Clitic Doubling of the Proposed Direct Object in Bulgarian 1

This work was supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science. Competing interests: no competing interests have been declared. Publisher: Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 PL License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/), which permits redistribution, commercial and non‐commercial, provided that the article is properly cited. © The Author(s) 2018. Bilyana Ovcharova


• Preposing1 as a non-canonical construction
The research presented in this paper focuses on accusative clitic doubling in Bulgarian clauses with direct object preposing.In clauses with preposing an element whose basic (canonical) position is after the verb is placed in initial clause position, preceding the subject and verb (on preposing see Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, p. 1372).This is illustrated by the Bulgarian example below, where the underlined NP, realizing the direct object (Od), is a preposed con-1 Other terms that cover fully or partially preposing as understood in this paper include: fronting, topicalization, focalization, thematization, long-distance dependency constructions, unbounded dependency constructions, filler-gap dependencies, extraction constructions (for terminology differentiation see Ovcharova, 2016, pp. 17-21).In some studies preposing is discussed under changes in the left periphery (cf.Rizzi, 1997).
stituent.The preposed Od, single underlined, is followed by the subject and verb, and there is no doubling clitic: [1] Тия думи той изрече толкова тихо, че трябваше да се прочетат по устните му.2 "These words he said so quietly that they had to read his lips." From a theoretical perspective, preposing is one of the non-canonical constructions in languages with an SVO order.In general, non-canonical clauses "differ syntactically from the most basic, or canonical, constructions in the language" and the differences between the canonical and non-canonical clauses is "not in truth condition or illocutionary meaning but in the way the informational content is presented" (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, p. 1365).
The non-canonical position of the Od in Bulgarian is discussed in the sections on grammatical and actualized word orders in The Grammar of the Contemporary Bulgarian Standard Language /Граматика на съвременния български книжовен език/ (henceforth abbreviated as GSBKE, 1994, pp. 271-284).The basic and grammatical position of an Od realized by an NP is the position immediately after the verb, i.e. the third position in a clause when the subject is explicitly expressed.As the Od may realize both the theme (old information) or rheme (new information) in a clause, it may occupy both the first and the third position in a clause.In theory, in a Bulgarian clause the syntactic function of an initial NP can be both subject and direct object as Bulgarian lacks dependent marking.However, it is possible the object function to be disambiguated using a syntactic means: a doubling clitic as illustrated in the example below, in which the clitic disambiguates the first NP as the Od.Other uses of accusative clitics in clauses with an initial Od are not discussed in the quoted grammar book3.
Grammatical doubling occurs in clauses where the clitics are part of the verb's morphological make-up and in clauses where the clitics serve as case markers for disambiguating the syntactic function of the initial noun phrase (NP).Pragmatic clitic doubling does not affect the clause grammaticality or semantics: it serves as a topicality marker, signaling the discourse-old status the preposed NPs' referents or is used to activate such referents.Pragmatic clitic doubling may occur with focused discourse-old NPs, which at first sight may appear as an inconsistency: one would expect that the topic and focus should be differently identified in a language.In Bulgarian pragmatic accusative clitic doubling is not admissible only when the preposed NP realizes contrastive, emphatic focus.

• A note on what constitutes Od preposing in Bulgarian
It is necessary to note that when a clitic is the sole realization of an object and is in pre-verbal position, this is not a case of preposing.Clitics gravitate around the verb, depending on whether there are initial triggers for the clitics' pre-verbal position, e.g. a negative particle: [3] Не ме тресе.Not me(acc clit) shakes(3p sg) "I don't have fever/I don't shake."4

Grammatically obligatory clitic doubling
In this section, I will argue that clitic doubling is grammatical in cases when dropping the clitic renders the clause ill-formed or changes its meaning.Therefore, in such clauses doubling is obligatory.

