Why challenging clitics?

Linguists have been drawn to the intriguing nature of clitics ever since the golden age of philology in the 19th century. In this paper we aim to provide a brief history of different approaches to clitics, from Wackernagel’s law to modern theories that link clitics to phases. We also present the papers that follow in this volume and show how they fit into the overall picture of research done on clitics in the 21st century.