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Subextraction in Romance Interrogatives
Abstract
In Gavarró & Solà (2004), we present evidence for non-target wh- subextraction in child Catalan and provided an account in terms of Case theory. Our account crucially relies on a specific analysis of the Case licensing strategies available in adult Catalan, according to which Catalan does in fact permit wh-subextraction, although of a more restricted type than that attested in child Catalan. In this paper we aim to substantiate the analysis of adult grammar for wh-interrogatives, drawing from Kayne (2002) and arguing that wh-subextraction in Catalan is an instance of remnant movement. The paper proceeds as follows. First we consider the data on wh- subextraction in the literature, from Romance languages and others, and summarise the original data on child Catalan from Gavarró & Solà (2004). Second, we review the analyses proposed for subextraction in the literature and point out some of their empirical and/or conceptual shortcomings. Third, we provide an analysis of the adult grammar of Catalan which can encompass the facts of child Catalan in a natural way and is also consistent with the facts from other languages.*
The Spanish left periphery: Questions and answers
This paper argues that true optionality does exist. It is even inherently tied up with the procedure of parameter setting in child language [Kampen, J. van, Proceedings of the Workshop on Optionality (1995), OTS, Utrecht University]. The marked value of a parameter is set by adding a grammatical feature to a lexical category. The enriched category requires a mere specific licensing and will in general block its initial less specified default variant. The default variant survives sometimes, leading to optionality. Two clear cases of optionality are presented here. The first case is pied-piping in Polish adult and in Dutch child language, the second case is long reflexives in Dutch. The two cases show how the optionality may be due to an independently existing licensing possibility within the same grammar. The alternative explanation by Kroch [J. Lang. Variat. Change 1.3 (1989) 244], Roeper [Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 2(3) (1999)] and Yang [Oxford University Press (2002)] of two co-existing grammars is rejected by the present proposal.
This dissertation deals with dislocation structures, particularly with Clitic Right Dislocation and with Clitic Left Dislocation. The main guideline of the analysis is that the form of syntactic objects is constrained by Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Analysis. This strict framework will lead us to an analysis (Split-Topic Analysis) involving two different landing sites for dislocated elements: the specifier of the Internal Topic Phrase in the left periphery of the vP area for Clitic Right Dislocation, and that of the External Topic Phrase in the left periphery of sentence for Clitic Left dislocation. It will be argued that this approach is more adequate on both conceptual and empirical grounds, since it complies with the highly restrictive view of syntax imposed by Kayne’s Linear Correspondence Axiom, and offers a principled explanation of the consistent set of similarities and differences between Clitic Right Dislocation and Clitic Left Dislocation.
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In this article, we investigated children's acquisition of short- and long-distance whose-questions to see whether children know that, in English, the entire whose-phrase must pied-pipe to the specifier of complementizer phrase. Languages vary parametrically on this point, with some languages (e.g., Chamorro, Tzotzil, Hungarian) allowing both pied-piped possessive determiner phrases (DPs) and subextraction of wh-Possessors, and others (e.g., the Germanic languages) requiring pied-piping of the entire whose-DP. In the Minimalist theory (Chomsky (1995)), the computational system is constrained by economy principles that require only a [+wh] feature (or corresponding wh-word) be checked in its scope position; pied-piping of the residue is enforced at the Phonetic Form (PF) interface. In an elicited production experiment with 12 English-speaking children, we found that some children produced split whose-questions such as "Who do you think 's flower fell off?" or "Who do you think 's sunglasses Pocahontas tried on?" We argue that such questions are not the product of a (late) misset parameter but stem from the principles of "natural economy" that constrain the language acquisition device. In child grammar, principles of economy override the PF conditions requiring pied-piping of the entire whose-DP.
French questions come into two brands: a movement version and an in-situ alternative. In this context, the present paper argues for a flexible one-to-one mapping between form and interpretation: fronting of the nominal typically correlates with one reading, while the in-situ nominal may, but need not, correlate with another. The contention is nevertheless that there is no such thing as optional wh-movement in French: the EPP/D feature associated with [+wh] in C is always strong; what varies is the placement of the noun. In the dialect/register reviewed in this study, the default interpretation associated with the in-situ position is non-specific while the raising of the noun favours a specific interpretation. Moreover, it is argued that pragmatically, in this variant of French, in-situ fronted-questions are adequate in a prominent context whereas their wh-in-situ counterparts are only felicitous in a non-prominent context. One assumption on which the proposal is based is that single wh-constructions in French are instances of split-DP constructions: a bare operator is separated from its associated semantic nominal restriction in the course of the derivation. Finally, it will be shown that the semantic and discourse properties of in-situ/stranded nominals in the variety of the language examined in this paper follow from the fact they are semantically incorporated. They denote, not an argument, but a property, crucially without scope of their own. Coupled with the assumption that French wh in-situ constructions are split-constructions, the fact that in-situ wh-nominals are semantically incorporated explains the intervention effects exhibited by such constructions. The existential quantifier is provided by the verb. Thus, the existential quantifier will necessarily take scope under all other scopal elements present in the sentence, including negation.