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The primary objective of this dissertation is to expand the testing ground of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2006), which states that interface properties involving the syntax and other cognitive domains (such as discourse) may trigger residual optionality effects at the end-state. The target of investigation were Bulgarian object clitics whose syntactic and discursive properties provide a good testing ground for theoretical approaches to second language acquisition. Ten advanced and 14 intermediate L2 speakers of Bulgarian, as well as a control group of Bulgarian native speakers, participated in the study. The test materials included a proficiency test, a grammaticality judgment task to check syntactic knowledge of clitics, and a pragmatic felicity task. The latter was aimed at investigating the degree to which L2 learners of Bulgarian, with English as their L1, had acquired a syntax-discourse interface property of Bulgarian, namely the pragmatic function of clitic doubling. In Bulgarian, clitic doubling serves as an overt marker of topicality and `undoubled' object topics are deemed infelicitous. The results of the experiments in this dissertation present a challenge to some theoretical approaches to second language acquisition, namely the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimlpi and Dimitrakopoulou, 2007) and the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2006). The results showed that the intermediate participants did not differentiate between the felicitous and the infelicitous options in the pragmatic felicity task in a target-like manner as their responses either did not exhibit statistically significant difference or favored the response closest to the L1. However, the advanced L2 learners of Bulgarian had successfully acquired the syntax of clitics as well as the pragmatic meaning of clitic doubling in Bulgarian. They displayed target-like convergence with respect to the syntactic properties of Bulgarian object clitics and distinguished between the felicitous and the infelicitous options in the pragmatic task in a native-like manner. The study highlights the fact that successful learning at the syntax-discourse interface cannot be excluded and a lot more research, exploring as many interface conditions as possible, needs to be done in order to validate the Interface Hypothesis as a legitimate constraint which permanently hinders native-like performance.

Majorcan Catalan postverbal pronominal elements are typically described as being prominent due to stress shift from their host. This study sheds light on the prosodic phonology of these pronouns through the analysis of duration, vowel quality, and f0 in verb + pronominal sequences, which are compared to a baseline condition without pronominals and to the same sequences in a Catalan variety without stress shift. Our results show acoustic differences in the realization of pronominals in these varieties. The duration and vowel quality patterns are consistent with the stress shift account of postverbal pronominals in Majorcan Catalan. Analysis of f0 contours also reveals phonological differences across varieties. Whereas stressed postverbal pronominals are not rare in Romance, Majorcan Catalan is one of a much reduced number of varieties within the Romance domain, where the attachment of a pronominal element to a host triggers "true" stress shift rather than an additional prominence on the pronominal element, like Sardinian or Neapolitan.

The goal of the following project is to probe into the early knowledge of the syntactic and the pragmatic components of language at the syntax-pragmatics interface, as exemplified by discourse-related elements such as object clitics. Object clitics, in addition to allowing for cross-linguistic generalizations, provide an insight into the early clause structure and the mechanisms which constrain the syntax-pragmatics interface. Cross linguistic variation has been found to be limited and well-governed, and has been attributed to the underlying syntactic mechanism, such as the Unique Checking Constrain or a number of pragmatic constraints operative in the child's grammar such as inability to mark referentiality. In addition, this study explores a theory which attempts to integrate the acquisition of syntax and pragmatics by attributing early non-finite structures in child grammar to a maturational discourse linking mechanism. The present project seeks to validate the claims of the above theories by offering new data and a novel perspective. The empirical part presents the results of one pilot study based on naturalistic language production by a monolingual Polish child age 2;1 - 2;9, and three data elicitation experiments conducted with 53 monolingual Polish children age 2;9 - 5;10. the clitic production experiment composed of two types of data. The pilot study establishes the relative age of clitic production. The data elicitation experiments focus on clitic production, clitic comprehension and knowledge of Principle B, as well as clitic referentiality resolution in pragmatically infelicitous contexts. It is shown that Polish children do not produce clitics from the beginning. It is concluded based on group and individual results that comprehension of objects clitic precedes production and that production is unlikely without comprehension. It is shown that age is a significant factor in clitic comprehension, production and referentiality resolution. It is demonstrated that Polish children exhibit early knowledge of Principle B. Also, it is suggested that children who produce object clitics are more likely to resolve clitic referentiality in pragmatically infelicitous contexts.

