

I posit DPs are interpreted as specific when they take VP-external scope

(Diesing 1992, Franco 1993, Gutierrez-Rexach 2000, Kallulli 2001). Following

Sportiche's (1996) “clitic voices” proposal, I posit that clitics are heads of

functional projections into whose Specifier positions doubled objects raise in

order to be interpreted as specific. The overtness of the functional head is

determined by a parameter which states that only F-heads in agreement relations

with certain kinds of objects may be phonologically realized.

I go on to show in chapter 3 that this parameter is not active for younger

DS speakers, and I show that my analysis can account for the DS data. After

discussing DS, I try to show that my analysis may point toward a way of

unifying cross-dialectal Spanish DOCD variation.

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3. Dominican Spanish

As I said in the introduction, I elicited grammaticality judgments from 21

speakers of Dominican Spanish (DS)and found that there was a change in

progress regarding DOCD: the older generation follows the Rioplatense Spanish

pattern in allowing DOCD only with specific animates, while the younger

generation follows the Porteño Spanish pattern in allowing DOCD with all

specifics, animate or inanimate.

In this chapter I present and discuss the results of my fieldwork, then

show that the analysis I posited in chapter 2 captures the data.

3.1. Dominican ACC Clitics

DS for older speakers patterns like Rioplatense: it abides by Kayne's

Generalization, which means that only direct objects headed by object marker a

can be ACC-doubled. As in many other dialects of Spanish, the object marker in

DS is ungrammatical with inanimates. Consider the following:

(91) leí (*a) un libro

read.1sPST OM one book

'I read a book.'

While most of my speakers abided by Kayne's Generalization, 7/21 of them

allowed DOCD with inanimates, violating Kayne's Generalization. All of them

were under 30. Consider the following. The % signifies the grammaticality split

between younger and older speakers:

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(92) DS requires DOCD with strong pronouns, and allows it with proper names and definite animates:

a. * (la) ví a ella

3sF.ACC see.1sPST OM her

'I saw her.'

b. (la) ví a Marta

3sF.ACC see.1sPST OM Marta

'I saw Marta.'

c. (la) ví a { la mujer / la gata }

3sF.ACC see.1sPST OM Det.sF woman / Det.sF cat

'I saw the woman / the cat.'

As well, older speakers allow doubling with many different kinds of animates,

but at a certain point along the “animacy hierarchy” DOCD becomes

ungrammatical, since 'spider' cannot be ACC-doubled:

(93) la ví a { la ave / la rana / * la araña }

3sF.ACC see.1sPST OM Det.sF bird / Det.sF toad / Det.sF spider

'I saw the bird/the toad/the spider.

None of my speakers allowed DOCD with bare plurals or indefinite animates

uttered without discourse context:

(94) a. (*las) ví a niñas

3sF.ACC see.1sPST OM girls

'I saw girls.'

b. (*la) ví a una niña

3sF.ACC see.1sPST OM one girl

'I saw a girl.'

85

Definite inanimates cannot be ACC-doubled for older speakers of DS, but they

can for younger speakers, for whom DOCD patterns as in Porteño:

(95) % lo leí el libro

3sM.ACC read.1sPST Det.sM book

'I read the book.'

For 17/21 of my interlocutors, indefinite animates with a specific reading can be

doubled. This reading can be achieved through a definite partitive PP modifying

the indefinite argument. Thus, consider the following:

(96) a. (*la) vimos a una mujer

3sF.ACC see.1pPST OM one woman

'We saw a woman.'

b. (*las) vimos a { algunas / muchas / varias / dos }

3pF.ACC see.1pPST OM some / many / various/ two

mujeres

women

'We saw some/many/various/two women.'

c. la vimos a una de las mujeres

3sF.ACC see.1pPST OM one of Det.pF women

'We saw one of the women.'

d. las vimos a { algunas / muchas / varias / dos }

3pF.ACC see.1pPST OM some / many / various/ two

de las mujeres

of Det.pF women

'We saw some/many/several/two of the women.'

The analogous inanimate examples were only grammatical for younger DS

speakers:

86

(97) a. (*la) leimos una revista

3sF.ACC read.1pPST one magazine

'We read a magazine.'

b. (*las) leimos { algunas / muchas / varias / dos }

3pF.ACC read.1pPST some / many / several / two

revistas

magazines

'We read some/many/various/two magazines.'

c. % la leimos una de las revistas

3sF.ACC read.3pPST one of Det.pF magazines

'We read one of the magazines.'

d. % las leimos { algunas / muchas / varias / dos }

3pF.ACC read.1pPST some / many / several / two

de las revistas

of Det.sF magazines

'We read some/many/several/two of the magazines.'

As expected, across generations, only expressions patterning according to

Milsark's notion of “strong” quantifiers can be ACC-doubled in DS. I argue that

strong quantifiers are those which raise out of the VP to take wide scope, and be

interpreted presuppositionally. Factors at play with respect to this are

intensionality and mood of relative clause. I consider these as regards DS in the

next section.

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3.2. Intensionality & mood

One relevant factor at play with respect to specific readings is intensionality.

Intensional verbs set up scope domains such that complements of intensional

verbs count as intensional contexts with respect to interpreting DPs, and if the

complement is modified by a subjunctive-mood relative clause, it must remain

within the scope of the intensional verb, and thus within the VP. If this is the

case, DOCD should be disallowed in this context, and DS speakers evidenced

this grammaticality judgment. Consider the following:

(98) (*lo) busco a un hombre que sepa frances

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES OM one man Cmpl know.3sSUBJ French

'I'm looking for a man who'd know French.'

When the relative clause modifying the direct object was indicative, the sentence

was grammatical, which indicates that at LF, the DO has raised out of the VP. I

posit that it lands in the Spec position of the functional projection headed by the

clitic.

