Consider examples of Clitic Climbing from Italian: (26) Gianni li vuole vedere
Gianni them wants to see 'Gianni wants to see them.'
(27) Gianni ve li vuole mostrare Gianni you-Dat. them wants to show 'Gianni wants to show them to you.'
(28) Piero ti verra a parlare di parapsicologia Piero you-Dat will come to speak about parapsychology Piero will come to speak to you about parapsychology.'
(29) to (31) are examples of Clitic Climbing from Spanish:
(29) Paco te las quiere dar Paco you-Dat. them wants to give 'Paco wants to give them to you.' (30) Lo voy a enviar
it am going to send 'I am going to send it.' (31) Lo tengo que hacer
it have-I that to do I have to do it.'
Kayne (1989) analyses Chtic Climbing as adjunction of the clitic to matrix I that passes through C, with movement of the clitic taken to be head movement. It seems to me that Kayne's analysis raises the problem of motivation for the adjunctions posited. I wish to repeat a point I made in the discussion of Complex Inversion in French. Namely, I think that the optimal analysis of a construction is not just one that can provide positions for the constituents under examination, but one in which the positions suggested are motivated outside the offered analysis. So if it is the case that the verb adjoins to the matrix I in Clitic Climbing a reason should be given not just for why it can do so but also why it would opt to do so. Also, while I can see the interpretive import for XP-adjunction (possibly topicalization) it is difficult for me to see the interpretive import of head adjunction, especially in the case of a functional head, if I am right in the analysis I give of clitics. Moreover, if Clitic Climbing is successive cyclic head movement obeying the relevant constraints, I do not see how we could explain the fact that it is lexically restricted. The fact that Chtic Climbing is possible with certain verbs only, indicates that the property involved cannot be simply that of head-movement. Why would the main verb have anything to do with Clitic Chmbing if we only had to do with head movement? How will Kayne's analysis of Clitic Climbing stop Clitic Climbing from taking place with all verbs? Another problem for Kayne's analysis of Clitic Climbing is posed by the Principle of Economy. This would be an instance of head movement not motivated by the Principle of Economy because there is a closer I for the chtic to attach to.
The main characteristic of my analysis of clitics is that clitics head a distinct functional projection. They do not raise to attach to a verb; on the contrary, it is the verb that moves in order to pick up the clitics. Clitics do not move by themselves but can only move along with the verb, if the verb moves higher than the CliticPhrase. This analysis of clitics is not incompatible with Kayne’s analysis of Clitic Climbing. I do not adopt Kayne’s analysis because of the problems I think it has, which I enumerated in the previous paragraph. I will propose instead an analysis of the Clitic Climbing construction that does not make use of clitic-raising but relates Clitic Climbing to raising of DP’s. I argue that the clitic in Clitic Climbing is a functional head of the verb it appears attached to. The clitic projects a CIP and the Clitic-Criterion must be satisfied. The Spec of the CliticPhrase is an available argument position (a non-theta external argument position) that can be filled by either pro or an overt DP. The tree for (26) is then (32), below:
V DP
Giannii PRO vedere
Given the raising analysis of Clitic Climbing it is perhaps more accurate to say that the embedded clause in (32) is an IP, like in all raising cases, and not a CP as it is marked in the tree-diagram.
In section 4.3.2 it was shown that the Spec of CIP can be the target position of raising. Clitic Climbing differs minimally from those examples of raising in that the 'raising' verb here is a personal verb^. In both cases raising is not to the object position but to an A-position that is independently shown to have properties similar to those of subjects. I will next show systematically that Clitic Climbing shares properties with raising:
(33)
i. Both raising and Clitic Climbing are lexically specified processes. There are clitic climbing verbs just as there are raising verbs.
ii. There is no super Clitic Climbing just as there is no super raising. iii. In each language, the type of sentences out of which Clitic Climbing is allowed is the same as the type of sentences out of which raising is allowed.
iv. seem imposes no selectional restrictions on its subject. Nor does \olere on the object DP.
V . seem can take expletive it as its subject or non expletive subjects. What
forces the presence of it is the EPP. volere can be a Clitic Climbing verb or not.
vi. seem allows as subject an NP licensed by the predicate of the clause embedded under it. So does volere with respect to the object.
Properties 33(iv), (v) and (vi) have as a necessary (but not sufficient) precondition the fact that a raising verb does not assign an external theta role. This also applies to Clitic Climbing verbs with one proviso. Clitic Climbing verbs have assigned all their theta-roles but still have some empty syntactic slot. The verb volere , for instance, has assigned both its theta roles.
vii. As Koopman and Sportiche (1991) have shown, modals are raising verbs. Some Clitic Climbing verbs are also modals. Spanish modals, for 1 According to Kayne (1989), Clitic Climbing in Italian and Spanish is prohibited if the matrix verb is impersond. Verbs like sembrare 'seem' allow clitic climbing for some speakers (Burzio 1986, 392). The fact that Clitic Climbing is prohibited with impersonal verbs is not a problem for the raising analysis of Clitic Climbing. It seems that the possibility of projecting a CIP relies crucially on the Case-assigning properties of the clitic climbing verb.
instance, are Clitic Climbing verbs and should, therefore, be taken to be raising categories. Spanish ir a and tener que have become modals, as their meaning shows.
