Interrogative features and their valuation

The issue of the feature-specification of the discourse-oriented constituents such as wh-items, Q-particles and similar is pretty speculative in general. First, within the GB era, it has been proposed that what forces obligatory wh-movement to the left edge of a clause is a morphosyntactic feature [wh] (see Pesetsky 1982; May 1985; Chomsky 1991; Rizzi 1996, among others). On this view, the wh-item moves into Spec,CP in order to check the [wh] feature on C, in order to obey the

wh-criterion (Rizzi 1996):

(26) [Wh]-driven movement (Pesetsky 1982; Chomsky 1991; Rizzi 1996) a. [CP C[+wh] ... [... XP[+wh] ...]]

b. [CP XP[+wh]i C[+wh] ... [... ti ...]]

More recently, within MP (Chomsky 1993 et seq.), it has been standardly assumed that the head C has certain force features, which determine the sentence-type of a clause (CP). In particular, the interrogative head C has been argued to be endowed with a [Q] feature (from ‘Question’), which contributes interrogative force to a sentence. On the other hand, a wh-element, in addition to the morphosyntactic feature [wh], has been argued to bear also an instance of the feature [Q]. As a result, the two items, C and the wh-word, can enter into a probe-goal relation (Chomsky 2000, 2001), which is then followed by overt movement of the wh-goal into the specifier of the probe C, in order to satisfy the

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EPP-feature on C (notice that the fronted wh-phrase leaves behind a copy of itself,

rather than a trace, as in (26)):10

(27) [Wh]/[Q]/[EPP]-driven movement (Chomsky 2000, 2001) a. [CP C[uQ] ... [... XP[uwh][iQ] ...]]

b. [CP XPi[uwh][iQ] C[uQ][EPP] ... [... XPi ...]]

Regarding a more precise mechanism of the relevant feature-checking, Chomsky (2000:128) postulates that “the wh-phrase has an uninterpretable wh-feature and an interpretable feature [Q], which matches the uninterpretable probe [Q] of a complementizer”. Notice that, under this view, the feature [uwh] is not an independent property of the wh-item, but just a reflex of the feature [Q] (similarly to the [uCase] of NPs, which is a reflex of φ-features under the standard probe- goal feature valuation). On the other hand, postulation of [uwh] on the wh-item has been forced by Chomsky’s (2000) Activation Condition, which requires that an element undergoing internal Merge and Agree has an uninterpretable feature in order to be visible for further syntactic operations. Also observe that in the system illustrated in (27) the role of a question operator, which presumably corresponds to [iQ], is assigned to a wh-phrase. Meanwhile, the interrogative C does not possess an operator, as it is endowed with the unvalued instance of [Q], which must be checked and deleted by LF.

Cable’s (2007, 2010) Q-based account removes the wh-feature from the system as a leading property, responsible for overt interrogative movement of the elements. Now this role is assigned to [Q]. For the rest the feature-valuation mechanism obeys Chomsky’s (2000, 2001) standard mechanism of probe-goal relations. That is, the C head acts as a probe due to the uninterpretable instance of [Q] and agrees with the Q-particle, which is endowed with the interpretable instance of the matching [Q]. Finally, Q-movement to Spec,CP takes place in order to satisfy the EPP-feature on C:

10 _{The EPP-feature (the minimalist reformulation of Chomsky’s 1981 Extended Projection}

Principle) is called to capture the intuition that the specifier position of the probe is filled with

the goal, which the former agrees with. EPP is generally considered not as an independent syntactic feature, but rather a feature’s property. For instance, Pesetsky & Torrego’s (2001) propose that EPP is a movement property associated with syntactic features. Likewise, in Roberts & Roussou (2003), EPP is a movement diacritic on (φ-)probes and Adger & Svenonius (2011) refer to it as a “second-order feature”.

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(28) [Q]/[EPP]-driven movement (Cable 2007, 2010) a. [CP C[uQ][EPP] ... [... Q/QP[iQ] ...]]

b. [CP Q/QPi[iQ] C[uQ][EPP] ... [... Q/QPi ...]]

In this dissertation, I propose a further step in the simplification of the Q-agreement mechanism, in line with the current tendency to eliminate the EPP-feature (see Martin 1999; Grohmann, Drury & Castillo 2000; Boeckx 2001; Bošković 2002c, 2007a, 2008, 2011; Miyagawa 2010; Zeijlstra 2012, among others). I assume that existence of the EPP-property remains unmotivated at least on C, i.e., in what concerns Ā-movement, which seems to be required for independent syntactic and semantic reasons. Namely, I put forward a simplified version of the Q-movement mechanism, in the spirit of Bošković’s (2007a) unidirectional upward Agree operation, which enables us to dispense with the general EPP-requirement on C.

