Interactions between Clitic Subjects and Objects in Piedmont and North Liguria Dialects ^†

Abstract

This contribution addresses a set of phenomena attested in the dialects spoken in Piedmont, including Franco-Provençal and Occitan varieties, and in West Liguria, concerning the interaction between subject and object clitics. Complementarily to these phenomena, we find the interplay between the realization of the 3rd person clitic and the auxiliary. More specifically, we will investigate the object-for-subject mechanism in the Piedmontese and Franco-Provençal dialects, the one of subject-with-object in some Franco-Provençal dialects and their possible interaction with the auxiliary. In some Piedmontese dialects, the alternation between be and have affects the distribution of subject and object clitics; in particular, the 3rd person clitic can occur in all persons, where it can be ambiguous between the subject or the object reading. The relation between the verb and the realization of its argumental clitics, and the interaction between auxiliaries and clitics are the main topics of this work. Our approach relies on the idea that clitics are the realization of φ-features associated with v and T and that auxiliaries are not functional elements but verbs with lexical properties. The theoretical frame we follow is the formulation recently proposed by Chomsky, based on the operation Merge and the Labeling Algorithm, leading to a more appropriate conceptualization of morpho-syntactic structures.

1. Introduction

In this article, we address the interaction between subject clitics (SCls) and object clitics (OCls) in some dialects spoken in Piedmont and Liguria. Two main issues will be investigated, that is the distribution of the 1st person SCl in some Franco-Provençal dialects, in Section 3 and Section 4, and the distribution of the clitic of 3rd person l ambiguous between the reading of SCl and that of OCl in the Ligurian and Piedmontese dialects, in Section 5 and Section 6.

Both phenomena have been examined in the previous literature, specifically the Franco-Provençal system by Roberts (1993, 2018) and Savoia and Manzini (2010), and the distribution of l by Poletto (2000), Manzini and Savoia (2005). The treatment of clitics specialized for auxiliaries has represented a problematic issue. Poletto (1993) formulates a first hypothesis assuming that they are subject clitics; this is also the conclusion of Manzini and Savoia (2005, p. 457) substantially because of the complementary distribution with the SCl of 2nd singular person and other similar distributional restrictions. The analysis of Paduan gh ò,z é in Benincà (2007) concludes that gh and z are to be considered as something like inflectional elements. Garzonio and Poletto’s (2011) analysis of phenomena similar to the ones seen for Villareggia in (23)–(24), speak of clitics of auxiliary, assigning them a special syntactic status connected to the interface interpretive level, also based on phonological restrictions. The complementary distribution with object clitics and the combination with vocalic subject clitics or their complementarity highlights their availability to different interpretations. Moreover, both Manzini and Savoia (2005) and Garzonio and Poletto (2011) emphasize the relationship with the object-by-subject phenomena presented in Franco-Provençal, of the type that we examine in Section 3 and Section 4. As we will see in the following discussion, our idea is that l in these dialects is a clitic of v, i.e., an instantiation of its agreement properties, an idea maintained also by Roberts (2010, p. 57), where Romance OCls are the agreement head of phase v. Our aim is to think about these phenomena within a strong minimalist morphosyntactic approach, specifically, as regards the relation between SCls and OCls in a framework lacking the pre-packaged cartographic representation of the clitics.

2. An Approach to Morpho-Syntax

Our approach to Morpho syntax is based on the idea that morphology is part of syntactic computation and in language there is no specialized component for morphology (Manzini and Savoia 2011, 2017a, 2018; Manzini et al. 2020; Savoia et al. 2018; Savoia and Baldi 2022a, 2022b; Baldi and Savoia, forthcoming). An address that is now pursued also by other authors, such as Collins and Kayne (2020). Lexical elements, including functional morphemes, are endowed with fully interpretable content, and contribute to realizing the syntactic structure. Therefore, we detach ourselves from Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle and Marantz 1993, 1994), in which morphology defines an independent level from syntax, and subword elements (affixes and clitics) are understood as ‘dissociated morphemes’ conveying an information ‘separated from the original locus of that information in the phrase marker’ (Embick and Noyer 2001). Typically, DM uses post-syntactic rules of re-adjustment and of linear adjacency (local dislocation) (Embick and Noyer 2001) able to manipulate features associated with syntactic categories. Hence, agreement and case morphemes are not represented in syntax, but they are added post-syntactically ‘during Morphology’.

In keeping with Chomsky (2019, 2020, 2021) and Chomsky et al. (2019), the combinatorial operation Merge is assigned the basic role in forming morpho-syntactic structures, complex words as well as phrases. Merge takes the items X and Y and creates the new syntactic object formed by the combination of X and Y,1 as suggested in (1).

(1)	Merge < X,Y > →[X,Y]

Chomsky (2020) sees in pair-Merge the way of treating labelled amalgams based on the affixation of elements endowed with φ-features, typically in head raising: ‘It’s always described incorrectly. If a verb raises to inflection, say to T, it’s always described as if the T-V complex becomes a T; but it’s not, it’s a V-the outcome of the adjunction is really verbal, not inflectional’. In discussing this point, Chomsky (2021, pp. 30 and 36 ff.) concludes that ‘The first step in a derivation must select two items from the lexicon, presumably a root R and a categorizer CT, forming {CT, R}, which undergoes amalgamation under externalization, possibly inducing ordering effects […]. With head-movement eliminated, v need no longer be at the edge of the vP phase, but can be within the domains of PIC and Transfer, which can be unified. EA is interpreted at the next phase’. The amalgamation gives rise to complex forms like [INFL [v, Root]]. If morphemes are part of the vocabulary as elements endowed with content, the formation of complex words can be analyzed as the result of merging combining the inflection heads (affixes) with an uncategorized R lexical root, corresponding to a predicate. In the case of nominal elements, inflectional contents are gender and other classificatory properties such as number and case (Manzini and Savoia 2017b). In inflected verbal forms, agreement features and mood/tense/aspect and voice inflections are merged with R.

We conceptualize the traditional categorizer n for nouns and v for verbs as the bundles of φ-features that characterize the functional content of words entering into the agreement operations (Manzini 2021). Finally, agreement can be accounted for as the morphological manifestation of the identity between referential feature sets corresponding to the same argument in the sentence.

Let us consider the syntactic status of auxiliaries. The hypothesis that auxiliaries are the morphological exponents of functional heads is very familiar in the generative framework, starting from Chomsky (1957), Burzio (1986). It is a simple solution giving an answer to the fact that the auxiliary verb and the participle denote a single event (Manzini and Savoia 2011). Bentley and Eythorsson (2003, p. 447) treat ‘perfective auxiliaries as morpho-syntactic markers of tense and aspect’. Their idea is that the insertion of be or have is triggered by certain sub-sets of semantic features associated with verbal classes. D’Alessandro and Roberts (2010, p. 50 and ff.) assume that auxiliaries are raising verbs, substantially in line with Moro (1997) for be, and Manzini and Savoia (2005, p. 547). As to the past participle, there are different proposals, for example that it is a reduced verbal structure (Belletti 1990) or a structure endowed with the entire set of the functional projections of V (Kayne 1993). The systems in which past participles can take enclitic pronouns seem to argue for the latter conclusion, or, rather, to support the autonomous nature of participles.

