Clitic doubling

Clitic doubling refers to the use of (mostly object) clitic pronouns together with a coreferential noun phrase, especially in the Romance and Balkan languages.

Term properties

A back-formed verb to clitic-double can be used, e.g. Non-specific objects are not clitic-doubled.

Examples

• Romanian
• L-am văzut pe Petru.
• 3SG.M.CL-I.have seen ACC Petru
• 'I've seen Petru.'

• Macedonian
• Jana go vide volk-ot.
• Jana 3SG.M.ACC.CL saw wolf-DEF
• 'Jana saw the wolf.'

Synonyms

• object doubling
• object reduplication

Origin

The term has been widespread since the 1980s.

Other languages

German Klitikaverdopplung