(99) (lo) busco a un hombre que sabe frances

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES OM one man Cmpl know.3sPRES French

'I'm looking for a man who knows French.'

Younger DS speakers shared this judgment split for inanimates (as expected,

older speakers found both ungrammatical):

(100) a. (*lo) busco un libro que sea en frances

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES one book Cmpl be.3sSUBJ in French

'I'm looking for a book that'd be in French.'

b. (lo) busco un libro que sea en frances

3sM.ACC seek.1sPRES one book Cmpl be.3sSUBJ in French

'I'm looking for a book that's in French.'

88

Strong evidence for the idea that intensional verbs set up scope domains in

which indefinites may remain within the VP and take non-specific interpretation

comes from verbs which do not set up such scope domains. These kinds of verbs

(“extensional”) cannot take complements modified by subjunctive-mood relative

clauses, shown below in (101). If an argument modified by a relative clause must

stay within the narrow (existential) scope domain, and if extensional verbs

presuppose the existence of their complements, then wide scope is associated

with a presuppositional reading. Consider the following:

(101) * conozco (a) un hombre que sepa frances

know.1sPRES OM one man Cmpl know.3sSUBJ French

'I know a man who'd know French.'

As well, consider that the sentence becomes grammatical if 'to know' is instead

contained within a CP selected by a matrix intensional verb, which does not

presuppose its complement's existence (yet the object marker becomes

obligatory, interestingly):

(102) conozco (a) un hombre que sabe frances

know.1sPRES OM one man Cmpl know.3sPRES French

'I know a man who knows French.'

This is strong evidence for the claim that intensional verbs allow their

complements to remain within the VP and not be interpreted as presupposed,

while extensional verbs enforce such an interpretation: complements of the latter

must evacuate the VP.

Thus, If Diesing (1992) is correct in arguing that specific objects 'evacuate'

the VP, then indefinites tend toward a nonspecific reading, that is, they tend to

stay within the VP. This ties into von Heusinger's (2003) notion that what is VP-

internal is new information, while what is VP external is presupposed. As well,

ot has been attested in the typological literature that clitic systems tend to begin

89

patterning with definites and are grammaticalized diachronically and cross-

linguistically into agreement systems where patterning with indefinites becomes

possible (Uriagereka 1995: 86).

What kinds of objects can express a presupposed entity? I have argued

throughout this paper in the spirit of Milsark (1974) that those objects which

pattern like “strong” quantified expressions are those which can be ACC-

doubled. Those expressions which would pattern like “weak” quantified

expressions are allowed by DOCD to pattern like “strong” quantifiers, in that the

AccP affords a 'landing site' after the doubled object has evacuated the VP.

I thus assume an intrinsic relationship between DOCD and expressions

that pattern as strong quantifiers. DOCD is not possible with expressions

without determiners (bare nominals), and is only ever possible with expressions

whose determiners allow a VP-external scopal reading. And while definite

determiners do tend toward this reading, this is not always the case, as in the

following, which shows that definite expressions referring to kinds or concepts

cannot be doubled:

(103) (*lo) agradezgo el esfuerzo

3sM.ACC appreciate.1sPRES Det.sM effort

'I appreciate effort.'

Thus, I can posit that nonspecific interpretation arises from inhabiting the

VP, while specific interpretation arises from VP-evacuation. In terms of what

kinds of weak quantifiers are available for DOCD, it is clear that bare plurals

must always stay within the VP to take non-specific interpretation, since they can

never be ACC-doubled:

90

(104) (*las) vimos a niñas cantando en el parque

3pF.ACC see.1pPST a girls sing.3PRG in Det.sM park

'We saw girls singing in the park.'

Thus I argue bare plurals are never specific. In light of my claims regarding VP-

external scope enforcing a specific reading, consider the following

grammaticality judgments from my DS speakers.

(105) shows that in situ doubled bare indefinites cannot take wide scope

over subjects, as in the following. The indefinite uno is a pronominal anaphor

whose discourse-linked antecedent, here, is cigarillo 'cigarette.'

(105) a. cada estudiante fumó uno

each student smoke.3sPST one

'Each student smoked one.'

1. Every > one (each student smoked a different one)

2. * One > every (one was split among each student)

The only reading available here is one where each student has her own cigarette;

uno can never take VP-external scope, that is, it can never scope over each student,

indicating that, as it is nonspecific, it must remain within the VP. On the other

hand, consider the following, which shows that in the case of an ACC clitic

expressing the direct object argument relation, in whichh the only available

reading is a specific one. But a scopal ambiguity is present with a non-doubled

indefinite direct object:

(106) a. cada estudiante lo fumó

each student 3sM.ACC smoke.3sPST

'Each student smoked it.'

1. * Every > one

2. One > every

91

b. cada estudiante fumó un cigarillo

each student smoke.3sPST one cigarette

'Each student smoked a cigarette.'

1. Every > one

2. One > every

But if this indefinite nominal is ACC-doubled only the wide-scope reading is

available, as in the following:

(107) d. cada estudiante lo fumó un cigarillo

each student 3sM.ACC smoke.3sPST

1. * Every > one

2. One > every

Since clitics are not quantificational and do not take scope, what this could mean

is that the presence of the clitic takes an argument like un cigarillo out of what

would be its normal scopal interaction. This expression which would normally

pattern as a “weak,” nonspecific expression (that is, as a quantifier being scoped

over by some wide-scope quantifier), to pattern like a “strong” specific

expression such as a definite determiner or a strong pronoun— precisely the

kind of expression which does not take scope, and thus can only be interpreted

as specific. Since strong expressions are VP-external, they do not take part in VP-

internal scopal relations such as those set up by intensional verbs. Consequently,

for my younger DS speakers, DOCD is ungrammatical with when the

complement of an intensional verb is modified by a subjunctive-mood relative

clause.

