Abstract
Person clitics show proclitic attachment in some West Iranian languages. Nevertheless, most of the literature has continued to focus on enclitics. This paper provides evidence that a good number of modern languages have developed proclitics, presumably from the middle Iranian period onward. Using synchronic data from modern languages gathered in the field, and contrasting it with the Middle Iranian period and current clausal second-position clitic systems, we develop some hypotheses regarding the rise of proclitics in modern languages. We argue that proclitic attachment has resulted from the reanalysis and/or the loss of clause-initial clitic hosting particles of the Middle Iranian period, and the actualization of the stray clitic as a proclitic on some host to the right. This trajectory from second position enclitics to proclitics, which is also attested in Old Romance and Uto-Aztecan, is argued to have been triggered by head attraction and rightward drift of clitics from clause-second position toward the verb in modern languages, giving rise to VP-based and Verb-based cliticization systems.
Acknowledgment
We thank Geoffrey Haig for his comments on the draft version of the article. We also express our gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments, which led to significant improvement of the paper. We are grateful to Emmanuel Giraudet from the research group ‘Centre de recherche sur le Monde Iranien’ for the creation of maps. Any remaining shortcomings remains our own. Masoud Mohammadirad’s work was enabled by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 665850.
In Table 7 some information is provided about each language investigated in this paper. Due to limitations of space only the number of spoken narratives have been provided in the dataset column (cf. Mohammadirad 2020: Ch. 1 for metadata). Note that as there is no reliable census on language communities it is hard to provide realistic data for the number of speakers, given also the fact that a considerable portion of many language communities grow with little knowledge of native languages. Therefore, for some languages the number of speakers can alternatively be interpreted as the population size.
General information on investigated languages.
| Language | Size of dataset | Approximate n. of speakers | Location | Further information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baneh Central Kurdish | 4 spoken narratives | 100,000 | 35.99534, 45.88214 | cf. Sorani (<Central Kurdish) in Glottolog |
| Southern Central Kurdish | 3 spoken narratives | 800,000 | 35.31271, 46.99745 | cf. Sine’i (<Central Kurdish) in Glottolog |
| Bijar Southern Kurdish | 4 spoken narratives | 30,000 | 35.87820, 47.59137 | cf. Garruci (<Southern Kurdish) in Glottolog |
| Gorani Takht | 4 spoken narratives | 5,000 | 35.25539, 46.25510 | cf. Hawraman-i Taxt (<Gurani) in Glottolog |
| Gorani Qal’eh | 3 spoken narratives | 2000 | 35.13358, 47.80199 | Not listed in Glottolog |
| Laki Kakevandi | 4 spoken narratives | 100,000 | 34.26456, 47.61051 | cf. Laki in Glottolog |
| Laki Harsini | 7 spoken narratives | 20,000 | 34.27218, 47.58576 | cf. Belelli (2016); Lakic Southern Kurdish in Glottolog |
| Chali (Shali) | 3 spoken narratives | 15,000 | 35.89884, 49.76503 | cf. Southern Tatic (<Tatic) in Glottolog |
| Takestani | 1 spoken narrative | 50,000 | 36.07556, 49.69086 | cf. Takestani (<Ramand-Karaj < Tatic) in Glottolog |
| Semnani | 2 spoken narratives | 100,000 | 35.59008, 53.37433 | cf. Semnani-Biyabuneki in Glottolog |
| Central Taleshi | 1 spoken narrative | 200,000 | 37.79848, 48.90740 | cf. Central Talyshi in Glottolog |
| Delijani | 2 spoken narratives | 20,000 | 33.99254, 50.68019 | cf. Delijani (<Soic) in Glottolog |
| Khansari | 2 spoken narratives | 15,000 | 33.29052, 50.31922 | cf. Khunsaric in Glottolog |
| Meymei | 3 spoken narratives | 6,000 | 33.44972, 51.16804 | cf. Mayma’i (<Soic) in Glottolog |
| Abuzeydabadi | 2 spoken narratives | 6,000 | 33.89916, 51.76530 | cf. Abuzeydabadi (<Soic) in Glottolog |
| Badrudi | 4 spoken narratives | 14,000 | 33.69181, 52.00395 | cf. Badrudi (<Natanzic) in Glottolog |
| Nikabad-Jondun | 5 spoken narratives | 6,000 | 32.30685, 52.20724 | cf. Gazic in Glottolog |
| Naeini | 2 spoken narratives | 20,000 | 32.86043, 53.08112 | cf. Nayini (<Nayinic) in Glottolog |
| Yazdi Zoroastrian | 8 spoken narratives | 10,000 | 31.88138, 54.37355 | cf. Gabri (<Zoroastrian Yazdi) in Glottolog |
| Sivandi | 4 spoken narratives | 3,000 | 30.08182, 52.92264 | cf. Sivandi (<Central Iran Kermanic) in Glottolog |
| Koroshi | 7 spoken narratives | 10,000 | 29.52698, 52.66519 | cf. Nourzaei et al. (2015), Balochic in Glottolog |
| Luri-type languages | 5 spoken narratives | 2–3 million | 33.50349, 49.05946 | cf. Amān Allāhī Bahārvand and Thackston (1986), Luric in Glottolog |
| Behbahani | 6 spoken narratives | 60,000 | 30.59746, 50.23304 | not listed in Glottolog |
| Nowdani | 2 spoken narratives | 3,000 | 29.79956, 51.68829 | not listed in Glottolog |
| Davani | 5 spoken narratives | 600 | 29.70200, 51.67361 | cf. Davani (<Fars dialects) in Glottolog |
| Delvari | 2 spoken narratives | 4,000 | 28.76228, 51.06716 | not listed in Glottolog |
| Dashti | 3 spoken narratives | 40,000 | 28.34110, 51.52374 | not listed in Glottolog |
| Lari | 4 spoken narratives | 50,000 | 27.67415, 54.32065 | cf. Lari (<Larestani) in Glottolog |
| Bastaki | 3 spoken narratives | 10,000 | 27.19754, 54.36614 | cf. Bastak (<Larestani) in Glottolog |
| Bandari | 3 spoken narratives | 200,000 | 27.18477, 56.25640 | not listed in Glottolog |
| Minabi | 3 spoken narratives | 70,000 | 27.12748, 57.07667 | not listed in Glottolog |
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