UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 14 (2002)

 Serbo-Croat-Bosnian clitics and Word Grammar

AMELA ČAMDŽIĆ and RICHARD HUDSON


 

Serbo-Croat-Bosnian has a complex system of clitics which raise interesting problems for any theory of the interface between syntax and morphology. After summarising the data we review previous analyses (mostly within the generative tradition), all of which are unsatisfactory in various ways. We then explain how Word Grammar handles clitics: as words whose form is an affix rather than the usual ‘word-form’. Like other affixes, clitics need a word to accommodate them, but in the case of clitics this is a special kind of word called a ‘hostword’. We present a detailed analysis of Serbo-Croat-Bosnian clitics within this theory which covers more of the data than any other analysis.


[PDF file]