Complementizer drop and clitic climbing in Torlakian: Evidence from the Timok variety

Abstract

The paper is based on a corpus study of the complementizer da drop (Comp_drop) and clitic climbing (CC) in the Timok variety of Serbian. Data are taken from the Spoken Torlak dialect corpus 1.0 (Vuković 2020) and comprise over 900 examples of sentences containing the following selecting verbs: modal verbs moći ‘can’ and morati ‘must’, light verbs ići ‘go’ and uzeti ‘take’, and the aspectual verb početi ‘begin’, and their complement clauses, with or without the complementizer da. Two predicted variables, Comp_drop and CC, are analyzed alongside eleven predictor variables. Statistical analyses reveal that Comp_drop is optional and significantly affected by the person of the selected verb, the availability of clitics in the structure, and the presence of the impersonal construction. On the other hand, CC is possible but rare. It occurs only when the complementizer is dropped, and is affected by the type of verb, particularly facilitated by the aspectual verb početi ‘begin’. The results are discussed in terms of the structural size of the complement clauses, in line with Author1’s (2022) proposal of a clause size smaller than the smallest one attested in the standard variety and Aljović’s (2005) observation that CC is available from functionally poor domains, i.e. from restructuring complements.

Keywords

• Clitic climbing. Complement clause size. Complementiser drop. Serbian. Torlakian