Against Optional and Null Clitics. Right Dislocation vs. Marginalization

Abstract

This paper contains a discussion of (Italian) Right Dislocation, which seems to instantiate an optional anticipatory clitic pronoun. It will be shown that the distribution of the anticipatory pronoun is not free. When the clitic is absent, we do not have an instance of Right Dislocation, but of Marginalization. The structural analysis of Right Dislocation suggested here is similar to Kayne’s (1994) analysis of English Right Dislocation, the structure of Marginalization contains an in situ destressed constituent. Depending on how optionality is interpreted, it is possible to conclude that clitic pronouns are neither optional nor null.