Cliticization, Movement and Second Position

Investigation shows that some issues relating to cliticization in Degema are closely tied to movement. Put differently, there appear to be certain facts about cliticization in Degema that may not be easily explained without appealing to a movement analysis. For example, how do clitics form a phonological unit with their hosts? What is the origin of the subject NP that appears before the subject clitic? How do subject clitics get the grammatical features associated with the subject? How is second position defined in Degema, since it appears that some clitics also occupy second position? How do clitics in Degema get placed in second position? These are some of the questions we will attempt to answer in this study with regard to clitic placement in Degema.

This work is organized into five sections:
Section 1 discusses subject and non-subject clitics;
section 2 examines cliticization and two movement operations - subject and verb movements;
section 3 looks at cliticization and the 'second position' phenomenon;
section 4 considers clitics as functional heads, and their implication for clitic doubling, while
section 5 is the conclusion.