Multiple Wh-Fronting

Multiple Wh-Fronting
Author: Cedric Boeckx
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2003-08-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027296464

Typological differences in the formation of multiple Wh-questions are well-known. One option is fronting all Wh-phrases to the sentence periphery. The contributions to this volume all explore this option from a number of perspectives. Topics covered include finer investigations of the “classic” multiple Wh-fronting languages (such as the South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian), extensions to less well studied languages (Basque, Malagasy, Persian, Yiddish), explorations for languages that don’t obviously fall into this category (German, Hungarian), peripheral effects (optionality of fronting, Superiority vs. Anti-Superiority etc.), interface issues (with semantics, pragmatics, and phonology), and simply theoretical approaches aiming to capture the mechanisms involved in multiple Wh-fronting strategies. The theoretical framework adopted throughout is the Minimalist Program, viewed from different angles. This volume brings together some of the leading experts on the syntax of Wh-questions and offers up-to-date analyses of the topic. It will be indispensable for scholars investigating multiple Wh-questions, and will find an appropriate audience in advanced students and faculty alike.

Multiple Wh-fronting

Multiple Wh-fronting
Author: Cedric Boeckx
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027227874

Typological differences in the formation of multiple "Wh"-questions are well-known. One option is fronting all "Wh"-phrases to the sentence periphery. The contributions to this volume all explore this option from a number of perspectives. Topics covered include finer investigations of the classic multiple "Wh"-fronting languages (such as the South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian), extensions to less well studied languages (Basque, Malagasy, Persian, Yiddish), explorations for languages that don t obviously fall into this category (German, Hungarian), peripheral effects (optionality of fronting, Superiority vs. Anti-Superiority etc.), interface issues (with semantics, pragmatics, and phonology), and simply theoretical approaches aiming to capture the mechanisms involved in multiple "Wh"-fronting strategies. The theoretical framework adopted throughout is the Minimalist Program, viewed from different angles. This volume brings together some of the leading experts on the syntax of "Wh"-questions and offers up-to-date analyses of the topic. It will be indispensable for scholars investigating multiple "Wh"-questions, and will find an appropriate audience in advanced students and faculty alike.

Wh-Movement and the Theory of Feature-Checking

Wh-Movement and the Theory of Feature-Checking
Author: Andrew Simpson
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2000-06-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027298440

Wh-movement and the theory of feature-checking argues that cross-linguistic variation in wh-constructions reduces to the availability of different lexical instantiations of a +wh C0 both across languages and within a single language, and the way in which such lexical elements are syntactically identified, either via movement or base-generation. Evidence from a wide range of patterns including wh-expletive questions leads to the conclusion that wh-feature checking may sometimes be effected non-locally and ‘at a distance’ (long-distance wh-agreement), and that movement in general takes place for two related but discrete reasons: both to identify and activate an underspecified licensing head and in order for an element to occur in the checking domain projected by its relevant licensing head. Developing and generalizing the proposals beyond wh-phenomena, the study also goes on to argue for a Minimalist model of syntax in which feature-dependencies are in fact all licensed in the overt syntax and where there is no need for any further level of LF.

The Copy Theory of Movement

The Copy Theory of Movement
Author: Norbert Corver
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2007-06-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027292302

This volume brings together papers which address issues regarding the copy theory of movement. According to this theory, a trace is a copy of the moved element that is deleted in the phonological component but is available for interpretation at L(ogical) F(orm). Thus far, the bulk of the research on the copy theory has mainly focused on interpretation issues at LF. The consequences of the copy theory for syntactic computation per se and for the syntax–phonology mapping, in particular, have received much less attention in the literature, despite its crucial relevance for the whole architecture of the model. As a contribution to fill this gap, this volume congregates recent work that deals with empirical and conceptual consequences of the copy theory of movement for the inner working of syntactic computations within the Minimalist Program, with special emphasis on the syntax–phonology mapping.

