PRE-VERBAL PRONOUNS IN TAGALOG SYNTAX∗

Clauses in Tagalog are typically verb-initial, but the language also allows a clause type where pronouns occur pre-verbally. This paper proposes one way in which this phenomenon could be integrated with recent theories of Tagalog syntax, which do not give an account for such a case. After demonstrating how pronominal forms alternate in noun phrases according to position, and how this distribution resem-bles that found in verbal predicates, I propose that the alternation is a question of free-standing forms versus enclitic forms. In this view, pre-verbal pronouns result when a pronoun is stranded in a position where it cannot cliticize. 1