This article accounts for the interrogative particle kam of the South Min dialect spoken on Taiwan as a second-position sentential clitic in GPSG (Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar) and discusses the theoretical implications of such an account. Because of its free selection of host words, its lack of morphological idiosyncrasies, the inapplicability of syntactic rules to it and its closure of affixation, kam cannot be an affix. Furthermore, based on its prosodic domain, binding, replacement, ordering, and distribution features, kam is shown not to be a word. Following the theory of cliticization outlined in Zwicky and Pullum (1983) and Zwicky (1985), kam is proved to be a clitic.
A formal account of the cliticization of kam in GPSG is given, adopting the notion of Immediate Precedence (IP) proposed in Nevis (1986) and Zwicky and Nevis (1986). A formal definition of IP is proposed within the GPSG theory. The possible interaction between IP and LP (Linear Precedence) with existential implication as proposed in Huang (1985) is also discussed. Finally, it is suggested that the existence of kam as a second-position proclitic in a language dominated by sentence final enclitics is worth in-depth future studies.
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