From ic nolde to I don't wanna : the status of clitics in the history of English

Clitics take up conspicuous positions in the history of English, ranging from Old English forms like nolde 'I didn't want to' through to Modem English won't. However, while there is a considerable body of literature on the theoretical status of clitic forms in Modem English as well as on the general development of clitics, there is hardly anything on the typology of clitics throughout the history of English (see the overview of the literature in Nevis et al. 1994). This paper attempts at filling this gap to some degree by providing an outline of the types of clitics that can be found in Old, Middle and Modem English, noting any changes that have occurred over this considerable amount of time. This also includes a brief theoretical discussion of the term clitic as opposed to word and affix, aiming to find a theoretical framework to couch in the investigation of the data. I will argue that the common typology of simple and special clitics, going back to Zwicky's seminal paper (Zwicky 1977) is not finegrained enough for the purpose of the analysis presented here. Instead, the model proposed by Nubling (1992) will be used, as it seems to be more adequate to conceptualise the different kinds ofclitics in the history of English.