On the Typology of Wh-questions

On the Typology of Wh-questions
Author: Lisa Lai Shen Cheng
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1997
Genre: Grammar, Comparative and general
ISBN: 9780815328872

Offers an explanation for a long-standing question in the typological distinction among languages with respect to formation of interrogatives which use questions words such as "who" and "what." Proposes that the availability of question particles and the properties of question words contribute to the typological distinctions found, and argues that the availability of question particles correlates with the lack of fronting of question words. Of interest to scholars working on interrogatives, syntactic theory, comparative syntax, Chinese syntax, and typology. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A-bar Syntax

A-bar Syntax
Author: Gereon Müller
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2012-10-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110814285

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

Composing Questions

Composing Questions
Author: Hadas Kotek
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2019-02-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0262351072

An investigation of the syntax and semantics of wh-questions through the lens of intervention effects, offering a new proposal on overt and covert wh-movement. In this book, Hadas Kotek investigates the syntax and semantics of wh-questions, offering a new solution to a central question in the study of interrogatives: given that overt wh-movement is cross-linguistically common, is syntactic movement a prerequisite for the interpretation of wh-phrases? Some linguists argue that all wh-phrases undergo movement to interrogative C, even if covertly; others propose mechanisms of in-situ interpretation that do not require any movement. Kotek moves beyond these positions to argue that wh-in-situ does move covertly, but not necessarily to C. Instead, she contends, wh-in-situ undergoes a short movement step akin to covert scrambling. This makes the LF behavior of English parallel to the overt behavior of German. Kotek presents a series of self-paced reading experiments, alongside judgment data from German, to substantiate the idea of covert scrambling. She introduces new diagnostics for the underlying structure of questions, using as a principal tool the distribution of intervention effects. This system allows her to offer the first unified account for a range of phenomena of interrogative syntax-semantics as pied-piping, superiority effects, the cross-linguistically varied syntax of questions, and intervention effects. Kotek develops a theory of interrogative syntax-semantics; studies the phenomena of intervention effects in wh-questions, proposing that the nature of intervention is crucially tied to the availability of wh-movement in a question; and shows that covert wh-movement should be modeled as a short scrambling operation rather than an unbounded, successive-cyclic, and potentially long-distance movement operation.

Movement in Language

Movement in Language
Author: Norvin Richards
Publisher: Oxford Linguistics
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2001
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780199246519

This is the most comprehensive, integrated explanation ever published of the properties of question formations and their variations across languages. Movement in Language develops a new set of arguments for the controversial claim that syntax should be understood derivationally; that is, that the best model of language is one in which sentences are constructed in a series of operations that precede or follow each other in time. The arguments are exemplified through reference to a number of languages, including Bulgarian, Japanese, English, Chinese, and Serbo-Croatian.

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface
Author: I. Comorovski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9401586888

Interrogative Phrases and the Syntax-Semantics Interface starts by analyzing the interpretation of interrogative phrases in single and multiple constituent questions, including their interpretation under adverbs of quantification. The results are then put to work in a novel approach to some of the constraints on dependencies between fronted interrogative phrases and the associated gaps: superiority, weak crossover, as well as the so-called `weak islands' (the WH-island, the negative island and the Factive Island). It is argued that the possibility of fronting an interrogative phrase out of these configurations is determined by a semantic/pragmatic condition on questions, which requires them to be answerable. The analysis is worked out principally on Romanian, a language which allows multiple wh-fronting. The results are then extended to English. Audience: Researchers and students in syntax, semantics and their interface, as well as linguists studying the relation between the acceptability of sentences and the larger discourse context.

The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory

The Handbook of Contemporary Syntactic Theory
Author: Mark Baltin
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 880
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0470756357

This volume provides a comprehensive view of the current issues in contemporary syntactic theory. Written by an international assembly of leading specialists in the field, these 2 original articles serve as a useful reference for various areas of grammar. Contains 23 articles written by an international assembly of specialists in the field. The lucidly written articles grant accessibility to crucial areas of syntactic theory. Contrasting theories are represented. Contains an informative introduction and extensive bibliography which serves as a reference tool for both students and professional linguists.