Obligatory clitics that are part of the verb morphology
In Bulgarian there are verbs with accusative or dative clitics that cannot be dropped: -боли ме /hurt(3p sg) me(acc clit), "I have pain", "I hurt"/, -тресѐ ме /shake(3p sg) me(acc clit), "I have fever", "I shake"/, -мързи ме /idle(3p sg) me(acc clit), "I feel lazy"/, -домъчня ми /get sad(3p sg) me(dat clit)"I get sad"/).5 Such clitics (and their respective non-clitic object realizations) have the semantic role of experiencer.For such verbs Avgustinova (1997, pp. 38-39)  In all examples above the Od is realized only by a clitic.Avgustinova (1997, p. 40) argues that the clitics with such verbs are obligatory, and because of this they do not represent a case of clitic doubling when the Od is also realized by a non-clitic NP, which is, in fact, the grammatically optional element.7 For our discussion, it is important to note that if a speaker decides on using a non-clitic realization of the Od in initial position with the verbs which morphologically include a clitic, the doubling clitic is a grammatically obligatory element, and therefore, the presence of a clitic is not motivated by pragmatic considerations.
• Interesting case 1: The verb тресѐ /shake(3p sg)/ This verb is included in the list of verbs which morphologically include a clitic realizing the semantic role of experiencer.However, with тресѐ /shake(3p sg)/ the clitic is obligatory only when the non-clitic realization of the Od is preposed; when there is no preposing, the clitic may be dropped.In the examples below, the non-clitic NPs and clitics, if any, realizing the Od are single underlined (this underlining is used throughtout the paper unless indicated otherwise): [4] a. i.The optionality of clitics in clauses without preposing is not of interest in this paper, so it will not be further investigated here.However, I would like to express the hypothesis that doubling clitics in Bulgarian clauses without preposing are not due to grammatical or pragmatic considerations: they are simply optional grammatical transference from clauses with preposing where they have a grammatical or pragmatic function.
"There is the scale, there is the purpose, and above all there is the enthusiasm and good mood." In example [5] (i) the Od is preposed and the doubling clitic is obligatory; if the clitic is dropped, the clause is ungrammatical as shown in [5′] (i).
In example [5] (ii) there are three instances of the existential има /"there is"/, and all three have doubling clitics and direct objects after the verbs.In the clause in [5′] (ii) the clitics are dropped and the clause can be understood as a personal clause with a subject pro-drop, i.e. the clause's semantics changes although the clause is grammatical.
ii. Има размаха, има целта, и най-вече има ентусиазма и настроението."[He/she/it] has the scale, has the purpose, and above all has the enthusiasm and good mood." With nouns such as опастността /the danger, the risk/ and възможността /the possibility/ it is possible not to use clitic doubling when the non-clitic NP is placed after the verb as in [6].The only explanation that comes to mind is that such an existential ima/nyama-clause is so obviously an existential one that it is not necessary to disambiguate it from a clause with a possessive verb9.Though I have not thoroughly investigated the issue, clauses of this type are rare and seem to be admissible due to the semantics of the non-clitic NP.
[6] Има опасността от падащи камъни по пътните настилки по всички направления в региона."There is the risk of falling stones on the roads in all directions in the area." Existential ima/nyama-clauses (when contrasted with personal clauses having the verbs има/няма /has, doesn't have/ in the 3 rd person singular) delineate the border between clauses with verbs which morphologically include a clitic and clauses where doubling clitics perform a case disambiguating function, i.e. the clitics act as true case markers.

Od preposing
Clitics can act as case markers disambiguating the syntactic function of an initial NP in clauses with personal verbs.If dropped, the clause meaning changes, and because of this they are obligatory.Compare: [7] i. Новият10 директор го чака много работа.
New-the principal(masc) waits(3p sg) much work(fem) "The new principal is expecting much work." The clitic in [7] (i) establishes the function of the initial NP as realizing the Od.The comparison between [7] (i) and [7] (ii) shows that dropping the clitic in the latter makes the initial NP assume the syntactic function of subject.It can be argued that in writing the full definite article for masculine nouns will identify (if there isn't a spelling mistake) NPs of masculine gender as the subject or not.Therefore, the structural disambiguation of the accusative clitic is even more pronounced when the initial and postverbal NPs are headed by nouns of feminine gender, and, theoretically, the clitic may refer to both.The made-up examples below show this: [8] i. Новата директорка я удари топката.New-the principal(fem) her(acc clit, 3p sg, fem) hit(3p sg) ball-the(fem) "The ball hit the new principal."ii.Новата директорка удари топката.
New-the principal(fem) hit(3p sg) ball-the(fem) "The new principal hit the ball." Due to the presence of the clitic, in example [8] (i) the initial NP is regarded as Od; in [8] (ii) the same NP, not followed by a clitic, is the subject.
Below are authentic examples following the pattern of the doubling clitics acting as case markers.In all of them when the clitic is dropped, the pre-verbal NP becomes the subject, and the clause semantics changes.In the original clauses, the subject, if explicitly expressed, is double underlined.The underlining of the elements is preserved in the English translations regardless of whether they have the same syntactic function or not: [9] i. Пред киното Иван го чакаше изненада."Outside the cinema Ivan was in for a surprise." ii. България се възражда отново и това го показва събора11 на Рожен."Bulgaria is again experiencing a revival and this can be seen at the festival in Rozhen."iii.Та бих ѝ купила, но този го получи подарък за рождения си ден.
"I would have bought it to her, but [she] got it as a present for her birthday." These Bulgarian examples show one of the two reasons for a speaker to use clauses with Od preposing: the arrangement ensures unmarked information packaging from the old to the new information, from the topic to the focus.(the other reason being placing the focus on the initial element).In examples [9] (i & ii) the focused element is the end-clause subject; the clause in [9] (iii) has a pro-drop subject, and its focus is the information in the clause end.Information packaging such as the one shown in these examples is very productive in clauses with Od preposing in Bulgarian, with clitics having the pragmatic role of marking the topical status of the initial NP.

