Cliticization in Old Spanish and Wackernagel's Law

This article develops an account of Wackernagel's Law and Tobler-Mussafia's Law in purely syntactic terms. It is argued that clitic distribution in Ol d Spanish is determined by a mechanism of Agreement (Agr) raising condition ed by obligatory feature-checking, along minimalist lines. Such raising occ urs whenever an element occupies the checking domain of the Complementizer (Comp) i.e. CP-adjoined position or spec-CP. Conversely, when no element oc curs in this domain, Agr remains in situ. In the former case, Agr attaches to the verb Base-generated in Comp. In the latter, the verb moves only to A gr to offer its necessary support at PF. The semantic ambiguity of subjects and adverbs cooccurring with clitic pronouns in Old Spanish is accounted f or by assuming that the former two elements may be base-generated in CP-adj oined positions, subsequently lowering at LF, where semantic scope is deter mined.