ThisbookoffersanempiricalandtheoreticalexplorationofthedevelopmentofobjectcliticpronounsintheRomancelanguages,drawingondatafromLatin,medievalvernaculars,modernRomancelanguages,andlesser-knowndialects.DiegoPescariniexaminesphonological,morphological,andespeciallysyntacticaspectsofRomanceobjectclitics,usingthefindingstoreconstructtheirevolutionfromLatintoRomanceandtomodelcliticplacementinmodernRomancelanguages.Onthetheoreticalside,thevolumeengageswithpreviousaccountsofclitics,particularlyingenerativetheory.Itchallengesthereceivedideathatcliticizationresultedfromaformofsyntacticdeficiency;instead,itproposesthatcliticsresultedfromthefeatureendowmentofdiscoursefeatures,whichinitiallycausedfreezingofcertainpronominalformsandthen-throughreanalysis-theirsuccessiveincorporationtoverbalhosts.Thisapproachleadstoarevisionofearlieranalysesofwell-knownphenomenasuchasinterpolation,climbing,andenclisis/proclisisalternations,andtonewapproachestoissuesincludingV2syntax,scrambling,andstylisticfronting,amongmanyothers.