Pragmatic clitic doubling or absence of clitic doubling
Penchev (Бояджиев, Куцаров, & Пенчев, 1998, p. 639) claims that "if a preposed Od is not stressed (old information)12, it is obligatorily doubled by a pronominal clitic, i.e. a preposed unstressed Od is always doubled or the verb is stressed".This claim suggests that a preposed Od not bearing stress always represents old information and obligatorily receives clitic doubling, and, by deduction, a preposed Od bearing stress represents new information and obligatorily lacks clitic doubling.The deduction is true for Bulgarian because NPs of discourse-new referents do not bear morphological markers for definiteness and, therefore, do 11 Spelling mistake in the original source: http://www.focus-news.net/news/2015/07/19/2094530/valentina-vasileva-obshtina-smolyan-balgariya-se-vazrazhda-otnovo-i-tova-go -pokazva-sabora-na-rozhen.html ("Гайдите на Рожен замлъкнаха", 2015).The subject at the end position does not bear the grammatical full definite article because its position wrongly "identifies" it as the object.
"It was reported that on the previous day a Turkish squadron came to the village to get water.
[They] didn't cause trouble."13 Penchev's claim fails to include cases when the preposed Od bears focus (primary or not) but represents old information.With such discourse-old expressions, in theory, clitic doubling is admissible.
I will argue below that: (1) Clitic doubling obligatorily does not occur when the preposed NP bears contrastive, emphatic focus; if the focus is not contrastive, clitic doubling may occur; (2) Clitic doubling as a topicality marker is inconsistent but strongly preferred in oral discourse for discourse-old referents or when a referent of an expression is activated into the discourse although such an element usually bears prosodic prominence.In [11] (i) the preposed NP, тая сълза /this teardrop/, is old information, and, in the context of the tale where it is used, it is the important measure for the debt of the tale's character who is not allowed to enter Heaven.The clause with preposing is key for understanding the moral of the tale, and the initial NP bears the strong tonic prominence.The clause does not have clitic doubling and such is not admissible because this preposed Od realizes a case of emphatic focus preposing.The preposed NP is discourse-old referent and bears the primary clause focus.This type of focus preposing involving emphatic, contrastive focus on a topical element does not admit clitic doubling in Bulgarian:

Clitic doubling with preposed focused NPs realizing the Od
In examples [11] (ii & iii) the preposed NPs are headed by the demonstrative това /that/, and bear the primary clause focus.The focus in [11] (ii) is also lexically marked by including the intensifier точно /exactly/ in the preposed NP.Again, clitic doubling is not admissible pragmatically.The preposed NPs are clearly discourse-old: they are linked to the respective referents in the preceding clauses underlined with a wavy line.The contexts of [12] (i & ii) are very similar, and, therefore, it can be argued that the preposed NPs are identically stressed.Still, in [12] (i) there is, and in [12] (ii) there is not clitic doubling.What permits this doubling is the discourse-old status of the preposed NP; what permits the absence of clitic doubling is the fact that the preposed NP is stressed.
Additional research needs to be conducted on the frequency of clauses with preposed focused Od and clitic doubling but it can be expected that such instances are rare and limited to clauses with pro-drop subjects and no other elements in the right periphery to attract the clause focus.In these examples, the full accusative pronouns are used for additional emphasis because the grammar does not require them.At the same time, they could well be the only realization of the Od but in both sentences thay are doubled by clitics.The primary clause focus is most likely to be on the verb in [13] (i) and on the adjunct in [13] (ii).My claim is that when the full accusative pronouns are not required by grammar (e.g.text cohesion considerations) and do not bear emphatic stress, they always bear some tonic prominence though doubled by a clitic.14 Having discussed the cases of focused initial direct objects, let's continue with direct objects that placed initially due to their topical status.

