Clitic Doubling in Romanian

*Clitic Doubling (Dublarea clitică) is one of the most prominent syntactic traits of Romanian (shared across the Balkan sprachbund with Greek, Bulgarian, and Albanian, and partially with Spanish). It is the phenomenon where a full lexical direct or indirect object noun phrase is obligatorily doubled by a corresponding unstressed clitic pronoun* within the same clause.

1. Direct Object Doubling (with 'pe'): Whenever a direct object is animate, specific/definite, and introduced by the preposition pe, it must be doubled by an accusative clitic: - Îl văd pe Ion* (I see Ion, lit. 'Him I-see PE Ion'). Saying Văd pe Ion is ungrammatical. - Am întâlnit-o pe Maria (I met Maria, lit. 'I-have-met-her PE Maria'). - I-am căutat pe studenți* (I looked for the students).

2. Indirect Object Doubling (in Dative): Indirect nominal objects in the dative case are almost always doubled by a dative clitic, regardless of position: - Îi dau profesorului cartea (I give the book to the professor, lit. 'To-him I-give to-the-teacher the-book'). - I-am scris Mariei o scrisoare lungă (I wrote a long letter to Maria).

Failing to perform clitic doubling when referencing specific personal objects is one of the most persistent non-native errors in spoken and written Romanian.