Auxiliary verb constructions and clitic placement: Evidence from Tsakonian

Abstract

The Tsakonian clitic system possesses a clitic auxiliary with the same syntactic and prosodic properties as the object clitic pronouns with which it may cluster preverbally or postverbally. The clitics of the two Tsakonian subdialects (Peloponnesian Tsakonian and Propontis Tsakonian) differ typologically since the latter has second position clitics but the former does not. It is shown here that Peloponnesian Tsakonian clitics do not simply constitute a mixed system in a state of transition between the inherited Medieval Greek enclitics and SMG proclitics, because of certain peculiarities they show. In particular, circumclitics and split clitics have arisen, and second position clitics are retained not as free variations but as elements whose placement depends on strict prosodic and/or syntactic conditions.