Procliticization as a residual of second positioning

What is it about?

This paper provides evidence that a good number of modern languages have developed proclitics, presumably from the middle Iranian period onward.

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Why is it important?

We argue that proclitic attachment has resulted from the reanalysis and/or the loss of clause-initial clitic hosting particles of the Middle Iranian period, and the actualization of the stray clitic as a proclitic on some host to the right. This trajectory from second position enclitics to proclitics, which is also attested in Old Romance and Uto-Aztecan, is argued to have been triggered by head attraction and rightward drift of clitics from clause-second position toward the verb in modern languages, giving rise to VP-based and Verb-based cliticization systems.