Consider the following variation on (107), where I change 'smoke' to an

intensional verb, 'look for,' and modify the complement with a subjunctive mood

relative clause, which if you will recall forces the expression to stay within the

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scopal domain set up by the verb. My younger DS speakers found this sentence

to be ungrammatical:

(108) * cada estudiante lo busca un cigarillo que

each student 3sM.ACC seek.3sPRES one cigarette Cmpl

sea rojo

be.3sSUBJ red

'Each student is looking for a cigarette that would be red.'

Similar grammaticality judgments were attested by my DS speakers for cardinal

quantifier dos. I tested the following sentences from Gutiérrez-Rexach (2000: 336),

and younger DS speakers attested that wide-scope reading was the only one

available for dos libros when it was ACC-doubled. Consider the following:

(109) a. tres estudiantes leyeron dos libros

three students read.3pPST two books

'Three students read two books.'

1. Three students each read two books (a different set for each).

2. * There were two books that three students read.

b. tres estudiantes los leyeron dos libros

three students 3pM.ACC read.3pPST two books

'Three students read the two books.'

1. * Three students read two books (a different set for each).

2. There were two books that three students read.

In conclusion, I have shown that in DS, as in other Spanish dialects, intensional-

verb complements modified by relative clauses must stay within the scopal

domain the intensional verb sets up. Because their VP-internality renders them

nonspecific, DOCD is ungrammatical with such arguments. These data provide

evidence for an analysis of clitics as functional heads which license the doubled

object to raise of the VP into the Specifier position of the functional projection. 93

Arguments that must stay VP-internal— those which are nonreferential, or

which must remain within the scopal domains set up by intensional verbs, or

novel information— are not available as goals for the functional head, which

probes into its c-command domain for a DP against which to value its

uninterpretable feature. In light of this, in the next section I further discuss my

analysis of the syntax of DOCD and show that it accounts for the DS data. I

consider whether it may be extended to account for the cross-dialectal DOCD

variation in Spanish.

3.3. The syntax of DOCD

Suñer (1988) says that DOCD is only grammatical with specific arguments, while

this is not the case for IOCD. She posits specificity as a formal feature in the

syntax: ACC clitics are specified as [+specific] in the lexicon, and their doubled

associates must match in features. I essentially agree, but I follow an approach

more along the lines of Diesing (1992) approach: specificity is an interpretation

that results from syntactic structure such that at LF, VP-internal arguments are

interpreted as non-specific, while VP-external arguments are interpreted as

specific.

Thus, specific interpretation is what motivates VP-evactuation of ACC-

doubled objects. What motivates the probe (the clitic) to search for the goal in the

first place? I argue that the uninterpretable feature on the functional head has

something like an EPP feature on it, which requires that its Specifier position be

filled. This is along the lines of Sportiche's (1993) Doubly Filled Voice Filter,

according to which certain “clitic voices” (functional projections headed by

clitics) may have their Spec and Head positions simultaneously filled, while 94

others may not. I modify this to argue that the ACC clitic's Specifier position

must be filled. This EPP-like feature is not present for DAT clitics.

This seems to indicate that ACC clitics can only enter into agreement

relations with material that, at LF, is VP-external. What this means is that I must

assume the following: in non-doubled clitic constructions, the empty category in

complement-to-verb position raises to land in the Spec of the ACC clitic's

functional projection.

The phonological realization of the ACC functional head is determined by

a parameter which is sensitive to prominence hierarchies such as Givón's (1984),

shown in the previous chapter. This parameter is something like the following:

(110) The PF parameter

If a functional projection's head and Specifier position are both filled at LF,map the functional head at PF only if it is...

… [+strong pronoun] in Standard Spanish

… [+animate] in Rioplatense

This filter is thus not active for Porteño and younger DS speakers. Further,

specificity is not listed in this parameter because, as I have tried to show, specific

interpretations arise because an EPP-like feature on the ACC clitic probe

motivates the goal to move to the Specifier position of the AccP.

I argue that the two kinds of functional projections headed by clitics are

those that have an EPP-like feature which motivates movement, and those that

do not. Only 3ACC clitics head the first kind of projection, as I have shown—

only these kinds of clitics are restricted such that they may only double specific

arguments. Recall that first/second-person clitics are phonologically identical in

both case roles, as in the following: 95

(111) a. nos mandaron algo

1pDAT send.3pPST something

'They sent us something.'

b. nos mandaron a Portland

1pACC send.3pPST to Portland

'They sent us to Portland.'

Since I am arguing that first/second-person clitics, which are phonologically-

identical in both case roles, head the same kinds of functional projections that

third-person datives do, this entails that first/second-person clitics should be able

to appear with nonspecific arguments, which they can, as in the following. An

accusative interpretation is available in this context under a partitive reading, as

in (112b). Even if the partitive PP is excluded, the sentence may only take a

partitive reading. I show in (112a) that the default reading of the first/second-

person clitic when it doubles a nonspecific is a benefactive one:

(112) a. nos mataron a algunos

1pDAT kill.3pPST OM some

'They killed some for us.'

b. nos mataron a algunos (de nosotros)

1pDAT kill.3pPST OM some of us

'They killed some of us.'

Since I have argued that covert and overt partitive constructions such as in (112b)

are not true cases of clitic doubling, since the clitic is associated with a partitive

PP adjoined to the tree in a non-complement position, (112) above seems like

further evidence that first/second-person clitics head the kind of functional

projection that 3DAT clitics head, as opposed to the kind that 3ACC clitics head.

96

In DS, the PF Parameter is more active for older speakers than younger

speakers. What leads to different settings of such a parameter, both across

generations of DS speakers and cross-dialectally in the Hispanophone world? I

argue that this parameter is simply culturally-conditioned: across the board,

3ACC functional heads serve the same purpose— licensing VP-evacuation for

specific arguments, as well as seeking to fill their Spec position with a

quantificational phrase to scope over it, given that DOCD is never possible with

bare nominals —and their phonological realization is conditioned by stigma.

