Categorial mismatches of pronouns – a diachronic perspective

Abstract

This paper investigates categorial mismatches in Slavic pronouns, focusing on cases where the morphological form of pronominal clitics diverges from their syntactic or prosodic interpretation. We argue that such mismatches are empirically necessary to account for both synchronic variation and diachronic change. The analysis shows that mismatches between PF (phonological form) and LF (logical form) interpretations may give rise to structural ambiguity—one of the key preconditions for language change, as noted by Lightfoot (1979, 1991). Building on accounts of PF/LF mismatches in pronominals proposed by Despić (2011), Despić (2014), Stegovec (2019), and Puśkar-Gallien (2022), we argue that diachronic data from Old Russian and synchronic variation in Polish and Macedonian provide strong support for the categorial mismatches as the most explanatory framework for the observed changes and distributional  patterns.