More in general, be is also the verb of copular sentences and have can occur as a full verb of possession and in deontic phrases; hence, an adequate theory of be and have should be able to treat their different occurrences in a unified way. Manzini and Savoia (2011, pp. 222, 223) characterize auxiliaries as full verbal projections embedding the sentential domain of a lexical verb:

[…] a relevant observation is that in all Romance and Albanian varieties, the be auxiliary of the perfect is also the copula […] This has a single argument slot, that of the embedded predicate […], which becomes associated with the matrix EPP argument (represented by the finite inflection of the copula). […] the auxiliary selection patterns according to transitivity and/or voice can be described by saying that the ‘defective’ be is restricted to selecting ‘defective’—i.e., intransitive and/or middle-passive—predicates; conversely, the transitive active have is restricted to selecting transitive and/or active predicates.

Chierchia (2004, p. 47) connects the insertion of essere ‘be’ in languages such as Italian to the semantic properties of the lexical verb:

Since auxs are property modifiers, they can be sensitive to the semantic make-up of what they modify.[…] The choice of essere vs. avere in Italian, on the other hand, is sensitive to a different factor: subject affectedness. More explicitly, the range of subject-affecting operations […] constitutes the domain of essere;

Subject-affecting operations include passives, reflexives and unaccusatives, all affecting the external argument by existentially quantifying over it (passives) or identifying it with the object (reflexive and unaccusatives). The result is that an argument, specifically the external one, has no morpho-phonological realization in the syntax, which, on the contrary, shows agreement properties identifying the IA as the subject of the clause. Along the same lines, in Manzini et al. (2016, p. 146), the contrast between be and have is related to a difference in their selection properties, whereby be selects a ‘reduced’ argument structure while have selects predicates with a closed argument structure, ‘in the sense that no free variables or generically closed ones are instantiated within it’. Substantially, have takes a two-arguments eventive structure, while be is associated with one argument. be, both copula and auxiliary, has the same lexical properties, embedding a predicative relation between a noun and an adjective/participle implementing the lexical properties of the verb, i.e., the theta-structure associated with the root R.

The crucial role is played by the adjectival nature of past participle, selecting only the IA slot. Taking Manzini et al. (2016), and D’Alessandro and Roberts (2010) into account, our analysis is inspired by the idea that the past participle in Romance varieties and, generally, in Indo-European languages, is nothing but an aspectual word with an adjectival nature, giving rise to a clause including one argument.

3. SCls and OCls in Piedmontese Franco-Provençal

The Franco-Provençal dialects of Western Piedmont2 show a distribution of SCls sensitive to the context of occurrence (Roberts 1993, 2018; Manzini and Savoia 2005, 2010). In these dialects, the 1st person SCl, singular and plural, dʒə/i ‘I/we’ occurs before the auxiliary have in (2b), while it is excluded with lexical verbs with an initial consonant, in (2a) and optionally with an initial vowel, as in (2c). It is excluded with the auxiliary or copula be, as in (3a) and (3b)3.

It is of note that in the Gallo-Romance varieties in past participles (PP), the specialized etymological suffix -t- was lost. Therefore, PPs now coincide with the sequence root + thematic vowel (TV), where the latter is characterized by the stress (we will propose a more detailed analysis of participles in Section 6.1). For the sake of clarity, in the glosses, we will indicate this type of past participles with TV.PP.

(2)	a.	dyərm-u		b.	dʒ e dyrˈm-i:
		d dyər-s			t a dyrˈm-i:
		u/i dyər-t			u i ət dyrˈm-i:/i ət dyrˈm-i:
		dyrˈm-ɛ-ŋ			dʒ ɛŋ dyrˈm-i:
		u dyrˈm-e:s			u i e dyrˈm-i:
		u dyərm-unt			u i ɔnt dyrˈm-i:
		(SCl) sleep.1sg, etc.			SCl have.1sg sleep-TV.PP, etc…
		‘I sleep, etc.’			‘I have slept, etc.’
c.		(dʒ) aus-u	/(dʒ)	auˈs-ɛ-ŋ		l-a taul-a
		SCl.1sg lift.1sg/SCl.1sg		lift-TV-1pl		the table-fsg
		‘I lift/we lift the table’

(3)	a.	se	/seŋ	vyˈn-y
		be.1sg/be.1pl		come-TV.PP
		‘I have/we have come’
	b.	ser-u	/ser-unt	kuntənt
		be.impf.1sg	/be.impf.1pl	glad
Cantoira

In the presence of an OCl, the SCl dʒi is excluded if a 3rd person OCl precedes the verb, both with lexical verbs in (4a) for the singular and (4a’) for the plural. In auxiliary contexts, the past participle agrees with the 3rd person object, which excludes dʒi, as in (4b) for masculine singular and plural OCls, and (4b’) and (4b”) for the feminine singular and plural. With the other OCls, including also the 3rd person neuter u, dʒi occurs as in (5a,a’), (5b,b’) and (5c) for u of 2nd plural and u of neuter of 3rd person, in (5c’).

(4)	a.	l-u/l-ə		/l-i/əl	tʃam-u
		3-msg/3.fsg		/3-mpl/3.fpl	call-1sg
		‘I call him/her/them’
	a’.	l-u		tʃaˈm-e-ŋ
		him		call-TV-1pl
		‘We call him’
	b.	l	/i	e	tʃaˈm-a
		3sg	/mpl	have.1sg	call-TV.PP
		‘I have called him/them ’
	b’.	l	e	tʃaˈm-aj-i
		3sg	have.1sg	call-TV.PP-fsg
		‘I have called her’
	b”.	lz	e	tʃam-aj-əs
		3fpl	have.1sg	call-TV.PP-fpl
		‘I have called them (f)’

(5)	a.	dʒi	t	tʃam-u
		SCl.1ps	2sg	call-1sg
		‘I call you.sg/pl’
	a’.	dʒi m lav-u
		‘I wash myself’
	b.	dʒi	t	e-ŋ	tʃaˈm-a
		SCl.1ps	2psg	have.1pl	call-TV.PP
		‘We have called you’
	b’.	dʒi	t	tʃaˈm-e-ŋ
		SCl.1sg	2sg	call-TV-1pl
		‘We call you’
	c.	dʒi	u	tʃam-u
		SCl.1ps	2pl	call-1sg
		‘I call you.pl’
	c’.	dʒi	u	se
		SCl.1ps	3rd	know-1sg
		‘I know it’
		Cantoira

Interestingly, the SCl of 1st person occurs systematically in post-verbal position in interrogatives in all clitic contests, where we find the inverted order verb-SCl, as in French and in many northern Italian dialects (Poletto 2000; Manzini and Savoia 2005), as illustrated in (6a) for lexical verbs, also in the case an OCl is present, (6b), and in the auxiliary contexts, where the enclitic form dʒu doubles the proclitic one, in (6c).