Many of my older interlocutors mentioned that DOCD with inanimates

was not 'ungrammatical' — people 'speak that way,' the interlocutors said, but it

was mala forma 'bad form', or pleonasmo 'pleonasm.' Proscriptive judgments

undoubtedly affect speaker behaviors, and in the Hispanophone world, language

is a significant marker of identity (Bullock & Toribio 2007). Dominican speech is

stigmatized, and Dominicans themselves have reported shame or disapproval

regarding our own ways of speaking (Alba 2000, Toribio 2000b, Suárez

Büdenbender 2010).

Therefore one of the assumptions of my argument is that the ACC

functional head is always active in the syntax in the case of specific-interpreted

objects, which evacuate the VP to take a specific reading. The derivation creates

the functional projection, whose probe has an uninterpretable feature, the

checking of which motivate the goal's movement out of the VP. Since only

presupposed arguments may raise out of the VP, it is these arguments which the

probe selects as a goal to land in the Specifier of the functional projection headed

by the clitic. But the PF Parameter, which could be an Output-Output constraint2,

2 Bradley (2006) and Bradley & Willis (2012) put forth an optimality-theoretic analysis of Dominican /s/-hypercorrection (briefly, due to coda lenition, speakers sometimes add /s/ where it should not go, because of their insecurities with respect to not knowing where /s/ is and is not present— thus, las personas is often phonologically realized as /lah persona/, and Bradley & Willis 2012 attest hypercorrection examples such

97

or some other restriction, renders the variable phonological realization of the

functional head across dialects.

I leave open the question of whether specificity is a formal feature of the

syntax. Leonetti (2003) argues against such a proposal, and my analysis is more

in line with his claims— he says it is not the case that, say, clitics encode

specificity, or determiners— but instead, a specific interpretation is the result of

movement processes motivated by checking of more abstract features.

Even as my proposal takes different assumptions than his, Uriagereka

(1995) ultimately wants to make arguments along similar lines to Diesing (1992)

and Leonetti (2003). He posits that only and all material assigned VP-external

scope is interpreted as specific at LF, such that specific syntactic elements always

move out of the VP. Further motivation for such an argument can be seen from

the fact that uno cannot be clitic-left dislocated.

The idea here is that movement out of the VP can be phonologically covert

— that is, after Spell-out, such as in cases of specific arguments which at PF are

still ordered after the verb — or scoping out of the VP can happen before Spell-

out, and be overt, as in the following, which shows that uno cannot move out the

VP, signaling that it is nonspecific. Even as dislocated arguments originate in

different positions than doubled ones, (113) below shows that 3ACC clitics may

nevertheless only enter into agreement relations with dislocated arguments that

have been established as specific. Thus, in (113b), a partitive context makes the

sentence grammatical. This leads me to presume (113b) is not a case of genuine

clitic doubling, but of the clitic entering into an agreement relation with an overt

or covert partitive PP adjunct. Recall that # signals intonational break.

as /las gentes/ for la gente) in which an Output-Output correspondence relation in the constraint hierarchy compares speakers' outputs to normative Spanish outputs. A similar constraint at the syntax-phonology interface could be in effect with respect to DOCD, which renders the null realization of the functional head into whose specifier specific double objects raise.

98

(113) a. a { Pedro / a muchos / ? a un hombre / *a uno } #

OM Pedro / a many / a one man / a one

lo(s) vio

3s(p)M.ACC see.3sPST

'Pedro / many / a man / one; he saw him/them.'

b. * (se desaparecieron cinco hombres)

RFLX disappear.3pPST five men

y a uno ( de ellos) # lo vimos

& OM one ( of them) 3sM.ACC see.1pPST

'Five men disappeared, and one (of them), we saw him.'

Of course, this does not give any insight into where the clitic is in the tree, but it

signals that only objects that are outside the VP at LF can be ACC-doubled.

What this predicts is that certain kinds of objects need to remain VP-

internal (at LF and PF). I have already shown this with intensional-verb

complements modified by sujbunctive-mood relative clauses: these kinds of

arguments cannot be ACC-doubled. Consider further dislocation regarding bare

plurals. At PF, bare indefinite direct objects cannot be left-dislocated. Consider

the following:

(114) * niñas, las vimos

girls Det.pF see.1pPST

'Girls, we saw them.'

Of course, this sentence is perfectly grammatical if niñas is meant as a kind of

vocative, to get the girls' attention. It is ungrammatical when the left-dislocated

element bears the same argument relation as the clitic, and this is shown by the

fact that the object marker does not improve this sentence:

99

(115) * a niñas, las vimos

OM girls Det.pF see.1pPST

'Girls, we saw them.'

This indicates that at PF is it ungrammatical for a bare plural to be VP-external.

And the fact that bare plurals can never be ACC doubled seems to indicate that

at LF, it is also ungrammatical for a bare plural to be VP-external. Consider the

following, which shows that even if it is clear the bare plural is referential (actual

girls were singing in an actual park), a specific or VP-external interpretation is

not available:

(116) * (las) vimos a niñas cantando en el parque

3pF.ACC see.1pPST OM girls sing.PRG in Det.sM park

'We saw girls singing in the park.'

The generalization here is that whenever an expression would normally pattern

as a weak quantified expression, the presence of the 3ACC clitic may license a

specific reading if these expression is of the kind that can be presuppositional, or

that can head a partitive construction. It seems that bare plurals can never be

presuppositional: much like nonreferential arguments, they must stay within

verbal scopal domains. Assuming the PF Parameter to be true, I believe that my

analysis of DOCD may be extended from DS to account for the cross-dialectal

variation of DOCD behavior in Spanish.

