SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This dissertation investigates pronominal and clitic systems in Taqbaylit Berber (Afro-asiatic) from the point of view of their syntactic, semantic and interpretative properties. The thesis's contribution to current research is two-fold. First, a detailed analysis of Taqbaylit as used in spoken discourse is provided along with an exploration of clausal and nominal structures. In particular, the TAM system is explored and arranged within an extended event structure as proposed by Tenny (2000). An in-depth analysis of the various orders in which DP elements are placed and a proposal on the internal structure of the constituent, based on Cinque's universal DP template (1996; 2000; 2005) is also proposed. Secondly, an alternative account of clitic orderings exploiting hierarchical partitions of pronominal forms and a comprehensive and systematic organization of the pronominal system of Taqbaylit Berber focusing on the syntax and semantics/pragmatics of clitics and non-clitic related pro-forms is given. Within the frameworks aforementioned, clitic placements in CP and DP are argued to be derived in two steps. At the syntactic level, clitics are argued to move as phrases to the highest functional projection realized by the lexical head they are associated with. At PF, clitics are argued to incorporate into an adjacent preceding prosodic head or if no such head is available to the following lexical head. Enclitic orders with nominal and verbal heads are further derived by a clitic-host inversion. From the point of view' of typology, it is shown that the pronominal organization of Taqbaylit conforms to independently proposed hierarchical classifications of pronominal forms into different classes or categories (e.g. Cardinaletti & Starke, 1999 and Dechaine & Witlschko, 2002).