Categorial mismatches of pronouns – a diachronic perspective

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of mismatched pronominal elements in Slavic, that is cases in which their morphological make-up does not correspond to their syntactic interpretation. It contributes to the existing accounts by showing that the categorial mismatches are a factor triggering pronoun reanalysis in the process of language change. For this reason, this paper argues that the assumption of categorial mismatches is an empirical necessity. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a motivation for the assumption of categorial mismatches of pronouns, which largely stems from Cardinaletti & Starke’s (1999) analysis of structural deficiencies. Section 3 shows the way pronominal mismatches have been accounted for in Slavic, focusing on analyses developed by Despić (2011, 2014), Stegovec (2019), and Puškar-Gallien (2022), which are contrasted with a recent account by Milosavljević (2023), who argues against the assumption of categorial mismatches. Section 4 addresses diachronic data from Old Russian as well as discusses synchronic speaker and dialectal variation in the distribution of pronouns in Polish and Macedonian, arguing that the assumption of pronominal mismatches is a necessity account for the presented empirical facts and to explain the process of language change.