Across all Spanish dialects, it seems that whenever DOCD is possible, it is

only possible with arguments that take a specific interpretation. The availability

in a given dialect of overt 3ACC clitics as disambiguators regarding the

presuppositionality of an expression increases as the strictness of that dialect's

PF-parametric settings decreases. The parameter seems to follow an animacy

hierarchy. This hierarchy is ordered such that the farther left along it an

argument would be classified, the more likely the DOCD of that argument is

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grammatical: at the leftmost, “most animate” edge, all dialects obligatorily ACC-

double.

Animate

Strong pronoun Proper name Human Non-insect animals

Fig. 4. Animacy hierarchy.

Cross-dialectal DOCD behaviors map onto this animacy hierarchy in the

following way:

Strong

pronoun

Proper

name

Human Non-insect

animals

Inanimate

Obligatory

for all

dialects

OK in most

dialects

OK in Rioplatense-

like dialects

OK in Porteño-like and DS-

like dialects

Fig 5. Cross-dialectal DOCD as regards the animacy hierarchy.

This seems to imply that if one assumes a unified syntax of DOCD across all

Spanish dialects, my analysis can extent to account for these data. Nevertheless,

this is not the only available analysis, since instead of a lexical parameter like the

PF Parameter, one could argue that both diachronically and cross-dialectally,

Spanish 3ACC clitics have undergone a grammaticalization process, going from

phrasal heads (as in Kayne's analysis) to inflections (as in Borer's analysis). This

kind of grammatical parametrization is not appealing to me, since it would need

extraneous assumptions to account forthe uniformity of specificity effects in

DOCD across dialects. A unification analysis captures this uniformity more

elegantly.

In conclusion, I have shown that my analysis, according to which clitics

head functional projections and 3ACC clitics must have an uninterpretable

feature valued against a DP that raises due to this feature's EPP-like properties,

accounts for the DS data. If a PF Parameter which operates according to an

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animacy hierarchy is assumed, my analysis may also posit uniform syntactic

status for 3ACC clitics across dialects, while also accounting for cross-dialectal

DOCD variation in Spanish: the derivation constructs the AccP any time an

argument takes specific interpretation, but whether the functional head has a

corresponding PF realization is determined by the PF Parameter. But I conceded

that this was not the only available analysis, and that a grammatical

parametrization as opposed to a lexical one could be pursued.

3.4. Summary

Dominican Spanish is undergoing a change in progress with respect to the

grammaticality of the overt realization of 3ACC clitics. Older speakers employ

DOCD like Rioplatense speakers, and abide by Kayne's Generalization, but

younger speakers violate Kayne's Generalization. Building on Suñer's (1988) data

regarding specificity effects in DOCD, and working within her “caseless”

approach according to which clitics do not assign case, I modified a proposal by

Sportiche (1993) to argue that clitics head functional projections of two kinds: one

whose uninterpretable feature needs to be valued against a feature-matching DP

it c-commands, and another with no such requirement.

3ACC clitics, which may only double specific arguments, are of the first

kind. I showed that this holds true in DS for both generations: for older speakers,

only specific animates could be ACC-doubled, and for younger speakers only

specifics could be ACC-doubled (regardless of animacy). My analysis holds that

specific or presupposed arguments are those which are VP external at LF (also

optionally at PF, though that is neither necessary nor sufficient, simply pre-

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Spellout and overt, as opposed to post-Spellout and covert), while information

within the VP is novel. Thus specific arguments are available goals to be probed

by the functional head (the clitic). Strong evidence that a specific reading is a VP-

external one comes from the ungrammaticality of DOCD with bare plurals and

intensional-verb complements modified by relative clauses.

I argued that the generational difference in DS can be captured with a PF

parameter according to which only 3ACC clitics which were in agreement

relations with animates could have corresponding PF material for older speakers.

This parameter is inactive for younger speakers. Further, this parameter allows

for my analysis to account for the cross-dialectal Spanish DOCD variation, since

the strictness of the parameter's settings increases along an animacy hierarchy

such that with strong pronouns, which are inherently specific (Suñer 1999),

DOCD is obligatory in all dialects of Spanish.

103

4. Conclusion

In this chapter I briefly summarize the results of my research and speculate on

further research possibilities. In this project I set out to find an alternative to

Kayne's Generalization in order to account for data from Dominican Spanish

which violate KG. Working from previous analyses by Suñer (1988) and

Sportiche (1993), I argued that clitics head functional projections. 3ACC clitics

head functional projections which must have their Specifier positions filled by a

DP whose interpretable features can check the uninterpretable feature on the

functional head. I argued that this functional projection is always present

whenever an argument takes specific interpretation, which arises as a result of

the argument taking VP-external scope by raising to the Specifier of the AccP's

functional projection. The syntax of specificity is cross-dialectally invariant, but

whether the functional head that licenses specificity has corresponding PF

material is determined by the “PF Parameter.”

Further research into both DS DOCD and cross-dialectal Spanish DOCD

variation should consider the role of parameterization. Earlier I discussed that

both lexical and grammatical parametric analyses of DOCD are available for

Spanish. The former is predicated on a unification analysis of DOCD syntax and

the latter on a variationist level. Thus, in my analysis, 3ACC clitics are the same

kinds of syntactic objects across dialects, and the parametric variation only

affects PF, not LF. However, other analyses are available. I consider one in the

following section. In the final two sections, I conclude by some possibilities for

further research and end the paper and offering some closing remarks.

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4.1. Summary of the study

Dominican Spanish violates Kayne's Generalization (KG), calling into question

KG's entailment of a causal relationship between DOCD and DOM. DS also calls

into question the notions that clitics are arguments, or that they receive case, as

well as the notion that object marker a assigns case. I advance an alternative

analysis in the spirit of Suñer's (1988) “caseless” approach: clitics do not receive

case, and the object marker does not assign case. Clitics head functional

projections with distinct properties. 3ACC clitics head one kind, the rest head

another kind.

