Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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To sum up this section, the PCC repair obviates the Cliticization Requirement
for datives by turning them into unfocussed strong pronouns in the PCC context.
The result is identical in all but focus to dative strong pronouns, and in all but
thematic meaning to locative strong pronouns. In only one of the contexts where
datives cannot be affected by the repair, when the dative is an inherent clitic, can
the accusative also be an unfocussed strong pronoun, perhaps. The repair may occur
at a considerable distance from the clitic cluster banned by the PCC. These
conclusions will be used to build a theory of the repair. The next section establishes
its domain: syntax rather than morphology.
4.4 The syntactic character of the repair
4.4.1 Introduction
In the PCC repair, a strong pronoun appears where a clitic would be expected. The
alternation has been analyzed both as morphological, by Bonet (1991), and to be
somewhat anachronistic, Blanche-Benveniste (1975, esp. chapter 4), and as syntactic,
by Couquaux (1975), Postal (1990), Ormazabal and Romero (1998), Rezac
(2007). The core prediction separating the two lines of approach follows from
modularity: a morphological clitic-strong alternation affects only form and not
syntax or its interpretation. In this section, the need for a syntactic analysis is
demonstrated, because the strong pronouns of the repair do not have the syntactic
properties of the clitics they replace, but those of strong pronouns.
The stage may be set through Bonet's (1991: 201-9) elegant morphological
analysis. Bonet proposes that the repair is exceptional lower-copy spell-out in response
to the PCC as a morphological problem with top-copy spell-out, (148). A
dative pronoun is base-generated within the VP and moves outside. Its top copy is
usually spelled out as a clitic, (148)a. The PCC is a morphological constraint on
clitic sequences that bars the spell-out if there is a 1 st /2 nd /SE accusative clitic,
(148)b. In response, the copy spell-out algorithm realizes the lowest, VP-internal
copy. The form of this copy is à + strong pronoun, (148)c.
(148) a. Elle les leuri présentera à euxi
b. Elle vous leuri présentera à euxi *PCC →
c. Elle vous leuri présentera à euxi
she them.A/you.A them.D will.introduce to them
The use of lower copy spell-out triggered by morphophonological problems
has been convincingly developed independently, notably in the work reviewed in
Bošković and Nunes (2007). In Romanian, wh-phrases must front, (149)a, except
when a sequence of two identical wh-words would result. Then the lower wh-word
is exceptionally pronounced lower, (149)b. Bošković (2002) proposes that in the
syntax, the lower wh-word moves, for syntax should be blind to morphopho-