On the syntax of Pantiscu aspectual subject clitics

In this paper we will address the unusual behaviour of subject clitics (sbj.cl) in Pantiscu, which express a progressive aspect (Prog) value; to account for their puzzling shape, we will proposed that sbj.cl can be associated to aspectual features, following Manzini & Savoia (2002). To explain the non-compositional behaviour of the Pantiscu Prog periphrasis, we will resort to a phrasal spell-out mechanism, assuming that the sbj.cl plus the lexical verb are spelt-out (as a whole) as ProgP. Finally to account for the fact that an aspect particle can agree with the external argument in phi-features we will assume, along the lines of Kalin & van Urk (2015), that an imperfective projection (here Prog) can act as a phi-probe. Alternatively, we can assume that aspectual Prog features are attracted by the TP yielding agreement (Manzini & Savoia 2002).