Cliticization in Slavic and beyond
Cliticization in Slavic and beyond
Theory, Data and Change
Theory, Data and Change
Clitics are a highly prominent category in Slavic languages, which raises fundamental questions about the interfaces between syntax, morphology, phonology, and information structure. They occupy a theoretical middle ground between words and affixes, and their placement often reflects complex interactions among syntactic position, prosodic structure, and discourse-related constraints (Franks & King 2000; Bošković 2001, 2008, 2016; Milićević 2023, a.m.o.). Slavic languages, with their rich clitic inventories, provide an ideal testing ground for competing models of cliticization and for exploring how grammatical architecture constrains linearization.
In addition to long-standing debates on the definition and status of clitics, recent advances in experimental methods, corpus linguistics, and comparative micro-typology have opened new perspectives on how clitic systems are acquired, processed, and diachronically reanalyzed (Kosta 2013; Kolaković et al 2022; Marelj 2024, a.o.). These developments invite renewed discussion of both classic and emerging issues, including the nature of second-position effects or the role of prosody.
This workshop aims to explore primarily, but not exclusively, Slavic cliticization from theoretical, descriptive, comparative, and methodological perspectives. Both synchronic and diachronic studies are welcome, and contributions on under-described varieties are especially encouraged.
We invite contributions on any aspect of cliticization, including but not limited to the following research questions and related issues:
a) What theoretical criteria distinguish clitics from affixes and independent words?
b) Is clitic placement best explained through language-specific morphosyntactic constraints, interface conditions (syntax–prosody), or broader cross-linguistic generalizations?
c) How do clitics attach to prosodic hosts?
d) How should the differences between distinct classes of pronouns (clitic, weak, and strong) be modeled? Are these differences purely morphophonological – with their distribution regulated by information structure – or do they encode deeper syntactic and semantic differences?
e) How can recent empirical and computational methods – e.g., experimental syntax, corpus analysis, eye-tracking, EEG, etc – shed new light on clitic placement, prosodic integration, and information-structural effects?
f) How does language contact contribute to the emergence, restructuring, or loss of clitic systems?
g) What syntactic and discourse-related factors license or restrict phenomena such as clitic doubling, and how does doubling interact with definiteness, animacy, and information structure?
Abstracts:
We invite submissions for 20-minute talks (+10 minutes discussion).
Formatting: Times New Roman 12 pt, single-spaced, standard margins.
Abstracts must be anonymous and must be submitted in PDF form via Oxford Abstracts.
This workshop is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement n. 101153454.