LONG HEAD MOVEMENT - VERB MOVEMENT AND CLITICIZATION IN CROATIAN

Croatian, along with other Slavic, and some Romance languages, has a t ype of verb-fronting - the 'Long Head Movement' (LHM) construction - i n which a non-finite verb raises to C0 across a finite auxiliary, in a pparent contravention of the Head Movement Constraint. Rivero and Robe rts have each argued on the basis of LHM-data that the Minimality cond ition of the ECP should permit one head to cross another under certain conditions. A detailed investigation of the properties of LHM in Croa tian shows that the conclusions drawn by these authors with respect to the ECP are inadequate in two respects. Firstly, the structural analy sis for LHM sentences in Croatian assumed by Rivero and by Roberts is incorrect. Clitics in Croatian are syntactically enclitic, right-adjoi ning to C0. The auxiliary involved in LHM-constructions is a clitic fo rm, hence is located in C0 at S-structure, and not lower down in the c lause. Since the verb and clitic auxiliary in LHM occupy the same posi tion, the Croatian data fail to support the view that the ECP must all ow for one head to move across another. Secondly, although the notion of 'last resort' is alluded to by these authors in connection with the 'triggering' of LHM in grammatical instances, the role of 'economy' i n ruling out starred examples is not properly considered, rendering ar gumentation with respect to ECP based on such (ungrammatical) examples invalid. However, LHM does involve 'long movement' in the sense of 'a cyclic incorporation'. We conclude that the correct definition of Mini mality is one based on Baker's notion of 'distinctness' of heads.