Bulgarian Clitics and Communicative Structure: Description and Typology []Болгарские клитики и коммуникативная структура: описание и типология
Anton Zimmerling
March 2025 

This paper discusses the interaction of syntactical and information-structural factors in the ordering of Bulgarian clauses with clitics. I define clitics as a subset of prosodically defective and communicatively restricted functional elements. The clitic elements cannot be highlighted by information-structural mechanisms, but clauses with clitics can have derived types of information structure. I focus on Bulgarian clause-level enclitics with clustering properties. This set includes pronominal argument and reflexive markers, auxiliary forms of săm and the yes/no particle li. The particle of li has clustering properties in the context of general yes/no questions, but splitting of the clitic cluster does not always diagnose the meaning of the partial question. The main principle of clitic-external ordering in Bulgarian ― the clitic-and-verb adjacency imposed on the 2P condition for the placement of clustering clitics ― is grammaticalized. Meanwhile, derived word orders in clauses with clitics, notably ― word orders with late clitic placement and partly also word orders with splitting ― have communicative triggers.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008848 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Proceedings of the International Annual Conference of the Institute for Bulgarian Language. Sofia: Marin Drinov, 2020, 35 - 45. Wosid:000655543200003
keywords:	phonetic clitics, syntactic clitics, communicative structure, clitic clusters, bulgarian, word order, polar questions, syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology
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