SENĆOŦEN has a set of second-position clitics (2PCs) (‘little’, unstressed elements, such as the first person subject SEN), following the initial prosodic word (full word) of the clause. This thesis, which studies the distribution of the 2PCs, is divided into two parts: a linguistic analysis and a co-authored teaching appendix. In the linguistic analysis, I propose that 2PCs occur following the initial prosodic word as a result of constraints governing the mapping between syntactic and prosodic structure. In the syntax, I propose that SENĆOŦEN 2PCs occupy positions above the prosodic word that ultimately precedes them. However, a preference for ‘strong’ left edges of prosodic constituents (intonational units) results in the violation of the constraint governing linearization of the syntactic structure, allowing the clitics to follow the initial prosodic word. The teaching appendix, developed collaboratively with STOLȻEȽ Elliott, employs concepts from the linguistic analysis in a way that is useful for language learners and teachers. / Graduate / 0290 / mhuijs@telus.net

In light of recent theoretical and methodological developments in the areas of French morphosyntax and child acquisition, the present dissertation reconsiders the asymmetry reported in previous studies of the acquisition of subject and object clitics in French-speaking children. Our reanalysis allows us to address two important questions in the domain of acquisition, namely optionality in the child’s grammar and the role of input in development. By means of an exhaustive analysis of child and adult production, our research illustrates that adults produce several subject/object asymmetries, and we propose that the asymmetry reported for children is attributable to properties of the target language and not to the acquisition process. Beyond these conclusions, our research reveals a significant asymmetry during the course of acquisition, namely that the subject clitic reaches the target grammar faster than the object clitic. This asymmetry, which we qualify as rhythmic, is caused by a prolonged optionality of the object clitic. However, our study shows that this optionality is not generalized. Until roughly 3 years of age, object and subject clitics show a parallel development in spontaneous speech: they are optional. After this period (around 3 years), their production reaches the levels observed in adults. In contrast, some studies in elicited production have shown that object clitics are still optional beyond 3 years. These contradictory results lead us to propose that there are two types of optionality: spontaneous and induced. We explore possible sources of these phenomena and propose that the status of pronouns as clitic elements plays a role in spontaneous optionality. As for the induced optionality, we propose that it is attributable to variation in the input and the child’s tendency to regularize it. Overall, our results allow us to redefine the asymmetry, to propose that optionality is a multifactorial phenomenon, and to illustrate the role of input in the optionality exhibited by French children for this domain.

In light of recent theoretical and methodological developments in the areas of French morphosyntax and child acquisition, the present dissertation reconsiders the asymmetry reported in previous studies of the acquisition of subject and object clitics in French-speaking children. Our reanalysis allows us to address two important questions in the domain of acquisition, namely optionality in the child’s grammar and the role of input in development. By means of an exhaustive analysis of child and adult production, our research illustrates that adults produce several subject/object asymmetries, and we propose that the asymmetry reported for children is attributable to properties of the target language and not to the acquisition process. Beyond these conclusions, our research reveals a significant asymmetry during the course of acquisition, namely that the subject clitic reaches the target grammar faster than the object clitic. This asymmetry, which we qualify as rhythmic, is caused by a prolonged optionality of the object clitic. However, our study shows that this optionality is not generalized. Until roughly 3 years of age, object and subject clitics show a parallel development in spontaneous speech: they are optional. After this period (around 3 years), their production reaches the levels observed in adults. In contrast, some studies in elicited production have shown that object clitics are still optional beyond 3 years. These contradictory results lead us to propose that there are two types of optionality: spontaneous and induced. We explore possible sources of these phenomena and propose that the status of pronouns as clitic elements plays a role in spontaneous optionality. As for the induced optionality, we propose that it is attributable to variation in the input and the child’s tendency to regularize it. Overall, our results allow us to redefine the asymmetry, to propose that optionality is a multifactorial phenomenon, and to illustrate the role of input in the optionality exhibited by French children for this domain.

