Pronominal Affixation and Cliticization in Romance and Bantu Languages : Comparative analysis

Traditionally, subject and object pronouns have been commonly treated as clitics (or words) in Romance languages and as affixes in Bantu languages. In recent years, however, a number of scholars have been arguing in favor of affixation rather than cliticization of these linguistic items in Romance. As a result of that, a back-and-forth debate is now open with respect to the status of these elements in Romance linguistics. On the Bantu family side, the literature shows also a dual treatment of these pronouns. While traditionally the subject marker and the object marker attached to the verb have been treated as affixes, a few scholars have recently analyzed them as grammatical words, suggesting their clitic status. Like in Romance, the debate in Bantu linguistics concerning the clitic vs. affix status of subject and object pronouns is also in the air. In this study, M. Da Conceio explores data from two major Romance languages (French and Portuguese) and data from Ronga (a Bantu language spoken in Southern Mozambique) to provide an empirically justified classification of Romance and Bantu pronouns as clitics, words or affixes.