Mukri Pronominal Enclitics distribution in VP: An Optimality Theoretic

Since clitics interconnect different modules of the grammar and are hosted by various hosts from different categories, they have attracted the attention of many linguists. Besides, their interaction with their hosts and positioning in the second position seems interesting. Central Kurdish (CK) like some other Iranian languages such as Persian, Vafsi, among others have two sets of Person Agreement Markers (PAM), a Direct set and an Oblique set, sometimes also called Set1 and Set2, respectively. In Mukri Kurdish like other Iranian languages clitics can be found. Mukri clitics are very mobile and can appear in different domains. The previous scholarship on the clitic system of Kurdish have been done by different scholars. A review of the literature on CK reveals that the role of clitic PAMs has been surveyed along four major aspects: (i) the listing of clitic functions; (ii) the grammaticalization of clitic PAMs; (iii) the correlation between clitic PAMs and the nominal case system; (iv) the role of clitic PAMs in the alignment system. The present paper investigates the distribution of Mukri pronominal enclitics using Optimality Theory constraints in the VP. The constraints which play role in clitic placement are NonInitial (cli,VP), Integrity (VP) and LeftMost (cli, L,VP). The VPs under discussion can contain a preverbal, negative maker prefixes (ne-, na-), subjunctive and imperative prefix (bi-) or only a verb. The research method of this study is descriptive – analytic and fieldwork. Competition of the constraints which play role in placing Mukri pronominal clitics in the VP showed that the constraints NonInitial (cli,VP), Integrity (VP) in hierarchy of constraints dominate LeftMost (cli, L,VP) but none of constraints NonInitial (cli,VP), Integrity(VP) dominate each other. The analysis revealed that Mukri Kurdish pronominal clitics are placed in the second position in their VP.