Ne-cliticization as unaccusativity diagnostic in Catalan

This paper focuses on the syntactic behavior of partitive clitic ne in Catalan in relation with unaccusative and unergative verbs. While the clitic is prescriptively restricted to subjects of unaccusatives in Catalan, this study explores the possibility of the clitic serving as main argument of unergative verbs, as it has been noted in Italian. The research includes a thorough exploration of the Unaccusativity Hypothesis and the proposed diagnostics, then, through a series of experimental studies with native speakers, the production and acceptability of the clitic in different contexts are evaluated. The results reveal that a significant number of participants accept the use of ne with unergative verbs. The findings support the conclusion that the partitive’s distribution may be more flexible than assumed, complicating the rigid dichotomy proposed by the UH. In sum, traditional approaches to verb classification in Romance linguistics are challenged, paving the way to further research of the clitic cross-linguistically.