Comparative Analysis of Pronominal Clitic Ordering in Three Western Bisayan Languages – Cuyonon, Akeanon, and Kinaray-a

This paper examines pronominal clitic ordering in Cuyonon, Akeanon, and Kinaray-a, highlighting the complex system of clitic placement in Philippine languages. Generalizations on this topic cannot be made as clitics behave differently across languages due to the interplay of constraints on phonology, case, and/or person. This study identifies the specific factor/s that come into play in the ordering of clitics in the three languages based on elicited sentences and native speaker consultations. It reveals that mainly phonological constraints determine the ordering of pronouns, and the case constraint applies when the clitics are of the same phonological size. The paper also identifies the restrictions on the use of the proclitic and enclitic forms of possessive pronouns in the languages being studied. The findings in this study emphasize the need for careful analyses of clitic behavior in individual languages and contribute to discussions about the challenges of analyzing the intricate system of clitics.