Overview: The Grammar (and Acquisition) of Clitics

Abstract

Pronouns have a complex grammar. They are at the crossroad of two rather ill-understood systems: indexicality and deficiency. On the one hand, knowledge of pronouns is knowledge of an intricate “referential” system, whereby a part of a sentence can “corefer” with another, or “be a variable linked to” another, or again “point to the context” of the utterance. These intuitive descriptions of indexicality have vexed scholars in their attempt to render them precise, ever since the dawn of research on language. For instance, in the first century AC, Appolonius Dyskolus came to distinguish an anaphoric use (secondary acquaintance) from a deictic use (primary acquaintance) of pronouns. This distinction remains a lively source of bewilderment for scholars in the end of the twentieth century through discussions of “accidental coreference”, “donkey-sentences”, “telescoping”, and other such puzzles.