• Clitic doubling with discourse-old, familiar referents of the preposed NPs
Clitic doubling with discourse-old, familiar referents of the NPs realizing the Od is usual in oral/colloquial Bulgarian as in example [14] (i); in writing it may not occur as in example [14]  In [14] (i) the subject сестра ми /my sister/ represents the clause focus in the first of the coordinate clauses; in the second coordinate clause with another preposed Od другите /the others/, the focus is on the Oi in the predicate.The two preposed objects in the two coordinated clauses are doubled by clitics to signal the topical status of the preposed NPs.
The clause in [14] (ii) is an example from a literary text without clitic doubling of the Od realized by an NP with a discourse-old referent, which is preposed to mark its explicit contextual linkage.The clause focus is again in the predicate.
Such clauses reveal an instance of a topic-focus articulation structure similar to that of clauses with locative inversion in English, termed subjectdependent inversion in Huddleston andPullum (2002, p. 1385).Clauses such as From inside the shed came a dull rolling thudding noise allow preposing a locative complement and show inversion in compliance to the requirement that "the preposed phrase must not represent information that is less familiar to the discourse than that represented by the postposed NP" (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, p. 1386).In other words, the preposed element is discourse-older than the inverted subject.In Bulgarian, Od preposing is often motivated by the same pragmatic requirements for topic-focus arrangement, and the respec-tive NP may be double by a clitic.According to Danchev (2013, p. 247) direct object reduplication is part of the common historical development of fronting topicalized NPs (which in English has led to the SVO order).
• Clitic doubling with activated referents of the preposed NPs In the examples discussed in the previous point the preposed NPs are all obviously discourse-old.However, in oral/colloquial Bulgarian, clitic doubling also occurs with activated referents of preposed NPs, or in other words, these NPs realizing the Od introduce inactive referents in the discourse and, therefore, bear an activation stress but do not represent the clause focus.
Mental representations of NP referents may be in three activation states in the addressee's mind: active, semi-active (or accessible) and inactive (Lambrecht, 1994, pp. 93-100, as cited in Chafe, 1987).Also, Lambrecht (1994, pp. 105-107) makes a distinction between identifiable but inactive referents and unidentifiable, brand-new referents.Identifiable but inactive referents can be activated.
In example [15] below the preposed NP, решението за развода /"the decision to divorce"/, which is followed by clitic doubling, is an example of an activated identifiable but inactive referent: [15] Преди Коледа разбрах, че мъжът ми си има любовница -на годините на дъщеря ми.Всъщност, аз отдавна го подозирах, но със сигурност го научих скоро.Вярвайте, нищо не ми трепна.Просто си казах, че така е трябвало да стане.Решението за развод го взех на секундата."Before Christmas I found out that my husband has a lover -my daughter's age.In fact I had suspected him for a while, but I became certain of it not long ago.Believe me, it didn't affect me in any way.I simply said to myself that that's how it is supposed to be.The decision to divorce, [I] took it in a split second." The preposed NP above represents contextually new information but is not the most prominent tonic element.It is stressed and bears an activation accent (Lambrecht, 1994, p. 219), and illustrates a case of topic promotion (Lambrecht, 1994, p. 177).In Bulgarian, the NP's topic status is signaled by the clitic doubling.
The occurrence of clitic doubling in the example above is admissible due to the fact that, although the constituent is new to the discourse, it expresses given or hearer-old information in the sense that this information represents "knowledge which the speaker assumes to be in the consciousness of the addressee at the time of the utterance" (Chafe, 1976, p. 30, as cited in Birner & Ward, 1998, p. 10).In a monologue of a wife about her husband's infidelity, divorce is not an unexpected topic.Morphologically, the givenness is signaled by the use of the definite article решението /'the decision'/ though "definiteness and topicalization are in fact independent" (Birner & Ward, 1998, p. 83).The preposed NP contains old, or rather hearer-old, information, and, therefore, clitic doubling is pragmatically admissible in Bulgarian while, it must be pointed out, the definiteness makes the use of a clitic grammatically admissible.If a preposed non-definite NP решение за развода /"a decision to divorce"/ was used, then clitic doubling would not be admissible because of the grammar requirements *Решение за развод го взех на секундата (see footnote 8).