(6)	a.	dyərm-u-dʒu?
		sleep-1sg SCl.1ps
		‘do I sleep?’
	a’.	dyrˈm-ɛ-ŋ-dʒu?
		sleep-TV-1pl SCl.1ps
		‘do we sleep?’
	b.	l-u		tʃam-u-	dʒu?
		OCl-msg		call-1sg	SCl.1ps
		‘do I call him?’
	c.	dʒ	e-	dʒu	dyrˈmi:?
		SCl.1ps have.1sg SCl.1ps			sleep-PP
		‘have I slept?’
		Cantoira

The distribution of dʒi shows that though certain phonological restrictions can have played a role in determining its exclusion, indeed now we find the allomorph dʒi before OCls beginning both with a consonant and a vowel, as in (5a,b,c), so that its insertion in the clitic string appears governed by syntactic criteria. Additionally, its association with the auxiliary have seems to respond to an internal property insofar as the SCl appears to be obligatory.

4. SCls and OCls in Apulian Franco-Provençal

The Franco-Provençal dialect spoken in the villages of Celle and Faeto (North Apulia; here we consider the data of Celle)4 shows the system of SCls in (7a) and that of OCls in (7b), generally distinct except for the 2nd person, where the single common form tə/və ‘you’ is attested. As can be seen in (7a,b), a specialized dative form is missing, and sə is the reflexive including the 1pl as well. In (7c), the stressed strong forms of personal pronouns are provided, for subject and object contexts. Only in the case of the 1st singular person is an oblique form present. In other cases, the same form occurs as the subject and the object of a verb or a preposition. As generally in Gallo-Italic varieties, SCls can combine with expressed subjects, including stressed pronouns.

(7)	a.	SCl	b.	OCl	Refl
	1st	dʒə		mə	(mə)
	2nd	tə		tə	(tə)
	3rd	i/ʎ		l-u/l-a	sə
	1st pl	nə		sə	sə
	2nd pl	və		və	sə
	3rd pl	i		l-o/l-ə	sə
	c.	Strong forms
		Subject		Object
	1st	ddʒi	‘I’	mi ‘me’
		Non-differentiated
		2nd	ti	‘you’
		3rd	ijə/iʎʎə	‘he/she’
		1st pl	nus	‘we’
		2nd pl	vu	‘you’
		3rd pl	isə	‘they’
		Celle

4.1. Lexical Verbs

With this scheme in mind, we are able to illustrate the distribution of SCls and OCls in sentences. SCls are exemplified for unergatives in (8a) and for unaccusatives in (8b). Transitives with post-verbal objects have the same distribution, as in (8c).

(8)	a.	ddʒə ddɔ:rə		b.	ddʒə viŋŋə
		tə ddɔ:rə			tə viŋŋə
		i ddɔ:rə			i vində
		nə durm-u-ŋŋə			nə vən-u-ŋŋə
		və durm-ijə			və vən-ijə
		i durm-u-ndə			i vən-u-ndə
		‘I sleep, you sleep,…’			‘I come, you come, …’
	c.	ddʒə vajə	(tuttə kwandə)
		tə vajə
		i vajə
		nə vi-u-ŋŋə
		və vijijə
		i vi-u-ndə
		‘I see all, you see all, …’
		Celle

We find some restrictions in the co-occurrence of OCls and SCls. Indeed, OCls exclude SCls except for 1st and 2nd singular persons, dʒə ‘I’ and tə ‘you’, respectively, as in (9i) and (9ii). In the case of a 2nd person subject and a 1st person object, the reversed order appears and the SCl is realized by the objective form mə, as in (9ii.a). (9iii–vi) illustrate the exclusion of SCls by OCls in the other persons. The coinciding forms tə/və ‘you’ are specified as ‘2sg/pl’. The six persons are indicated by Roman numerals5.

(9)	i.	ddʒə		l-u	/tə	vajə
		SCl.1sg		3-msg	/2sg	see.1sg
		‘I see him/you’
	ii.	tə	l-u	/l-a	/sə	vajə
		2sg	3-msg	/3-fsg	/1pl	see.2sg
		‘you see him/her/us’
	ii.a	mə	tə	vajə
		1sg	2sg	see.2sg
		‘you see me’
	iii.	l-u	/mə	/tə	vajə
		3-msg	/1sg	/2sg	see.3sg
		‘(s)he sees him/me/you’
	iv.	l-u		/tə	vi-u-ŋŋə
		3-msg		/2sg	see-TV-1pl
		‘we see him/you’
	v.	l-u	/mə		vij-ijə
		3-msg	/1sg		see-2pl
		‘you(pl) see him/me’
	vi.	mə	/tə	/l-a	vi-u-ndə
		1sg	/2sg	/3-fsg	see-TV-3pl
		‘they see me/you/her’
		Celle

In the verbs with three arguments like give, the 1st/2nd OCls precede the 3rd person OCls, as in (10a,a’). Again, SCls are excluded, except for 1st/2nd singular elements, and the 1st person OCl precedes the SCl as in (10b); see also (9ii.a) above:

(10)	a.	(ijə)	mə	/	tə	l-u	dde:nə
		he	1sg	/	2sg	3-msg	give.3sg
		‘He gives it to me/to you’
	a’.	(ti)	tə	sə	l-u	dde:nə
		you	2sg	1pl	3-msg	give.2sg
		‘You gives it to us’
	b.	(ti)	mə	tə	l-u	dde:nə
		you	1sg	2sg	3-msg	give.2sg
		‘You give it to me’
		Celle

Reflexive/non-active forms exclude the specialized SCLs. We find the objective forms mə and tə for the 1st/2nd singular persons in (11i,ii) and the reflexive sə in all other contexts, in (11iii–vi). So, 1st and 2nd person SCls are prevented from combining with OCls.

(11)	i.	mə lla:və
	ii.	tə lla:və
	iii.	sə lla:və
	iv.	sə lav-u-ŋŋə
	v.	sə la’va
	vi.	sə lav-u-ndə
		‘I wash myself, you wash yourself, …’
		Celle

The compatibility between clitics, as we noticed, is constrained by person, so that the only strings allowed are those in (12), where SCl precedes an OCl, limited to 1st/2nd person SCls.

(12)			SCl	OCl
		1st	dʒə	OCls
		2nd	tə	OCls
			Celle

Other combinations SCl+OCl(s) are not instantiated, considering that reflexive contexts in turn exclude all SCls.

4.2. Auxiliaries

The auxiliary selection separates unaccusatives and reflexives, with be, from unergatives and transitives, with have. While the latter have the same SCl system as the lexical verbs, in (13a,b), unaccusatives and reflexives select mə in SCl position, in (14a,a’,b). As we can expect, passives match the other contexts with be, as in (14c). It is of note that (14a’) highlights the fact that in participles with a sufficient inflection, the agreement with the subject is realized.

(13)	a.	dʒ e(nnə) dur’m-i	b.	dʒ	e	laˈv-a	(lo ddra)
		t a(nnə) dur’m-i		t	annə	laˈv-a
		i attə dur’m-i		i	attə	laˈv-a
		n a’v-u-ŋŋə dur’m-i		n	av-u-ŋŋə	laˈv-a
		v a’vi dur’m-i		v	avijə l	aˈv-a
		i a-ndə dur’m-i		i	a-ndə	laˈv-a
		‘I have slept, …’		‘I have washed the clothes, …’

(14)	a.	mə sejə la’va				b.	mə sejə və’n-i
		tə sejə la’v-a					tə sejə və’n-i
		s ettə la’v-a					ʎ ettə və’n-i
		sə su-ŋŋə la’v-a					nə su-ŋŋə və’n-i
		sə si la’v-a					və si və’n-i
		sə su-ndə la’v-a					i su-ndə və’n-i
		‘I have washed myself,…’					‘I have come, …’
	a’.	mə	sejə		krəvɛrə		/krəvɛrə-tə
		1sg	be.1sg		covered.PP.msg/cover.PP-fsg
		‘I have covered myself’
	c.	mə	sejə	sta	camˈma	da isə
		1sg	be.1sg be.PP		call-PP	by him
		‘I have been called by him’
		Celle

The objective form mə occurs instead of the SCl dʒə in the case of predicative constructs with be, regardless the individual- or stage-level interpretation, as in (15a,b), and with stay/stand, as in (15c,d), respectively.