Clitics encode verbal arguments like pronouns, but can be distinguished

from them. They show mixed properties, however, acting like phrasal heads in

some cases (such as in the head-to-head movement of clitic climbing) and acting

like non-projecting heads in other cases (rigid ordering in clitic clusters; inability

to be stressed, coordinated, or modified). These mixed behaviors motivated

many different analyses with respect to clitic doubling, which is the co-

occurrence of a clitic and a coindexed nominal such that both bear the same

argument relation. I showed that clitic doubling can be distinguished from clitic

left- and right-dislocation in a number of ways.

The complementarity of clitics and full NPs in French led Kayne (1975) to

posit that clitics are arguments that originate in verbal complement position,

receive case and theta-role, and move to adjoin to the verb because of their

prosodic weakness. Clitic doubling is disallowed in French because no case-

assigning preposition exists such that the clitic may be coindexed with a PP

adjunct. But Spanish has such a preposition, Kayne argues— object marker a.

Kayne's Generalization (Jaeggli 1982) holds that clitic doubling is only

105

grammatical if the doubled object is headed by a licensing preposition which

assigns it case.

In order to reconcile KG with the fact that doubled objects do not pattern

like dislocated ones— that is, doubles pattern more like arguments than adjuncts

—analysts like Borer (1984) hold that clitics are inflections which are base-

generated as adjuncts to the verb and do receive case, but not theta-role, which is

instead assigned to the object, headed by the object marker (which assigns case).

Nevertheless, both the movement and base-generation hypotheses in their

different varieties fail to account for dialects like DS and Porteño, which violate

KG in allowing DOCD without a licensing preposition.

In my study I then considered Suñer's groundbreaking research regarding

the specificity effects of DOCD. She showed that 3ACC clitics may only ever

double specific arguments, and that an analysis of DOCD does not need to posit

a causal relationship between DOCD and DOM. Bleam (1999) dubs this the

Independence Hypothesis, which I follow here. Investigating partitivity,

intensionality, mood, definiteness, and animacy, I concluded that a specific or

presupposed interpretation on an argument results from that argument being

VP-external at LF.

Inspired by Suñer's claim that 3ACC clitics are “inherently specific,” I

discussed Sportiche's (1993) “clitic voices” proposal and presented my

modification of it in order to analyze the DS data. I argued that 3ACC clitics head

functional projections specified in the numeration of the derivation with an

uninterpretable feature, causing the functional head to probe its c-command

domain for a DP in which it can enter into an argument relation such that it may

'attract' it to SpecAccP. I showed that novel information, as well as non-referential

arguments, must remain within the VP, and thus cannot be 3ACC-doubled.

106

Strong quantified expressions may take specific, presupposed interpretations,

which may explain why they cannot occur in existential constructions. Only

weak quantified expressions which may evacuate the VP are available for DOCD,

and I showed that bare plurals may never be ACC-doubled, and thus must stay

within the scopal domain set up by their c-commanding verbs. On the other end

of this spectrum, regarding arguments which must always be VP-external and are

thus inherently specific, Suñer (1988) argues that DOCD is obligatory with strong

pronouns in all Spanish dialects precisely for this reason: they can only ever refer

to some presupposed, particular entity in the discourse.

I showed that my proposal may be extended for a unification analysis for

the syntax of DOCD across dialects was possible if I assume that the AccP

functional projection is always present just in case an argument seeks specific

interpretation, and that its corresponding PF material may only be realized

according to a “PF Parameter.” This parameter captured the DS generational

difference, since it is active for older speakers. The parameter dictates that the

AccP functional head may only be spelled out at PF if it is in an agreement

relation with a [+animate] argument or an empty category. This parameter can

capture cross-dialectal variation, since the strictness of the featural criteria

determining whether spell-out at PF is grammatical is dialect-specific. Thus, in

standard Spanish only 3ACC clitics in agreement relations with empty categories

and strong pronouns can (and must, in the latter case) be spelled-out

phonologically. But this is not the only analysis available, and in the next section

I consider an analysis where the variation is not in the lexical specifications of the

PF parameter, but in the syntactic status of the clitic across dialects.

107

4.2. A potential alternative

Even as the data do allow for the descriptive adequacy of my analysis, both

cross-generationally in DS and cross-dialectally in Spanish, the data as well allow

alternative analyses. One such approach, which was my initial stance when I

began this project, is that the parametric differences are not lexical (as my PF

parameter is) but grammatical: in this line of analysis, the syntax of 3ACC clitics

is different across dialects. Clitics may diachronically and cross-dialectally be

reanalyzed as agreement affixes. Thus dialects which more restrictive DOCD

have ACC clitics that behave more like full arguments, while dialects with looser

DOCD ('sliding down' along the animacy hierarchy) have ACC clitics that

pattern more like non-projecting heads, that is, inflections.

This type of approach is possible but requires extra assumptions to

explain why, even within the dialects that abide by KG, certain dialects such as

strict standard Spanish only allow DOCD in the obligatory context, that is, with

strong pronouns. Nevertheless, this grammaticalization process— from weak

pronouns to affixes — is attested (Uriagereka 1995). Thus the argument is worth

considering further, since even as I do not argue that this kind of

grammaticalization is what is synchronically occurring in Spanish, I leave open

the question of whether reanalysis from weak pronouns to affixes is a diachronic

possibility for Spanish.

It is interesting to note that a variationist syntactic analysis of DOCD tends

toward a parameterization of the relationship between DOCD and DOM. In an

analysis where 3ACC clitics are of different syntactic categories in different

dialects, the more pronominal the clitic is in a given dialect, the more like a case-

assigner the object marker acts in that language. But this is where the problem

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for such an analysis arises: if in a given dialect, 3ACC clitics are pronominal, then

doubled objects must receive case from some case-assigner heading them.

