Path: ...!news.roellig-ltd.de!open-news-network.org!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail From: ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Re: Pronoun Clitic Development in English? Date: 27 May 2025 10:52:43 GMT Organization: Stefan Ram Lines: 41 Expires: 1 Jun 2026 11:59:58 GMT Message-ID: References: <579841320.770020696.472565.grimblecrumble870-gmail.com@news.newsdemon.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de hjmCMl8w1scXbk44PYPD7AlNmNK40pCOriSMZrFeqLXmO4 Cancel-Lock: sha1:SIN9dqJ/PDN9jHeCiSyPTvCwNOQ= sha256:CODYqr1RJtQ3vP9TIY/PuMtgIpwHdRMqJZy58v1davY= X-Copyright: (C) Copyright 2025 Stefan Ram. All rights reserved. Distribution through any means other than regular usenet channels is forbidden. It is forbidden to publish this article in the Web, to change URIs of this article into links, and to transfer the body without this notice, but quotations of parts in other Usenet posts are allowed. X-No-Archive: Yes Archive: no X-No-Archive-Readme: "X-No-Archive" is set, because this prevents some services to mirror the article in the web. But the article may be kept on a Usenet archive server with only NNTP access. X-No-Html: yes Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 3535 ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted: >So, I cannot find a source where your (Grimble's) observations >were used to argue that "'em" is a real clitic in English. So, English has these weak forms like "'em" (short for "them" [today]), and while they kind of look like the clitics you see in languages like Spanish or Italian, they're not really the same thing. Here's the rundown on why: - First off, in Romance languages, clitics have to show up in certain spots around the verb. Sometimes they're before, sometimes after, and it depends on the verb form and what you're saying. Like in Spanish, you get stuff like "me lo dijo", where the clitics are all lined up in a row. In English, though, "'em" just sits in the usual object spot. You can't move it around, and you can't stick it before the verb or anything weird like that. "I threw 'em out" works, but "*I threw out 'em" is just not a thing. - Also, English weak forms are really just the regular pronouns said fast or kind of mumbled. They're not their own thing in the sentence; they're just the same old pronouns, only trimmed down. In Romance languages, clitics are more like their own deal, and you can't just swap in a regular pronoun wherever you want. - Another thing: Romance clitics like to stick to the verb and sometimes pile up together, which you never see with English weak forms. "'em" doesn't team up with other weak forms or get glued to the verb; it just hangs out where the object goes. - Plus, Romance clitics are way more baked into the grammar. You kind of have to use them in certain situations, and they play by a bunch of rules depending on tense, negation, and all that. English weak forms are just a casual way of saying things, not something the grammar really cares about.