In Although in [16] (i & ii) the preposed direct objects occupy the initial, topical clause position and the focus is in the right periphery -on the subject in [16] (i) and on the adjunct in [16] (ii), it can be deducted from the English translations, in which it-cleft clauses are used, that the pragmatic purpose is not so much to assign topical status to the initial NPs as to present them as bearing presupposed/ old information.This claim and that fact that in writing it is easier for the hearer to process the information are possible reasons for the absence of clitic doubling.
• More examples with preposed topical NPs realizing the Od: 1. Changing the line of narration by introducing a new-to-the-discourse topical referent When used to activate a referent in the discourse, clitic doubling may adhere to the principle of the separation of reference and role of Lambrecht (1994, p. 185).In simple words, the author formulates the rule as: "Do not introduce a referent and talk about it in the same clause".Clitic doubling in Bulgarian achieves this in the same way left-dislocation accomplishes it in English.According to this principle, the preposed NP in [17]  "Even today no one can explain how, during the wars, it was possible for the Bulgarian military administration to manage to completely disarm Bulgarian villagers so that they were not able to produce anything.For example, your car, [they] would take half of it, not the whole car, it has a front and rear part." Lambrecht's principle is easier to understand in the English variant where a clause with left dislocation is used.In it, the initial NP your car introduces a new referent to the discourse, and the anaphoric pronoun it realizes the Od of the transitive verb take.
In [17] the clause with preposing has a pro-drop subject, with the verb morphologically marked for 3 rd person plural, the generic they (which in this particular case is more likely to be specific: the military).
• More examples with preposed topical NPs realizing the Od: 2. Preposing, clitic doubling and information packaging of a passive clause Clauses with preposed direct objects with clitic doubling signaling their discourse-old or activated status and verbs morphologically marked for 3 rd person plural, i.e. generic they, are a very productive construction in Bulgarian.The information packaging achieved is that of a passive clause: an argument which, semantically, is not the agent appears in clause-initial position.This constituent is topical, i.e. the proposition supplies relevant information about it.The clauses in [18] (i & ii) show this structure.
In [18] (iii) similar information packaging is achieved but the verb is marked for 1 st person singular.The example is from a car forum, and the speaker explains which parts of his car he has repaired.The three repaired items are in preposed position and two are doubled by clitics (most likely the third clitic is accidentally omitted when writing the post).The focus is on the verbs denoting the type of repair.
[18] i.I didn't touch the hand brake, there was no need to; but I re-did the gear handle, and it looks as good as new." Clauses with the type of structure as the ones discussed in point 3 above are all an example of pragmatics having the upper hand over syntax in Bulgarian in the sense that unmarked topic-focus information structure is achieved while at the same time syntax provides the indispensable aid through the clitics' disambiguation potential (mostly in the oral discourse) for identifying the initial NP as object and topic.

Conclusions
1. Clitic doubling of preposed direct objects in Bulgarian is (1) obligatorily present when grammatical, and (2) obligatorily absent when pragmatic and the preposed Od receives emphatic, contrastive emphasis.

Pragmatic clitic doubling in clauses with
Od preposing is a powerful tool allowing virtually any NP realizing the Od to be promoted to a topic status.This topic promotion is motivated by the pragmatic consideration to achieve unmarked topic-focus articulation.Such clitic doubling is characteristic of the oral/colloquial Bulgarian.
3. In writing the same topic-focus articulation is achieved with the following special features.Preposing the direct object is motivated not so much by the reason for topic promotion but rather by the reason for (1) providing explicit contextual linkage to the immediate discourse (text coherence) and (2) presenting information as presupposed while the element in the end-clause position receives the clause focus.Such motivation may be the reason for the absence of clitic doubling in written texts.

• Admissible clitic doubling with focused but non-emphatic preposed Od
designer, I want this a lot, but also I want to be a writer.Ohh, I want both, a lot, a lot, a lot."
"Natural leather from the first shoemaker (that's what I did).I upholstered the ball myself and then I put it in boiling water to shrink the leather.