Aspects of the Theory of Clitics

This is the first book to cover the grammar of clitics from all points of view, including their phonology and syntax and relation to morphology. In the process, it deals with the relation of second position clitics to verb-second phenomena in Germanic and other languages, the grammar of contracted auxiliary verbs in English, noun incorporation constructions, and several other much discussed topics in grammar. Stephen Anderson includes analyses of a number of particular languages, and some of these - such as Kwakw'ala ( "Kwakiutl ") and Surmiran Rumantsch - are based on his own field research. The study of clitics has broad implications for a general understanding of sentence structure in natural language. Stephen Anderson's clearly-written, wide-ranging, and original account will be of wide interest to scholars and advanced students of phonology, morphology, and syntax.

1 - Introduction
2 - What is a Clitic?
3 - The Phonology of Cliticization
4 - Special Clitics and Their Grammar
5 - Theories of Special Clitics
6 - An Optimal Theory of Clitic Positioning
7 - Verb Second as Alignment
8 - Pronominal Clitics
9 - Clause Structure and the Grammar of Incorporation

Stephen R. Anderson is Professor of Linguistics, Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. He has previously taught at Harvard University, UCLA, Stanford, and The Johns Hopkins University. Among his other books are A-Morphous Morphology (1992), The Language Organ, co-authored by David Lightfoot (2002), and Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language (2004). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship.