Clitic placement at the syntax‐phonology interface: A case study of Berber*

Abstract

Abstract Berber 1 clitics are argued to follow the main verb but may appear in a position preceding the verb in the presence of a Complementiser, Negation or Tense. However, there are cases involving a subset of these categories yet the clitics still follow the verb. In this article, it is argued that neither syntax nor phonology alone can handle the full range of clitic alternations. Instead, the placement of these clitics is claimed to involve both syntax and phonology. It is argued that these clitics undergo syntactic movement from a lower position to the left of the verb for licensing purposes. However, clitics in some syntactically well‐formed positions may still be ill‐formed due to prosodic considerations. Assuming copy theory of movement, the variable positioning of clitics is attributed to the spell‐out of different copies in the movement chain, thus obviating the need for phonological movement.