The choice of a clitic can be driven by the tense-aspect form of the predicate: Evidence from Andi

Timur Maisak
Institute of Linguistics RAS / National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract. The paper addresses the unusual distribution among five clitic pairs in Andi (< Andic < Nakh-Daghestanian). There are two polar question markers, two content question markers, two indirect question markers, two quotatives and two reportatives. One of each pair is used when the clause is headed by the aorist (perfective past), while the other marker is used elsewhere. I suggest two hypotheses which can shed light on the nature of this phenomenon: first, the connection of these clitics with focus marking, and second, the loss of the copula in periphrastic forms, which explains the attribution of the perfect to the non-aorist group.

Keywords: clitics, polar questions, content questions, indirect questions, quotative, reportative, aorist, Andi, Nakh-Daghestanian

For citation: Maisak Т. The choice of a clitic can be driven by the tense-aspect form of the predicate: Evidence from Andi. Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. 2020. Vol. 3, iss. 1. Pp. 77–94. (In Rus.)