Granting that, why is the presence of this case-assigner not sufficient to render

DOCD grammatical for, say, definite human expressions in Standard Spanish?

The theorist's proposal should be uniform: approaches where, say, in a

pronominal-clitic dialect, the object marker assigns case in one context (such as

DOCD) but not another (such as non-doubled constructions) seem prima facie

inelegant. Can the variationist analysis account for such behavior without

something along the lines of, say, a PF parameter for the object marker?

That is, the problem with a variationist alternative to the syntax of DOCD

is that it must in turn account for the uniformity of DOCD behaviors across

dialects, disregarding the variation on restrictions: whenever DOCD occurs, it

only occurs with specific arguments. It seems more intuitive to base an analytic

approach on this evidence, but the variationist could reply along the following

lines: even as the semantics of specificity are the same across dialects, and even if

all accusative clitics are inherently specific, this does not preclude the possibility

that they have different syntactic statuses across dialects. If, diachronically, clitics

“start” as pronominal arguments, the variationist can actually account for the

uniformity of specificity by means of an argument from unificationist DOCD

analysis: Suñer (1999) argues that strong pronouns are inherently specific.

If so, then clitics have not lost this inherent specificity, the variationist

would say; but their syntactic status has eroded across time and across dialects,

such that in dialects like DS and Porteño, they are simply agreement markers,

available for all specifics. This nicely captures dialectal variation, since as 3ACC

clitics become less pronominal they may, with increasing grammaticality, double

different kinds of non-pronominal specific arguments, but it opens up a different

109

can of worms, since the inherent specificity of 3ACC clitic across all dialects

therefore has a different syntactic structure for each syntactic category of 3ACC

clitic. Though I do not consider it further, Uriagereka's (1995) claim that 3ACC

clitics are determiners may fit in nicely here, since as 3ACC clitics go from being

pronouns to determiners, they may also allow for a wider variety of associates

with which they can grammatically form agreement relations.

Therefore, even as I am motivated by a goal to unify the syntax of clitics

across dialects and do this by means of arguing for caseless clitics and doubled

objects as true arguments, I have noted in this section that this is not the only

viable analysis for the data. An analysis positing cross-dialectal and diachronic

clitic reanalysis from weak pronouns to affixes is also available. It is unclear

whether this is any a priori evidence for preferring one over the other, though for

me, the caseless unification approach with a slightly-ad hoc PF Parameter is more

elegant. In the next section, I consider further research possibilities.

4.3. Notes for further research

Regardless of whether one takes a unificationist or variationist approach to the

syntax of DOCD, I have shown that study of Dominican Spanish “avails a view

of [DS] as a source of facts appropriate to a theory of language, rather than as a

peculiar linguistic object that deviates from the... standard” (Toribio 2000: 316).

DS DOCD is able to shed light on the nature of cross-dialectal Spanish DOCD

variation. That being said, much remains to be done, and I discuss some goals for

future research here, particularly as regards clitic clustering and ordering

behavior along with linguistic ideology.

110

First and foremost, more research regarding Dominican Spanish needs to

be done. The dialect is severely understudied despite evidencing some notable

properties which could shed light on key issues in syntactic theory, such as DS

3ACC clitic behavior, as I have shown. Other examples of notable syntactic

behavior include overt subject pronouns, overt expletives, and lack of wh-

inversion (Toribio 2000b). The DOCD behavior and the increasing number of

grammatical contexts for overt AccP heads—or, if you rather, the reanalysis from

weak pronoun to affix— may be analyzed in comparison with the change in

progress in DS in which the dialect is moving away from being pro-drop.

Instead, Dominicans prefer overt pronominal subjects (Toribio 2000b: 339). Could

this have anything to do with the increasing grammaticality in DS of overt

functional heads for arguments 'further down' the animacy hierarchy?

With respect to my functional projection proposal, is there any reason to

prefer either a unification or a variationist hypothesis? First, the strongest

evidence for a grammaticalization process with respect to DOCD would be a

speaker for whom DOCD is obligatory in for all specific arguments (agreement

affixes are generally obligatory). I have not seen such data or encountered such a

speaker, however; whenever DOCD is allowed in a non-strong pronoun context,

it is only ever optional, not obligatory.

Second, more research into clitic clustering and climbing behaviors may

reveal insights regarding the precise locations of these functional projections in

the tree. As well, it is possible that deeper knowledge of clitic clustering may

provide a basis for discerning whether there exists any a priori evidence for

preferring a unificationist or a variationist account for the syntax of DOCD.

Why do I think this is the case? All of my younger DS speakers and many

of my older speakers evidenced a slight preference for proclisis over enclisis, as

111

well a slight preference for clustering clitics (as opposed to procliticizing DAT

and encliticizing ACC). They judged that of the following, (117a) was preferred,

and (117b) was marginal. Further, my speakers evidenced a judgment split with

regard to (177c), with 8/21 holding that it was ungrammatical. This set included

some but not all of my younger DS speakers. The rest simply stated that it was

marginal or “didn't sound quite right.”

(117) a. ¿me lo vas a contar?

1sDAT 3sM.ACC go.2s.PRES to tell.INF

'Are you going to tell it to me?'

b. ?* ¿vas a contár-me-lo?

go.2sPRES to tell.INF-1sDAT-3sM.ACC

'Are you going to tell me it?'

c. % ¿me vas a contar-lo?

1sDAT go.2sPRES to tell.INF-3sM.ACC

'Are you going to tell me it?'

My speakers for whom DOCD with inanimates was grammatical attested similar

preferences as in (117) above for the analogous ACC-doubled examples, except

that (118c) was judged outright grammatical by all of them:

(118) a. ¿me lo vas a contar el cuento?