As for the trigger of Q-movement into CP, I adopt a proposal by Bošković (2007a), who argues that the driving force behind wh-fronting is not any requirement on the C head, but rather a formal requirement on the moving

wh-element itself. As is standardly assumed within MP, movement is triggered by

some formal imperfection —an uninterpretable feature [uF]— that must be checked and deleted. However, Bošković proposes that this imperfection is housed not on the probe, but rather on the goal, i.e., on the moving element itself. The author argues that agreement should be uniformly construed as in (29) (represented at (30)):

(29) α can agree with β iff:

a. α has some uninterpretable feature [uF] and β has a matching interpretable feature [iF];

b. α c-commands β;

c. β is the closest goal to α.

(30) YP Yº XP α[uF] DP X’ β[iF] Xº ... Agree

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According to the logic in (29) and (30), the direction of valuation proceeds in an upward manner: the element that contributes the value (e.g., in the case of φ-features, the nominal) is required to be c-commanded by the element that receives its value derivatively (e.g., the verb).

Secondly, according to Bošković, internal Merge (Move) is a mirror operation with respect to Agree. This means that movement takes place when the syntactic object α endowed with [uF] is initially c-commanded by β with the matching [iF]. That is, α must move over β in order to c-command its checker, as agreement can only take place when [uF] c-commands [iF] (see (29)). In other words, internal Merge is triggered by the need to value a formal imperfection — the uninterpetable feature— through Agree. This idea is represented below:

(31) Principle ‘First Move, then Agree’ (Bošković 2007a)

a. YP Y’ Yº XP β[iF] ZP ... α[uF] Move b. YP ZPi Y’ α[uF] Yº XP β[iF] ZPi ... Agree

Applying Bošković’s (2007a) insight to our Q-based theory, I propose that it is a formal requirement on the moving element —Q or QP, depending on the type of language (see section 2 for discussion)— that forces its own movement into the CP-level. Namely, I assume that the Q-particle bears an uninterpretable instance of the Q-feature ([uQ]), which needs to be valued against the interpretable instance of this feature ([iQ]) on C. Following Bošković, I suggest that feature- checking between C and the Q-particle proceeds in an upward manner. Assuming that the [uQ] feature on Q acts as a probe itself and assuming that a probe must c-command its goal, Q must undergo overt movement to Spec,CP as it needs to c-command its checker, [iQ] on C. Consequently, we can dispense with the additional EPP-requirement on C (cf. (28)). This view is represented below: (32) [Q]-driven movement a. [CP C[iQ] ... [... Q/QP[uQ] ...]] b. [CP Q/QPi[uQ] C[iQ] ... [... Q/QPi ...]] Move c. [CP Q/QPi[uQ] C[iQ] ...] Agree

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As shown in (32b), internal Merge of the Q-particle happens not because of the EPP-feature on the probe (cf. Cable 2007, 2010), but in order to meet the appropriate feature-distribution: [uQ] c-commanding [iQ]. Otherwise, if Q-movement does not happen and the question particle remains in-situ, the structure as in (32a) will not survive at LF, due to the unvalued formal imperfection ([uQ]). Q-movement, however, results in an appropriate configuration: the element that receives the value (Q) c-commands the element that contributes its value through the derivation (C), (32b). As a result, Agree can proceed in an upward direction and [uQ] is removed from the structure, (32c). In sum, I propose that Q-movement in interrogative structures is driven by the Q-particle, as it bears a formal imperfection on itself. Although the feature- distribution I put forward is slightly different from what has been originally proposed in Chomsky (2000, 2001) and assumed by Cable (2007, 2011), I believe that this machinery is more simple and elegant, which is a desirable result. Notice that the attempt to redistribute the interrogative features across the elements involved in the corresponding feature-valuation process is not in itself new. For example, Chomsky (2014) recently suggested that wh-movement into CP is due to the need of the former to check its unvalued instance of the Q-feature against the matching feature on C. Moreover, in the literature on successive cyclic interrogative movement, several authors have simply assumed (normally, by default) that the interrogative head C bears [iQ] and [uwh] features, while the

wh-item enters the derivation with [iwh] and [uQ] (e.g., see the already mentioned

Bošković 2007a and Zeijlstra 2012, among others).