Clitic Ordering vs. Pro-Drop in Old Russian: An Optimality Theory Approach to the Resolution of a Grammatical Conflict

Abstract

This article examines the potential conflict between two important principles of Slavic grammar; the tendency toward omission of nonemphatic subject pronouns and the requirement that clitics stand in second position within the sentence, and offers a means for resolving these conflicts in terms of Optimality Theory. Data are first examined from Old Russian, but the issue cannot be resolved within that language because of the limited and arbitrary data available in the fixed texts. It is shown that Bulgarian, Serbian and Croatian, and Czech share the relevant typological structure of Old Russian. Material from Bulgarian demonstrates how three independently-motivated constraints may be ranked in accordance with their degree of optionality, so that conflicts between pro-drop and clitic-second principles are resolved by disrupting the neutral word order of the sentence, i.e., the pragmatic organization of the sentence, in order to maintain the two morphosyntactic principles. The same resolution is found to apply equally well in Old Russian, where word order may be varied in order to maintain both pro-drop and clitic-second, or a semantically light adverb, prepositional phrase, or other element may be added in order to provide an initial sentential element without disrupting the functional sentence perspective organization of the sentence. Optimality Theory is taken as a means of evaluating competing outputs of the syntax, following other recent literature which uses Optimality Theory to filter alternative surface forms generated in the syntax. Word-order disruptions are found to be the lowest-ranking constraint governing such sentences, so that it is easiest for speaker to resolve these potential conflicts by modifying the word order, retaining both clitic-second and pro-drop principles.