Micro‑ and macro-variation. From pronominal allomorphies to the category of irreality/non-veridicality

Manzini and Savoia (2005, 2017) argue that morphophonology is involved in enclisis/proclisis alternations only in so far as it externalizes the syntactico-semantic category of non-veridicality, as outlined here in Section 1. In Section 2 we review typological literature reporting that the irrealis category governs the alternation between different pronominal series cross-linguistically. This evidence potentially fulfills a prediction issuing from the treatment of Romance. What is more, comparison between treatments of Romance microvariation and of typological macrovariation reveals a propensity to treat the former in terms of morphophonological organization and the latter in terms of conceptual systems. If Manzini and Savoia are correct, efforts at defining opposed notions of macro‑ and micro-parametrization are not warranted by the evidence (Section 3).