1sDAT 3sM.ACC go.2s.PRES to tell.INF Det.sM story

'Are you going to tell me the story?'

b. ?* ¿vas a contár-me-lo el cuento?

go.2sPRES to tell.INF-1sDAT-3sM.ACC Det.sM story

'Are you going to tell me the story?

112

c. % ¿me vas a contar-lo ?

1sDAT go.2sPRES to tell.INF-3sM.ACC

'Are you going to tell me the story?

How do my speakers' preferences regarding proclisis and clustered clitics play

into arguing in favor of a reanalysis or a unification argument? I leave this

question open for now, simply noting that it is potentially fruitful with respect to

the analysis of 3ACC clitics in DS and in Spanish more generally.

Finally, sociolinguistic research should be conducted regarding how

Dominican identity is indicated by or indexed to certain features. DS is

stigmatized in the Hispanophone world (Suárez Büdenbender 2010), and

Dominicans have internalized disapproval of their dialects, as attested by

phenomena like /s/-hypercorrection (Bradley 2006, Bullock & Toribio 2007). But

this broader stigmatization is juxtaposed with a high degree of covert prestige

among Dominicans regarding particular features. For example, Bradley & Willis

(2012) show that lambdacism (when /r/ surfaces as /l/) is associated with the

capital, Santo Domingo, and Dominicans do not stigmatize this behavior. On the

other hand, vocalization as in the Cibao region of the country (/r/ /j/, as in →

pernil 'roast pork' [pej.nil]) is heavily stigmatized and indexicalized with →

ruralness, poverty, etc. How might this complex picture, in which DS is generally

stigmatized in the Hispanophone world but evidences emic covert prestige with

features indexicalized to the capital, interact with DOCD?

I conducted a two part-survey survey in 2012 with 42 respondents ranging

in age from 18 to 64 over facebook (28 were Dominican). The first part asked all

respondents whether they preferred a DOCD construction or a non-doubled

construction. The second was a linguistic ideology survey regarding how

speakers perceived of DOCD.

113

I found that 52% (22/42, with 17 of these being Dominican) of these

speakers indexed DOCD constructions to rural speakers, 38% (16/42) indexed

DOCD constructions to poor speakers, 9 of those being Dominican, and 38% also

indexed DOCD to uneducated speakers. 16% (7/42), all Dominican, indexed

DOCD to illiterate speakers. 33% (14/42) of respondents indexed DOCD to

Dominicans, and all of these were Dominican. This means that 50% of Dominican

respondents (14/28) consider DOCD constructions to be indexed to Dominicans.

71% of these respondents (10/14) were bilingual and raised in the U.S., which

provides evidence that Dominican nationals and diaspora Dominicans have

different linguistic ideologies (Suárez Büdenbender 2010). Further, only one of

these 14 respondents preferred the variation without DOCD.

Only more involved research can confirm for sure what the results of my

surveys mean, but for now it suffices to note that the following seems possible:

some Dominicans indexicalize DOCD as a Dominican feature, and even as the

indexical field3 for this feature might contain largely negative indices (ruralness,

ignorance, poverty, etc.), my survey also showed that most of my DS speakers

preferred the DOCD construction in the first part of the survey. Given how

stigmatized DS is in the broader Hispanophone community, it could be that the

change in progress across generations of DS speakers could be related somehow

to the differences in linguistic ideologies between Dominican nationals and

diaspora Dominicans. It seems intuitive that since DOCD is indexicalized as a

Dominican feature, those who might want to express some kind of Dominican

identity (diaspora Dominicans) might be more inclined to use Dominican-

indexicalized features like DOCD, while those who might be ashamed of

Dominican-ness might be inclined to avoid DOCD.

3 “a constellation of meanings that are ideologically linked” and “an embodiment of ideology in linguistic form” (Eckert 2004: 464)

114

Again, only more involved research can verify this kind of claim. Future

research regarding the construction of Dominican identity with respect to DOCD

and other Dominican-indexicalized features should take into account more

specific factors contributing to this construction: that is to say, given the

prevalence of “the sentiment that African heritage is negative and shameful,”

(Zentella 2007: 260) and the correlation shown in Zentella 2007 between upward

class mobility and Dominican linguistic insecurity, to what extent are the

indexical fields of canonical DS features (such as non-inverted questions, overt

pronouns and existential expletives, and peculiar coda liquid behavior) and

novel ones (such as availability of overt DOCD with inanimates) class-based and

racialized? Further, what is the role of gender in the construction of Dominican

identity?

In conclusion, I have shown that there are many interesting paths for

future research regarding DS. I considered whether clitic clustering and ordering

preferences might indicate an a priori argument in favor of either a unification or

reanalysis approach to DOCD, then I considered how linguistic ideology

interacts with DOCD variation based on a pilot study I conducted in 2012 via

facebook surveys. I also considered the indexicalization of Dominicanness more

generally, speculating that stigma plays a role in determining the realization of

certain features. In the next section I offer some closing remarks.

115

4.3. Final remarks

I embarked on this project in order to show that analysis of a nonstandard dialect

may in fact shed light on cross-dialectal variation within the given language.

Another main goal of my project was to show that any analysis of DOCD

variation within and across dialects must begin with Suñer's (1988) data

regarding the inherent specificity of accusative clitics. Since for whatever reason,

Dominican Spanish is understudied in the syntactic literature, I showed that my

analysis of DOCD in DS can also be extended to account for cross-dialectal

DOCD variation if one wants to assume that the syntax of DOCD is the same

across dialects. Thus, I attempted to correct the absence of syntactic literature on

DS and its relationship to other dialects, showing the value of my analysis for the

study of the syntax of clitics more generally.

Thank you for reading this far.

116

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