In relating Clitic Climbing to raising, the steps in the argument are the following:
(a) There are more cases of raising than is generally assumed. In fact, there are the following possibilities of raising, as was shown in section 4.3.2:
(i) Spec[IP]-to-Spec[IP]
(ii) Spec[IP]-to-Spec[CliticPhrase]
(iii) Spec[CliticPhrase]-to-Spec[CliticPhrase] (iv) Spec[CliticPhrase]-to-Spec[IP]
(b) If raising to the Spec of a CIP is possible, then raising verbs need not be impersonal verbs. I take it that this possibility is in fact realised. It is the Clitic Climbing construction.
So far I have illustrated the claim that Clitic Climbing and raising have common properties (cf. 33(i) to (vii) and shown the steps in the argument that Clitic Climbing should be analysed not as raising of the clitic but as raising of the matching DP, either overt or pro. I will next present another argument for this claim. It was argued earlier on that the raising analysis of Clitic Climbing is not undermined by the fact that impersonal verbs do not allow Clitic Climbing. With respect to clitic climbing verbs, it seems that the possibility of projecting a CIP relies crucially on the Case-assigning properties of the clitic climbing verb^. Impersonal verbs have no Case to assign; hence the impossibility of Clitic Climbing with impersonal verbs. I would predict, however, that clitic climbing verbs^ should allow standard Raising. The prediction is borne out. What I have in mind is the Italian construction referred to as Long Object Preposing (LOP). In LOP the object of the embedded verb moves into matrix subject position. Consider the following example of LOP from Burzio (1986:322).
^The generalization seems to hold only for clitic climbing verbs that are not modals. Consider (30), for instance, i r, as a lexical verb does not have any Case to assign. ^Again with the proviso that they are not modals.
(34) Quest! libri si volevano proprio leggere these books SI wanted-they really to read ’We really wanted to read these books.’
Note that, as Rizzi (1978a) observes, the same verbs that allow Clitic- Climbing also allow LOP. This patterning of facts is explained by the present analysis of Clitic Climbing but it is not obvious how this correlation of facts could be explained if we adopted Kayne’s analysis of Clitic Climbing.
A further argument for a raising analysis of Clitic Climbing bears on another observation by Rizzi (1982). He notes that in the Italian easy to please construction the gap can be two infinitives distant as long as the higher infinitive is of the class that allows Clitic Climbing. For example, cominciare ’begin’ is of this class but promettere ’promise’ is not, and there is the following contrast:
(35)a. Questa canzone e facile da cominciare a cantare... ’This song is easy to begin to sing...’
b. *Questo lavoro e facile da promettere di finire per domani. ’This work is easy to promise to finish by tomorrow.’
For me 35(a) involves successive applications of NP-movement, in particular successive raising. In 35(a) there is an intermediate trace of questa canzone in the Spec of a CIP projected by cominciare . Again, it is difficult to see how this apparent instance of Super-raising can be explained otherwise.
Additional evidence for the present analysis of Clitic Climbing comes from the fact that it can explain the noted absence of Chtic Climbing object control verbs. According to Rizzi (1982) and Kayne (1989) aU the standard cases of clitic climbing verbs are cases of subject control verbs or raising modals. What is absent is object control verbs. The theory I have presented has an explanation for this. If there was an object, the Spec of the CliticPhrase could not be used as a nontheta position to which raising would be possible.
Consider the contrast in 36(a) and (b).
(36)a. ?Mario, non loi saprei [a chi affidare t j
b. *Su questo problema, non loi saprei [se consigliare q]
'On this problem, I would not know whether to advise him.'
It seems that Clitic Climbing is marginally possible when the [Spec, CP] of the lower clause is filled (cf. 36(a)) but not when C of the lower clause is filled (cf. 36(b)). The contrast in 36(a)/(b) is taken by Kayne (1989) as an argument that clitic placement in Clitic Climbing is head-movement. However, Rizzi (1982) has shown that the above contrast also appears in Long Object Preposing (LOP) in Italian. But LOP has been shown to involve XP-movement. Therefore, Sportiche (1992) concludes, the contrast in 36(a) and (b) cannot be taken as an argument for head- movement. Sportiche (1992) sides with Kayne (1989) in assuming that movement is involved in Clitic Climbing but takes that movement to be phrasal movement. Sportiche, presumably, has the clitic moving as well, but the contrast in 36(a) and (b) is for him due to phrasal movement. The question is how the following contrast can be derived in my system. An important difference between Sportiche's (1992) system and mine is that in my theory the CIP is a functional projection of the higher verb. If this is a raising mechanism, the CP projection must be somehow nullified. This can be achieved in a number of ways: either the projection is not there at all (cf. standard cases of Raising) or the verb is in C (cf. raising in MG, which is always out of a na -clause). If the C position is filled, the verb cannot be there, unless the element in C causes the verb to raise. I take the data in (36) to be an argument for XP-movement, but for a different reason than that assumed in Sportiche (1992).
Finally, the absence of Clitic Climbing in French follows naturally from the absence of object CLC in that language.