Imperative in Gheg, Tosk and Arberesh: A comparison.

Clitic order raises interesting questions concerning the relation between morpho-syntactic structure and its externalization into interpretive levels of language. This in particular regards imperative string where in many languages, typically in Romance varieties, the interaction of clitics with modality, specifically imperative and infinitive, and negation gives rise to reordering phenomena. More precisely, imperative differentiates from declarative sentences in selecting enclisis except in negative contexts where clitics occur between the negative element and the verb. This distribution generally characterizes all Albanian varieties, although with some differences. Moreover, in Albanian even the mesoclisis appears in the case of the 2nd plural person of imperative, whereby either one clitic or the entire clitic string is inserted between the verbal base and the person inflection. Manzini and Savoia began to analyze this distribution in Arbëreshë and in Calabrian and Lucanian contact varieties in some works from several years ago.