Polypersonal Agreement - Clitic Pronouns

Clitic Pronouns

Polypersonalism involves bound morphemes that are part of the verbal morphology and therefore cannot be found separated from the verb. These morphemes are not to be confused with pronominal clitics, like English 'em or the Spanish object clitics lo, le, etc. While in Spanish it is quite possible to express meanings like "giving it to him/her" or "they showed it to me" in one word (dándoselo, mostráronmelo), the pronominal morphemes indicating the direct and indirect objects (se, lo, me, los) are not part of the verb.

Some have observed that the French pronominal clitics (common to all Romance languages) have evolved into inseparable parts of the verb in the colloquial use, and so, suggested that French could be analyzed as polypersonal. But these morphemes could simply be seen as inseparable clitic nouns.