(15)	a.	mə	sejə	kunteŋŋə
		1sg	be.1sg	glad
		‘I am glad’
	b.	tə	sejə	kunteŋŋə
		2sg	be.2sg	glad
		‘you are glad’
	c.	m	əstə	kundeŋŋə	də ti
		1sg	stay.1sg	happy	of you’
		‘I am happy with you’
	d.	m	əstə	iˈki
		1sg	stay.1sg	here
		‘I am here’
		Celle

stay, as a progressive auxiliary, in turn selects mə. This holds not only for unaccusative/reflexive contexts, in (16a), but also for agentive constructs, as in unergative and transitive contexts in (16b) and (16c).

(16)	a.	m	əstə	vən-a-ŋŋə	/lav-a-ŋŋə
		me	stay.1sg	come-TV-GER	/wash-TV-GER
		‘I am coming/washing myself’
	b.	m	əstə	durm-a-ŋŋə
		me	stay.1sg	sleep-TV-GER
		‘I am sleeping’
	c.	mə	l	əstə	faʃ-a-ŋŋə
		me	it	stay.1sg	make-TV-GER
		‘I am making it’

4.3. The Distribution of SCls

In summary, in this dialect, the distribution of the 1st person Cls dʒə and mə depends not so much on the verbal class as on the auxiliary. In fact, mə in (17) is selected by be in passive, mid-reflexive and copular contexts, while dʒə by have. Moreover, lexical verbs select dʒə independently of their eventive class. Reflexives have mə, but, as suggested in Section 6.1, it is the occurrence of mə that excludes dʒə, as schematized in (17).

(17)	1st person SCl
	transitive/unergative		unaccusative		have	reflexive	be/stay
		dʒə		dʒə	dʒə	mə	mə

We see that mə excludes the dʒə when the agreement features of the subject need to be independently realized in the syntactic string, i.e., in reflexives and with be.

5. Clitics of 3rd Person and Auxiliary in the Piedmontese Dialects

In several Piedmontese dialects, we find a special distribution of the SCl of 3rd person in the contexts with the auxiliary have. Before illustrating the data, it is of note that they present a syntactic property typical of the Piedmontese dialects, i.e., the position of OCls in enclisis on the past participle in the constructs with the auxiliary (Rohlfs [1949] 1968; Manzini and Savoia 2005).

First, we examine the dialects where both auxiliaries, have and be (cf. Baldi and Savoia 2019), are possible with transitives. Nevertheless, as shown by the dialect of Fara Novarese, have requires the double occurrence of OCls, on the auxiliary and the participle, contrary to be, that excludes the proclisis of the object. In other words, in contexts with be, the object clitic occurs only on the participle, as illustrated in (18a) for the transitive paradigm; (18b) illustrates the 3rd singular of the reflexive. In the 3rd singular context in (18a.iii), the pronominal element l preceding the verb can be identified with the specialized SCl for the 3rd person, as also in (18b). We note that in these dialects, only 2nd and 3rd singular SCls have a specialized form, while in the other persons we find the SCl i or no SCl. Finally, we find the element a that precedes the clitic of 2nd person, (18a.ii), and the clitic l in (18a.ii), and in the examples in (19a.iii), (19a.ii), (19a.iii), (19b). The simplest hypothesis is that a is a non-specialized SCl that can double the specialized one.

(18)	a.	i.	i	sum	tʃaˈm-a-	l(u)/-l-a/-i
			SCl	be.1sg	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/3-fsg/3pl
			‘I have called him/her/them’
		ii.	a	t	ei	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u
			SCl	SCl.2sg	be.2sg	call-TV.PP-	3-msg
			‘you have called him’
		iii.	a	l	ɛ	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/-mi
			SCl	SCl.3sg	be.3sg	call-TV.PP	3-msg/1sg
			‘he has called him me’
		iv.	i	su-ma	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/-ti
			SCl	be-1pl	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/2sg
			‘we have called him/you’
		v.	i	si:	tʃaˈm-a-	mi
			SCl	be.2pl	call-TV.PP-	1sg
			‘you have called me’
		vi.	‘in	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/-mi
			be.3pl	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/1sg
			‘they have called him/me’
	b.	(a)	l		ɛ	laˈv-a-	si
		SCl	SCl.3sg		be.3sg	wash-TV.PP	Refl
		‘(s)he has washed her/himself’
		Fara Novarese

In the system with have in (19), we find the doubling of the OCls in proclisis on have and in enclisis on the past participle, as in (19a,b). Consequently, in this construct, the 3rd singular l in proclisis is to be identified with the object clitic, on the basis of the comparison with the other forms, where the OCl is inserted in proclisis.

(19)	a.	i.	i	l	ø		tʃaˈm-a-	l-u
			SCl	3sg	have.1sg		call-TV.PP-	3-msg
			‘I have called him’
		ii.	a	t		ei	tʃaˈm-a-	lu  /-mi
			SCl	SCl.2sg		be.2sg	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/1sg
			‘you have called him/me’
		iii.	a	l	/m	a	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/-l-a/mi
			SCl	3sg	/1sg	have.3sg	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/3-fsg/1sg
			‘(s)he has called him/her/me’
		iv.	i	l	/t	u-ma	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u /ti
			SCl	3sg	/2sg	have.1pl	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/2sg
			‘we have called him/you’
		v.	i	m	i		tʃaˈm-a-	mi
			SCl	1sg	have.2pl		call-TV.PP-	1sg
			‘you have called me’
		vi.	i	m/l		əŋ	tʃaˈm-a-	mi /-l-u
			SCl	1.sg/3sg		have.3pl	call-TV.PP-	1sg/3-msg
			‘they have called me/him’
	b.	a	s		a	laˈv-a-		si
		SCl	Refl		have.3sg	wash-TV.PP-	Refl
		‘(s)he has washed her/himself’
		Fara Novarese

At least two points emerge: the different distribution of OCls with be or have; the positioning of the 3rd person element, indifferently readable as object or subject.

5.1. Ambiguous Cls of 3rd Person

The last point mentioned in the preceding section is systematically evidenced in some varieties spoken in the mountain dialects of Liguria and West-South Piedmont, where the SCl and the OCl of 3rd singular person share the same form in auxiliary contexts, so that this element can be interpreted as the object or the subject according to the thematic domain. Let us consider the data of Pigna (West Liguria). We will concentrate on the 3rd person, where the phenomenon is clearly evaluable. In these dialects, SCls and OCls have partially coinciding forms. (20a) illustrates the pre-vocalic alternants, (20b) the pre-consonant alternants that overlap on the same gender/number simple elements except for the feminine plural e in the object series. Finally, the element l occurs as the masculine and feminine singular object in (20a’), while the vocalic alternants occur as the singular in pre-consonant contexts in (20b’) and the plurals i and e in all contexts, as (20b”) shows.

(20)			a.	SCls	OCls
	before vowels			u-l	l
				a-l
				i	i/e
	before consonants		b.	u/a/i	u/a/i/e
	a’	e	l	ai	tʃam-ɑ-u/a
		1sg	msg/fsg	have.1sg	call-TV.PP- msg/fsg
		‘I have called him/her’
	b’.	e	i/e	ai	tʃam-ɑ-i/e
		1sg	msg/fsg	have.1sg	call-TV.PP- mpl/fpl
		‘I have called them’
	b”.	e	u/a/i/e	veg-u
		1sg	msg/fsg/mpl/fpl	see-1sg
		‘I see him/her/them’
		Pigna

As to the SCls u-l ‘msg-3’ and a-l ‘fsg-3’, we note that they combine the gender element with the definiteness base l, as usually in many Northern Italian dialects, even if in the reversed order. Such forms occur before verbs initiating in vowel, in (21a’,b), hence including auxiliaries and copula, as in (21c,d,d’) and transitives, in (21e). Before an initial consonant, we find the gender elements a fsg’ and u ‘msg’, in (21f); the 3rd plural SCl is the element of number i, both before consonant and vowel, as in (21g). The examples also illustrate the position of the negative marker nu, which is inserted between the gender or number element and the definiteness element l.

(21)	a.	u-l	/a-l	ais-a	a	kairega
		msg-3	/fsg-3	lift.3sg	the	chair
		‘he/she lifts the chair’
	a’	u	/a	nu	l	ais-a	rɛŋ
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3	lift-3sg	nothing
		‘he/she lifts nothing’
	b.	u	/a	(nu)	l	a
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3	have-3sg
		‘he/she has/does not have it’
	c.	u	/a	(nu)	l a		doɾm-i-u
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3 have.3sg		sleep.TV.PP-msg
		‘he/she has slept’
	d.	u	/a	(nu)	l ɛ		veɲ-i-u/-a
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3 be.3sg		come-TV.PP-msg/-fsg
		‘he/she has (not) come’
	d’.	u	/a	(nu)	l ɛ		grɑ:nd-u/gɾɑ:nd-a
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3 be.3sg		tall-msg/-fsg
		‘he/she is not tall’
	e.	u	/a	(nu)	l a		vist-u	tit-u /rɛŋ
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3 have.3sg		see.PP-msg	all /nothing
		‘he/she has seen everything/nothing’
	f.	u	/a	(nu)	doɾm-e
		msg	/fsg	Neg	sleep-3ps
		‘he/she sleeps/does not sleep’
	g.	i	(nu)	dorm-e
		3pl	Neg	sleep-3ps
		‘they (do not) sleep’
		Pigna

The point we focalize on is the fact that the element l can be read as the OCl of transitives, as detailed in the data in (22). (22a) illustrates the OCl reading in contexts of verbs with an initial vowel; in (22a’) the occurrence of the clitics u, a, i as object are exemplified. (22b) illustrates the objective reading of l before the auxiliary have, in transitives. (22b’,c) show the 3rd plural OCls and the reflexive. The examples in (22a,a’,b,b’,c) show that l alternates in this context with the other OCls.

(22)	a.	u	/a	(nu)	l/m		ais-a
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3 /1sg		lift-3sg
		‘he/she lifts it/him/her/me up/does not lift it/him/her/me up’
	a’.	u	/a	(nu)	u/a /me		tʃam-a
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3fsg/3fsg/1sg		call-3sg
		‘he/she calls him/her/me/does not call him/her/me’
	b.	u/a (nu) l/m				a	tʃam-ɑ- u/tʃaˈm-ɑ- ɑ
		msg/fsg Neg 3/1sg				have.3sg	call- TV.PP-msg/ call- TV.PP-fsg
		‘he/she has (not) called him/her/me’
	b’.	u /a (nu) i /e				a	tʃam-ɑ- i /tʃam-ɑ- e
		msg/fsg Neg mpl/fpl				have.3sg	call-TV.PP-mpl/call-TV.PP-fpl
		‘he/she has (not) called them’
	c.	u	/a	(nu)	s	ɛ	lav- ɑ- u	/laˈv- ɑ- ɑ
		msg	/fsg	Neg	Refl	be.3sg	wash-TV.PP-msg/wash-TV.PP-fsg
		‘he/she has (not) washed him/herself’
		Pigna

As in the case considered in the preceding section, the crucial question is the ambiguous nature of l in the constructs in (21) and (22). A possible description is that l in the two contexts realizes two different positions or corresponds to two different pronominal elements in complementary distribution. We will see that another analysis is available, based on its ambivalence.

5.2. l in All Persons

The extension of the element l throughout the paradigm characterizes many Piedmontese varieties (Manzini and Savoia 2005), as in the case of the dialect of Villareggia (Turin), in (23b). The comparison with the present indicative in (23a,c) shows that the occurrence of the clitic l is restricted to the auxiliary have and to the 3rd singular form ɛ of be (auxiliary or copula) in the present indicative, in (23e,e”); the imperfect of be selects an initial locative clitic i, as in (23e’) that however prevents l from being inserted. Like many Piedmontese dialects, the variety of Villareggia has a syncretic paradigm of clitics, where we find i for the 1st singular and plural and the 2nd plural, and a for the 3rd person, singular and for the plural in variation with i. The 2nd singular a t combines a with the specialized deictic form t. In the pluperfect with the auxiliary have, between the SCls and the auxiliary, the 3rd person/definiteness element l (3ps) is inserted, again save in the context of the 2nd person SCl at, as in (23b). This element appears also between the SCl and the possession verb have, in contexts with a lexical object, as in (23d).

(23)	a.	i dorm
		a t dorm-i
		a dorm
		i durm-ʊ-mma
		i dorm-i
		a/i dorm-u
		SCl sleep.1sg, etc.
		‘I sleep, etc.’
	b.	i.	i	l	ʊ	durˈm-i
			SCl	3ps	have.1sg	sleep-TV.PP
		ii.	a t		ɛ	durˈm-i
			SCl.2sg		have.2sg	sleep-TV.PP
		iii.	a	l	a	durˈm-i
			SCl	3ps	have.3sg	sleep-TV.PP
		iv.	i	l	ʊ-mma	durˈm-i
			SCl	3ps	have-1pl	sleep-TV.PP
		v.	i	l	ɛi	durˈm-i
			SCl	3ps	have.2pl	sleep-TV.PP
		vi.	a	l	a-ŋ	durˈm-i
			SCl	3ps	have.3pl	sleep-TV.PP
			‘I have slept, etc.’
	c.	a	aus-a/i		auˈs-ʊ-mma	/i aus-u	la kadrɛga
		SCl lift-3sg/SCl			lift-TV-1pl	/SCl lift-3pl	the chair
		‘(s)he lifts/we lift/they lift the chair’
	d.	i	l	ʊ		fa:m
		SCl	3ps	have.1sg		hunger
		at		ɛ		fa:m
		SCl.2sg		have.2sg		hunger
		a	l	a		fa:m …
		SCl	3ps	have.3sg		hunger
		‘I am hungry, etc.’
	e.	a	l	ɛ		ɲ-i	/ɲ-uw-a
		SCl.3	3ps	be.3sg		come-TV.PP.msg/-fsg
		‘(s)he has come’
	e’.	a	i	ɛr-a		ɲ-i
		SCl	Loc	be.Impf-3sg		come-TV.PP.msg
		‘(s)he had come’
	e”.	a	l	ɛ		kuntɛnt/kuntɛnta
		SCl	3ps	be.3sg		content.msg/-fsg
		‘(s)he is content’
		Villareggia

In the contexts with have of possession otherwise lacking the lexical realization of the internal argument, the element l is interpreted as an OCl as in (24a). Obviously, in this case, l occurs also between the SCl of 2nd singular and the form of have. (24b) illustrates the occurrence of the OCl of 3rd person in the other contexts; in auxiliary constructs OCls are in enclisis. Again, the element of 3rd singular l is inserted before have. Finally, (24c) shows the 3rd person singular OCl before lexical verb; as we may see, the single form la emerges for masculine and feminine.

(24)	a.	i.	i		ll	/i   ʊ
			SCl		3ps	/pl have.1sg
			‘I have it/them’
		ii.	at		l	/i   ɛ
			SCl.2sg		3ps	/pl have.2sg
			‘you have it/them’
		iii.	a		ll	/i   ɔ
			SCl.3		3ps	/pl have.3sg
			‘you have it/them’
		iv.	i		ll	/i   ʊ-mma
			SCl		3ps	/pl have-1pl
			‘we have it/them’
	b.	ii.	at		ɛ	tʃaˈm-ɔ-	me /l-u  /l-a  /ie
			SCl.2sg		have.2sg	call-TV.PP-	1sg/3-msg/3-fsg/3.pl
			‘you have called me/him/her/them’
		iii.	a	l	a	tʃaˈm-ɔ-	me /l-u  /l-a  /ie
			SCl.3	3ps	have.3sg	call-TV.PP-	1sg/3-msg/3-fsg/3.pl
			‘(s)he has called me/him/her/them’
		iv.	i	l	ʊ-mma	tʃaˈm-ɔ-	l-u  /l-a  /ie
			SCl	3ps	have-1pl	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/3-fsg/3.pl
			‘we have called him/her/them’
	c.	i	l-a /i		tʃam /ausu
		SCl	3sg/pl		call.1sg/lift.1sg
		‘I call/lift her/him/them’
			Villareggia

The data we have examined show that the clitic l has a special distribution in the contexts of the auxiliary, where it can, again, have the reading of SCl or OCl. Moreover, its occurrence in contexts like (23b), (23d), (23e) and (23e”) could suggest a subject role, even if its association with persons different from the 3rd renders a little obscure this conclusion.

6. l in the Auxiliary—Participle Constructs

Consider now the auxiliary periphrases with be and have. We start from the elementary hypothesis that auxiliaries are full verbal projections, embedding a predicative relation between a noun and a past participle selecting it as IA. In the case of non-active be constructs, their coincidence with the copular constructs provides clear evidence in favour of the idea that the past participle and its argument form a clause, a predicative relation. More precisely, we treat the participle as a nominal form including a category-less lexical root R, enlarged by the thematic vowel TV followed by the aspectual suffix, -t-/-d- in weak past participles in Italian and other Romance varieties. Inflection including φ-features (gender, number), that we assume fully interpretable, closes the derivation. If the past participle has the properties of nouns and adjectives, it selects only one argument. This may be due to its stative/resultative nature implying an argument to which to assign the predicate, namely AI. The lexical root can include agentivity, even if the EA is not realized in the structure, so that some ambiguity can be caused, only solved by inserting an agentive complement.

Resuming Manzini and Savoia (2005), we associate the thematic vowel TV with a nominal category which takes an argumental variable identified by the subject. More precisely, the hypothesis we apply here, is that TVs introduce an indefinite variable ‘x’, whose value is fixed by the subject. Thus, TVs are nominal inflections making the verbal root available to be inserted in the aspectual/modal head. As in many Northern Italian dialects, as well as in general in Gallo-Romance languages, the weak past participles no longer present the participial suffix, so that the TV is immediately followed by the inflection. In other words, the nominal properties of the latter are sufficient to characterize the nominal attributive nature of the past participle.

In (25), the analysis of the past participle alternants for gender and number of Pigna (cf. (22b,b’)) such as tʃaˈm-ɑ-u ‘called, i.e., call-TV-msg’, is provided. The result is the complex form in (25).

(25)	[[[tʃam R] ɑ TV] u φ]

Let us now address the auxiliary construct and focus on the ambiguous reading of l in the dialects such as Pigna, as illustrated for instance in (21e) and (22b), u/a l a tʃam-ɑ-u ‘he/she has called him’. As to the relation between arguments and the two Phase heads C and v, Chomsky et al. (2019, p. 240) characterize vP as the thematic domain and CP as the propositional domain. If, as indicated, in the construct auxiliary-participle, have and be are full verbal projections, the small clause encoding the predicative relation between the participle and its IA is included in the vP string. Based on the discussion around (1) in Section 2, EA is realized by the inflection of the verb and its SCl in T, in the terms specified by Chomsky (2021), as in (26).

(26)	SCl	T	v	participle
	u/aEA	a	lIAφ	tʃam-ɑ-uφ

In the past participle clause, the argumental variable introduced by the TV in (26) is closed by the internal argument, given the unaccusative nature of past participle, typically expressed by the specialized exponent –t-/-d- in Romance languages. As noticed, the absence of this morphological mark forces the verbal base to realize this reading in auxiliary contexts, as suggested in the derivation in (27). In (27a), the Root and the TV merge, giving rise to the complex form which, when combined with the inflection -u in (27a’), gives rise to the participle amalgam which includes, therefore, the properties of agreement. These latter realize the IA of v, in (27b) and, in the form of the OCl, in (27c). As to the distribution of l in Pigna, following Roberts (2010, p. 57), the OCl realizes the IA agreement for v phase. We know that v is never visible except insofar as it forms an amalgam with the Root, where v is adjoined to R (Chomsky 2015, p. 12). The OCl can be introduced on the verbal form including v, i.e., the auxiliary in T, as indicated in (27c).

(27)	a.	< [R tʃam], ɑTV/φ > → [φ tʃam-ɑ]
	a’.	< [tʃam-ɑ], umsg > → [ [φ tʃam-ɑ] u msg]
	b.	< aT, [ v/msg [φ tʃam-ɑ] u] > → [T a [v/msg [[tʃam-ɑ] u msg]
	c.	< lφ, [v/T a [v/msg tʃam-ɑ-u] … > → [v/T lφ, [a [v/msg tʃam-ɑ-u] …
		Pigna

The first conclusion is that l realizes the φ-features of v, as in (26). This explains its distribution, whereby it admits all the readings, and specifically can be coreferential with the subject in intransitive and copular contexts, or can introduce the IA, in transitives. In dialects like the one of Pigna, endowed with specialized SCls, this means that in the case of intransitives, in (28a) (from (21c) repeated here), the overlapping of the agreement properties of v and T implies that l expresses the same reference of the SCls, as in (28b). If following Manzini and Savoia (2005) and Roberts (2018), SCls are the doubling of the features of T, we conclude that u/a and l encode the same referential features, as in (28c), as a consequence of the amalgamation between T and v (here represented. For the sake of clarity, by T(+v)). As to negation, in the Ligurian dialects the proclitic negative element nu6 occurs, it can be assumed, by complying with scope requirements. So, it takes the verb and at least its internal role within its scope, as suggested in (28b).

(28)	a.	u	/a	(nu)	l a		doɾm-i-u
		msg	/fsg	Neg	3 have.3sg		sleep-TV.PP-msg
		‘he/she has (not) slept’
	b.	SCl	(Neg)	OCl	T(+v)	…	participle
		u/aEA	nu	lφ	a	…	dorm-i-u
	c.	< uφ, [T/v lφ, [a [msg dorm-i-u] > → [T u lφ, [T/v a [msg dorm-i-u] … >
		Pigna

The dialect of Villareggia extends this structure in all contexts in correspondence of the post-participial insertion of OCls, and, what is more, throughout the paradigm, in other words in combination with all persons except for the 2nd singular. In fact, the specialized SCl at is not compatible with l, whereas the other SCls have unspecialized forms compatible with l. We can tentatively refer the different behavior to the contrast between the clitics associated with the generic content of Definiteness, and the specialized property of 2nd person, obtaining the split between (29a) and (29b):

(29)	a.	a, i = Definiteness, according to the person
	b.	at = Recipient

The result is that a, i are compatible with l, that can be characterized as the realization of a referent definite with respect to the discourse. In contrast, the 2nd person SCL sets the reference deictically. What we are suggesting is that l exactly as in the dialect od Pigna in (28), also in dialects in which it is extended on more forms of the paradigm, realizes the agreement properties of v, associated with the amalgam realized by the inflected verbal form, as in (30a,b) (from (23b.iv)) for the unergatives.

(30)	a.	i	l	ʊ-mma	durˈm-i
		SCl	3	3 have-1pl	sleep-TV.PP
		‘we have slept’
	b.	SCl	OCl	T(+v)	participle
		iEA	lφ	ʊmma	durm-i
		Villareggia

In transitive contexts with enclisis on the participle, as in (31a) (from (24b.iv)), the enclitic element is merged to the past participle in (31b) based on the agreement between φ-features of the participle and those of the OCl. As reminded by Chomsky (2021), v remains invisible; the OCl amalgamates with the participle yielding the form tʃam-ɔ-l-u ‘called-him’. The amalgamation is able to map the inflectional properties of v, as in (31c), onto the representation accessed by C-I and SM systems, The result is that this copy of the agreement property of v needs to be identified with the content of l.

(31)	a.	i	l	ʊ-mma	tʃam-ɔ-l-u
		SCl	3	have-1pl	call-PP- 3-msg
		‘we have called him’
	b.	< l-u3msg, [φ tʃam-ɔ] > → [φ tʃam-ɔ]-lu3msg
	c.	SCl	OCl	T(+v)	participle-OCl
		iEA	lφ	ʊmma	tʃam-ɔ-l-uφ
		Villareggia

It is no accident if in the systems with l extended to the entire paradigm, as the dialect of Villareggia, its clear realization as object clitic is tested with have of possession, in the examples in (24a).

The third distributional pattern of object clitics we have considered is the one attested in (18) and (19) for Fara Novarese. In this dialect, the auxiliary have doubles the clitic in proclisis and in enclisis on the past participle, while the auxiliary be excludes the proclitic form, as repeated in (32a) and (32b), respectively. (31c) exemplifies the 2nd person where the specialized SCl at excludes have.

(32)	a.	a	l	ɛ	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/-mi
		SCl	SCl.3sg	be.3sg	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/1sg
		‘he has called him me’
	b.	i	l/t	uma	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/ti
		SCl	3sg/2sg	have.1pl	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/2sg
		‘we have called him/you’
	c.	a	t	ei	tʃaˈm-a-	l-u/mi
		SCl	SCl.2sg	be.2sg	call-TV.PP-	3-msg/1sg
		‘you have called him/me’
		Fara Novarese

Relying on the precedent discussion, we can connect the two structures to the different auxiliary. More precisely, be, differently from have, introduces only one argument, which coincides with the subject. Other arguments may be selected by the participle. In these dialects, this difference is made manifest by the inability of be to take an IA as an OCl in proclisis, instead admitted on the participle. We can think that the 2nd person SCl (a)t requires the auxiliary be because only be makes it recognizable as the subject, whereas in the contexts with have it is inserted as the agreement head of v. as in (32b).

6.1. Franco-Provençal

Let us now turn the OCls-for-SCls phenomena in the Franco-Provençal dialects, beginning with the distribution illustrated for the Apulian variety of Celle. As discussed in the previous section, be, both copula and auxiliary, embeds a predicative relation between a noun and an adjective/participle implementing the lexical properties of the verb, i.e., the theta-roles associated with the root R. The past participles generally lack the agreement inflection, except for a sub-class of strong forms in which it is possible to distinguish the gender exponent -tə in (33a), as krəvɛrə ‘covered.msg’/krəvɛrə-tə ‘covered.fsg’7 (cf. (14a’)). On the contrary, weak forms, such as laˈv-a ‘washed’ (cf. (13b)), include only the TV, as in (33b).

(33)	a.	[ [krəvɛrə R] tə Gender]
	b.	[ [lav R] a TV]

In the Celle dialect, be entails the insertion of mə instead of dʒə in all non-active contexts, as in the reflexive in (14a’), and in the copular context in (15a), repeated in (34a,b), where mə realizes the φ-features of the subject.

(34)	a.	mə	sejə	krəvɛrə/krəvɛrə-tə
		1sg	be.1sg	cover.PP/cover.PP-fsg
		‘I have covered myself’
	b.	mə	sejə	kunteŋŋə
		1sg	be.1sg	glad
		‘I am glad’
		Celle

In the sentence be+adjective/past participle in (34), the subject is the only argument of the participial item, i.e., its IA. mə (and tə) are merged to the verbal amalgam of which they realize the agreement φ-features, as in (35a). The referential properties of mə/tə are compatible with the φ-features of the participle or adjective. These clitics saturate the agreement properties of inflected verbal amalgam and so, the insertion of a SCl is no longer necessary, as in (35b).

(35)	a.	<mə, [Tsejə] >→ [φ mə [φ sejə ] ]
	b.	(S)Cl	T(+v)	participle-OCl
		məIA	sej	krəvɛrə/kunteŋŋəφ

That explains the fact that mə is the only clitic with lexical reflexives, as in (11), and also that it is the only clitic with all mono-argumental verbs such as be or stay, as in (35). In other words, the contrast between cases, i.e., between a nominative clitic (SCl) and an accusative clitic (OCl) is irrelevant, while syntactic distribution depends on the contrast between IA and EA.

In the contexts of lexical verbs, only the agreement of T expresses the referential content of the argument selected by the verb, so requiring the usual SCl form dʒə, as in (36).

(36)

dʒəφ [T viŋŋəφ [ vP …

(from (2b))

Hence, only dʒə and tə are able to realize the φ-features of T. Naturally, they can combine with OCls, as in (37), where the SCl dʒə is merged to T, fixing the person and number agreement of the latter, while the OCl l-u realizes the features of the IA of the Root.

(37)	a.	ddʒə	l-u	/tə   vajə	(from (9i))
		1sg	3-msg	/2sg see.1sg
		‘I see him/you’
	b.	SCl	OCl	T	v …
		dʒəφ	l-uφ	vajəφ	φ

This allows us to account for the contrast between the unaccusative contexts with be, in which it is be that selects mə as the realization of the subject, and lexical unaccusatives, in which we find dʒə. The result is that lexical unaccusatives go together with unergatives and transitives while reflexives behave like the predicative constructs since mə is necessary to realize the AI. In other words, auxiliaries encode selection capabilities autonomous with respect to the verb.

An interesting question is raised by the inversion between the object mə and the subject tə in contexts in (9.ii.a), repeated in (38), where tə realizes the subject (EA).

(38)	mə	tə	vajə
	1sg	2sg	see.2sg
	‘you see me’

If the two deictic pronouns combine, in (39), a cluster is built reflecting the usual order where mə precedes all other clitics. We have seen that the 2nd singular clitic has only one realization, i.e., tə. When there are object clitics of 3rd person or 1st plural a cluster is formed as in the case of (39a) for 1st and 2nd person objects and (39b) for 2nd person subject (from (10a,b)).

(39)	a.	(ijə)	mə	/	tə	l-u	dde:nə
		he	1sg	/	2sg	3-msg	give.3sg
		‘He gives it to me/to you’
	b.	(ti)	tə	sə	l-u	dde:nə
		you	2sg	1pl	3-msg	give.2sg
		‘You gives it to us’

We can wonder why 1st and 2nd singular persons behave in a special manner, whereby a specialized SCl of 1st singular can precede all OCls and tə can realize the agreement inflection associated with the head T, as in (39b), in the presence of OCls. The simplest answer is that the deictic, discourse anchored, properties of the 1st and 2nd singular persons allow them to be realized in the work space of T, substantially independently from the thematic properties associated with v and R. In the case of the 1st person, a specialized SCl, i.e., dʒə, is provided by the lexicon, while in the case of the 2nd singular it is the only available form tə that has this role, except behave like a clitic object in all other contexts. In other words, the inverted order in (38) is only apparent, in the sense that mə can precede the inflected verb independently from its role, as in (35). The order mə tə, is, therefore, predictable, as a particular instantiation od the PCC (Person Case constraint), whereby in a clitic cluster the 2nd person OCl cannot precede the 1st person OCl.

Passing now to the reflexive element sə, we see in (11) that in the reflexive paradigm, it occurs in all persons except for 1st and 2nd singulars, where it is in complementary distribution with all SCls. We conclude that its content is that of a variable, that finds its referential properties in the agreement features of the verb, its antecedent (Manzini et al. 2016). In the case of mə and tə, the reflexive interpretation derives from their coincidence with the verbal inflection-the subject. In other words, the exclusion of SCls can be traced back to the same mechanism working in the case of accusative clitics, except for 1st and 2nd person contexts. We note that the generalized occurrence of ‘se’ in reflexive for all persons is attested in Northern Italian and Rhaeto-Romance varieties where yet the clitic of 1st person tends to be however inserted (Manzini and Savoia 2005). The element se/si introducing the variable is generally associated with the nominal φ-features of the subject. Such nominal properties work as the lexical restriction of se, excluding the co-reference with 1st/2nd person elements. This can explain why 1st and 2nd plural persons, insofar as they also encode the 3rd person reference, have the reflexive se in many dialects, including the Celle one.

6.2. Piedmontese Franco-Provençal

Turning now to the Franco-Provençal dialect of Cantoira in (4), we see that in unaccusative and copular constructs with be, the 1st person excludes the realization of the SCl dʒi. More precisely, the insertion of dʒi is mandatory only with the auxiliary have. This suggests that both the lexical verbs and the auxiliary be realize the agreement properties of T, while the doubling by the 1st person SCl can be connected to the ability of have to realize the EA properties independently of the thematic roles associated with the past participle. This solution may be extended to the contexts with 3rd person OCls where dʒi is not admitted. We can think that dʒi is inserted only in contexts that require it, precisely before clitics of 2nd person and 1st person, as in (40a) (from (5a)).

(40)	a.	dʒi	t	tʃam-u
		SCl.1ps	2sg	call-1sg
		‘I call you.sg/pl’
	b.	SCl	OCl	T	v …
		dʒiφy	tφi	tʃam-uφy	φi

In other words, since deictic clitics can realize the inflection of T or v, we see that dʒi combines with another deictic clitic with the result that the mapping of the φ-features of T is distinct from the one of v, as in (40b). As to the OCl neuter u, cf. (5c’), we can only conclude that it is treated as a deictic element.

A context where the 1st person SCl is systematically inserted in enclisis on the verb is the interrogative one, independently of the presence of OCls in proclisis, as in (41a) (from (6b)) (41b) illustrates the amalgamation operation, which yields a complex form that realizes the φ-features of the subject and the object of the verb, as in (41c).

(41)	a.	l-u		tʃam-u-	dʒu?
		3-msg		call-1sg	SCl.1ps
		‘do I call him?’
	b.	< [T dʒu, [T l-u [tʃam-u]] > → [T l-u [tʃam-u]] dʒu…
	c.	Q	OCl	T	SCl	v …
			l-uφ	tʃam-uφy	dʒuφy

We know that the interrogative operator introduces possible worlds, to which, however, the SCl escapes. In other words, the order V+SCl is only the morpho-syntactic realization of the scope of the interrogative modality8, from which referential elements are excluded. We only note that the modal context requires a richer morphological realization of the arguments (Manzini and Savoia 2017b).

7. Final Remarks: The Distribution of Agreement

Resuming the previous discussion, two main mechanisms are necessary in yielding syntactic structures, both complex words and phrases, as indicated in (42) (Manzini et al. 2020):

(42)	Syntactic mechanisms:
	Merge (+ Amalgamation)
	Agreement

(42) accounts for the distribution of clitics, whereby SCls double the agreement features of T(+v), OCls realize IA, associating with the inflected verb. In these dialects, 1st and 2nd person clitics present idiosyncratic types of occurrences as the reflex of their being intrinsically Discourse-linked. In the Piedmontese and Ligurian varieties with ambiguous l, in Section 4.1, the interpretation of l in accordance with the selection of auxiliary in transitive strings has been traced back to the selection properties of be, which introduces only an argument. In the case of the Franco-Provençal of Celle, we have assumed that mə and tə are sufficient to saturate the agreement of T. dʒə is inserted only in contexts of lexical verbs. The conditions of Cantoira are partially similar, insofar as in this dialect dʒi is required by have to encode the EA and the distribution of dʒi is determined by its deictic force.

Summarizing, in this article, we have addressed two main points: the syntax of clitics and their interaction with auxiliaries investigated in reference to a complex of phenomena characterizing Piedmontese, North Ligurian and Franco-Provençal varieties. In these languages, object and subject clitics present a partially complementary distribution. In the Franco-Provençal dialect spoken in Apulia, an unexpected occurrence of the object clitics mə and tə instead of the SCl, in copular and non-active contexts, shows up. We have identified auxiliaries with verbs in the proper sense, embedding a predicative clause. Following Chomsky (2019, 2020, 2021), Merge is the operation that yields complex syntactic objects based on the sharing of agreement features.