Clitic Third in Hittite: Variation and Development

The paper deals with one of clitic third orders in Hittite that involves later than the expected second position of the clitic -( m ) a , a contrastive conjunction and discourse marker, otherwise a standard second position clitic. -( m ) a is delayed beyond its common second position by clause connectives, subordinators and conjunctions with varying obligatoriness: it is obligatory with clause connectives and optional with subordinators and conjunctions. This study explores in detail the variation with subordinators and conjunctions and it argues that clitic third order in this context is an innovation. In explaining how clitic third order was triggered in this context the etymological hypothesis of Eichner (1971, 1981) is combined with the prosodic explanation of clitic third of Kloekhorst (2014) against an alternative account of Sideltsev (2019).