Approaches to Wakhi subject-oriented past tense clitics.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Wakhi past tense agreement clitics are classified as second position, or Wackernagel, clitics, similar to those in Pashto, Tagalog and Ancient Greek. Various approaches in the literature analyze these clitics through phonological, syntactic or hybrid perspectives. In some proposals the clitics are treated as arguments of the verb, while in others as agreement clitics affixed to the verb as well as non-verbal constituents.
In this study, Wakhi clitics are analyzed as subject agreement morphemes, rather than phonologically deficient pronominal arguments. Suggesting that the clitic and DP are related to each other in an agreement chain, the claim is made that v is the locus of &phis;-features in the clause. The proposal then suggests that Wakhi pronominal clitics are a reflection of unvalued &phis;-features and an unvalued contrast feature ([-c]), both part of the head of a projection FocusP. Each of these features (or feature bundles), probe separately. The contrast feature, as a strong feature, prompts movement of the valuing DP (whether subject or object) to its specifier position (i.e. spec,FocP). This movement, following feature valuing, produces the proper structure for overt subject-oriented agreement morphemes (clitics) to be hosted by various constituents.
Additionally, statistical analysis of the results of a field questionnaire administered in a Wakhi village in the mountains of Tajikistan indicate certain semantic effects when clitics suffix to non-verbal constituents. The data demonstrate a statistically significant difference between the use of clitics for semantic effect in the lower Wakhan variety and their use in the upper Wakhan variety.