Standard Arabic exhibits 'that trace' effect in one instance in the extraction of the subject from an 'anna' clause while the extraction of the object and the subject of an 'an' clause may be extracted freely in the formation of WH-question. The extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause may not be extracted unless the extracted position is marked by a clitic on the complementizer 'anna'. If the clitic appears in place of the moved NP in an 'an' clause it renders the sentence ungrammatical. The adoption of the Government and Binding Framework, Chomsky (1981), (1982) and in particular Case Theory, Government theory and the Empty Category Principle (ECP) enable us to explain this distinct behaviour in the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause and show that the appearance of the clitic is predicted by the proposed analysis. It is argued that the clitic appears in the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause in order to properly govern the trace left by the extracted subject, and so as not to violate ECP. Since verbs are proper governors in SA, extraction of the subject of an 'an' clause must apply from a governed position. In fact this is exactly what our analysis predicts. Since 'an' is not a case assigner and since we are assuming that government and case are assigned only to the right, AGR and verb preposing are obligatory in an 'an' clause to assign case to the subject NP. Therefore extraction of the subject leaves a trace properly governed by the verb. In the extraction of the subject of an 'anna' clause on the other hand, since 'anna' is a case assigner and assigns a cusative case to its subject, AGR and verb preposing may not apply. Thus, the extraction of the subject leaves a trace which is not properly governed in violation of ECP, and the clitic must appear in order to properly govern the trace left by movement. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

This paper aims to spell out the post-syntactic operations involved in the placement of second-position subject clitics in Alsea, an extinct language of the central Oregon coast. It assumes that the subject clitic is a syntactic head that is moved to a complementizer position in syntax, but is linearized in a post-syntactic morphological component in PF; operations in morphology account for the deviation of the subject clitic from its syntactic output position. Based on Buckley (1994), this paper proposes a two-stage post-syntactic derivation to account for the subject clitic distribution in Alsea: (i) concatenation, in which the subject clitic adjoins to an adjacent head of the same type to satisfy its suffixal requirement, (ii) prosodic readjustment, whereby a clitic whose morphological host is non-overt, leans rightward to procliticize to the first prosodic constituent.

The goal of this work is to provide an account of dative clitic dependencies in constructions with raising verbs such as to seem in Romanian. Dative clitic experiencers as quirky subjects and dative clitics in clitic left dislocation (CLLD) constructions are discussed from a syntactic point of view and experimentally tested in a psycholinguistics study. The study contributes to current innovations in the Minimalist Program, presenting new perspectives on Romanian clitic dependencies in raising constructions partially addressed in earlier generative grammar. This study poses new questions regarding raising, the intervention effects of dative clitic experiencers, and the effects of clitic dependencies in ditransitive constructions. Chapter II presents an overview of Romanian raising constructions without dative experiencers. I show that Romanian possesses three raising constructions, based on the type of the embedded clause: subjunctive, infinitive, and indicative. Each of these has three potential locations for the nominative subject, argued to be generated in the embedded clause. Formal mechanisms such as Long Distance and Multiple Agree, Movement, Case and EPP are considered independent of one another. Dative clitic experiencers in raising constructions, analyzed in Chapter III, are claimed to be quirky subjects and to structurally occupy the highest position in the sentence. Having established the role of dative clitic experiencers, I discuss raising constructions involving dative experiencers generated and/or surfacing in various positions, and their effects on operations such as Agree and Move. I then discuss Experiencer Islands, formed by matrix and embedded experiencers in the same utterance, and present the contexts in which they occur. A Grammaticality Judgment Test confirms the existence of such restriction in Romanian. Furthermore, I present an analysis of Experiencer Islands and discuss observed exceptions to the restriction. Dative clitic dependencies such as CLLD constructions and Long Distance CLLD Constructions are also analyzed in this thesis. The experimental study presented in Chapter IV supports theoretical claims and demonstrates that Romanian speakers are aware of dative clitic dependencies, such as clitic experiencer dependencies and clitic dependencies in CLLD constructions, possess the grammatical knowledge of biclausal constructions involving dative clitic dependencies and have the ability to recognize such dependencies.