Typological Analysis of Vafsi Clitics based on Aikhenvald’s (2003) Parameters

The present research aims at identification and typology of clitics in Vafsi based on Aikhenvald’s (2003) parameters. This study is analytical and library-based as the Vafsi examples in this study are mostly from Vafsi corpus gathered by Stilo (2004b) in form of 24 Vafsi folk tales and also from his other works on Vafsi (Stilo, 2004a, 2010). In other cases, Bögel et al. (2018) and Yousefi (2021) along with native speakers are consulted. The results of this study show that, first, compared to Zwicky and Pullum’s (1983) and Sadock’s (1991) criteria in classification of clitics, Aikhenvald’s (2003) parameters set, not only is inclusive of all the criteria belonging to two other classifications, but also, contrary to the binary approach of them, it has the advantage of investigating clitics on a multi-dimensional continuum of features from a completely bound morpheme to a completely free one. Next, based on Aikhenvald’s (2003) parameters set, it has been shown that Vafsi has eight types of clitics, which only the characteristics of the eighth type, i. e. Vafsi oblique PAMs, are affected by phonological-prosodic factors. In the end, based of indelibility and locality features of agreement markers, it has been shown that Vafsi oblique PAMs are in fact inflectional affixes, so they cannot be considered as clitics.