linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

, clitic doubling, or pronominal reduplication is a phenomenon by which

clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...

s appear in

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

phrases together with the full

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

s that they refer to (as opposed to the cases where such pronouns and full noun phrases are in

complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...

). Clitic doubling is found in many languages, including

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

, Aromanian, Macedonian,

Bulgarian Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...

, Degema,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language ** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...

, Somali,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

. The conditions on clitic doubling vary from language to language, generally depending on well-known properties of the objects along the

animacy hierarchy Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around t ...

(allowing, requiring, or forbidding clitic-doubling for different kinds of objects). In this regard, clitic doubling for objects can be viewed as a species of

differential object marking In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is pr ...

Spanish

Spanish is one well-known example of a clitic-doubling language, having clitic doubling for both direct and indirect objects. Because standard Spanish grammatical structure does not draw a clear distinction between an indirect object and a direct object referring to a person or another animate entity (see

Spanish prepositions Prepositions in the Spanish language, like those in other languages, are a set of connecting words (such as ''con'', ''de'' or ''para'') that serve to indicate a relationship between a content word (noun, verb, or adjective) and a following noun ...

), it is common but not compulsory to use clitic doubling to clarify. Compare: :''Conocí a Juan''. "I met Juan." (Direct object: ''a Juan'') :''Di un regalo a Juan''. "I gave a gift to Juan." (Direct object: ''un regalo''; indirect object: ''a Juan'') In such constructions, the indirect object can be expressed both as a full noun phrase and as a clitic in order to note that the noun phrase beginning with ''a'' (to) should be understood as an indirect object. This usage is highly preferred for many verbs, but for some verbs it is not compulsory, and it would also be valid to say: "''Siempre ofrezco café a mis invitados''", without clitic doubling. Similarly, the direct object may also be doubled, with both the direct object pronoun and the full noun phrase, but this is not as common as indirect clitic doubling and is usually influenced by definiteness, animacy, and specificity. :''(Lo) vi a tu papá en la tienda.'' "I saw your dad at the store." :''El otro día (la) conocí a su esposa.'' "The other day I met his wife." One particular use is to clarify emphatic structures: :''Ese regalo se lo di a él.'' "I gave him that gift."

Italian

, clitic doubling can be used for emphasis, is often viewed as a

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...

pleonasm Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness" or "burning fire". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for em ...

, and is considered "incorrect" by many

prescriptive Linguistic prescription, or prescriptive grammar, is the establishment of rules defining preferred usage of language. These rules may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. Sometimes infor ...

grammarians. Example: ''a me mi pare di sì'' ("I ersonally, for what I am concernedthink so")

Iloko

Iloko Ilocano (also Ilokano; ; Ilocano: ) is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines, primarily by Ilocano people and as a lingua franca by the Igorot people and also by the native settlers of Cagayan Valley. It is the Languages of the Phi ...

, a

third person Third person, or third-person, may refer to: * Third person (grammar), a point of view (in English, ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', and ''they'') ** Illeism, the act of referring to oneself in the third person * Third-person narrative, a perspective in p ...

pronoun must co-occur with the full noun phrase to which it refers when 1) the noun phrase is the

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

of a

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transitiv ...

and a pronoun is the

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health c ...

, or when 2) the noun phrase is the possessor and a pronoun is the thing possessed. The appropriate fused personal pronoun is used and the number of its third person component must agree with the noun phrase. Examples: Nakita ni Maria ni Juan. ''Maria saw Juan.'' Nakitana ni Juan. ''She saw Juan.'' BUT... Nakitanaka ni Maria. ''Maria saw you.'' NOT ''*Nakitaka ni Maria.'' ''NOT:'' *Nakitaak ni Maria. ''NOT:'' *Nakitaak da Maria ken ni Juan. ''NOT:'' *Anakka dagiti Rizal.

Lombard

In Lombard, clitics are widely used with both nouns and pronouns.

Venetian

In Venetian, clitics usually double the second singular person subject and third singular and plural subject. The above, if literally translated into English, would be redundant: Interrogative subjects clitics double also other subjects. They attach to the verb: Accusative clitics double first and second singular/plural direct object In some varieties of the language, also dative clitics may double and indirect object, even of third person:

Macedonian and Bulgarian

In the standard

Macedonian language Macedonian (; , , ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken as a first language by around two million ...

, clitic doubling is obligatory with

definite In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical d ...

direct Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), a ...

and

indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

s, which contrasts with standard Bulgarian where clitic doubling is optional. Non-standard dialects of Macedonian and Bulgarian have differing rules regarding clitic doubling.

Arabic

Clitic doubling is found in

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

ine dialects of Arabic, such as

Lebanese Arabic Lebanese Arabic ( ar, عَرَبِيّ لُبْنَانِيّ ; autonym: ), or simply Lebanese ( ar, لُبْنَانِيّ ; autonym: ), is a Varieties of Arabic, variety of North Levantine Arabic, indigenous to and spoken primarily in Lebano ...

: : قلتلها لإمي (iltilla la-immi) "I told my mother". ''Literally:'' I-said-to-her to-my-mother. :: The indirect-object suffix is appended to the verb and the noun additionally takes a clitic. : كتابو لجوزي (ktābu la-jawzi) "my husband's book". ''Literally:'' his-book of-my-husband. :: The possessive suffix is appended to the possessed noun and the possessor is additionally indicated with a clitic. Similar patterns are found in Maltese, where, however, they might also be due to Romance influence.

Degema

Clitic doubling occurs in Degema, as it does in Romance and Slavic languages. However, clitic doubling in Degema is not associated with the presence of a preposition as in Romance languages like Spanish nor is it associated with topicality or specificity as in Slavic languages like Bulgarian. Rather, what makes clitic doubling in Degema possible are syntactic (movement and anaphoricity) and discourse (emphasis and/or familiarity) factors (Kari 2003) Consider (1) below: In (1) the subject noun phrase (NP) 'Eni' is doubled by the clitic 'mo='. The clitic agrees in person, number and case with the doubled subject NP. Example (2) shows that specific and non-specific subjects in Degema can be doubled by a clitic: Example (3) shows that both topicalized and non-topicalized NPs in Degema can be doubled by a clitic: In Degema, the preposition does not feature in clitic doubling constructions in particular and in cliticization in general. Although there are object NPs such as indirect object NPs that can cooccur with a preposition, there are no corresponding object clitics to double them, unlike subject NPs. Kari (2003: 135f) adds that "syntactic factors are stronger than discourse factors in the licensing of clitic doubling in Degema. Discourse factors only ensure the expression or suppression of the doubled NP after syntactic operations have taken place".

Notes

References

# Friedman, V. (1994) "Variation and Grammaticalization in the Development of Balkanisms" in ''CLS 30 Papers from the 30th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society'', Volume 2. (Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society) # Kari, Ethelbert Emmanuel. 2003. ''Clitics in Degema: A meeting point of phonology, morphology, and syntax''. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). .

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clitic Doubling Grammar Reduplication