This chapter principally concerned the mechanism of formation of wh-questions. First, it provided a relevant theoretical background regarding question formation.
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I offered a brief review of accounts which consider wh-movement as a secondary effect of movement of a Q-particle (since Katz & Postal 1964 till Hagstrom 1998 and Cable 2007, 2010). On this view, in all languages the syntactic and semantic relations between the interrogative head C and a wh-item are established through the help of a question particle Q, merged with the wh-element. However, the legitimacy of overt wh-movement is parameterized. It basically depends on a way in which the Q-particle is (externally) merged and projected. Thus, in some, but not all languages, Q projects a label, QP, which dominates both the head Q and its wh-containing sister. Meanwhile, in other languages, the Q-particle is adjoined to its sister, and only the latter projects the label. Consequently, this view predicts that languages with overt wh-fronting resort to Q-projection (i.e., the entire QP is fronted), while languages with wh-in-situ resort to Q-adjunction (i.e., Q moves alone, being unable to pied-pipe the wh-constituent).
Moreover, I proposed a simplified version of Cable’s (2007, 2010) Q-based approach and revised the mechanism of wh-/Q-feature-checking. Following Bošković’s (2007a) proposal on a unidirectional upward valuation, I propose a modification of the original Q-based theory regarding the timing of application of the operations Agree and internal Merge. I also adjust the distribution of the particular formal features involved in the derivation of wh-questions. I suggest that Q-movement to Spec,CP precedes Q-agreement and is triggered by the need to build an appropriate structure, in which an uninterpretable instance of the Q-feature on Q c-commands the interpretable one on C.
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CHAPTER 3
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Multiple wh-questions through the prism of Q-theory
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1. Introduction: multiple wh-questions
The previous chapter introduced the revised version of Q-based theory, under which overt movement of wh-constituents in wh-fronting languages is considered as a secondary effect of movement of a Q-particle. As argued, Q-particle moves into the CP level, in order to c-command the interrogative head C and to undergo unidirectional upward Q-agreement. Since wh-fronting languages resort to Q-projection, where a QP node immediately dominates both Q-particle and its sister (a wh-word or a larger unit containing it), Q-movement into CP entails pied-piping of the whole QP projection.
With respect to single wh-questions (i.e., those with one wh-word), we can assume that they are derived along the same lines in all wh-fronting languages. Roughly, within Q-theory, the English, Spanish and Russian single wh-questions in (1) are derived as in (2):
(1) a. [CP [QP Q what] C [did John buy ti]]? (English)
b. ¿ [CP [QP Q qué] C [compró Juan ti]]? (Spanish)
Ø what bought Juan
‘What did Juan buy?’
c. [CP [QP Q čto] C [kupil Ivan ti]]? (Russian)
Ø what bought Ivan
‘What did Ivan buy?’
(2) Derivation of single wh-questions in wh-fronting languages (non-finalversion)
Step 1: Q-particle is merged with a wh-word: [vP [QP Q wh][uQ] v ]
Step 2: Interrogative C is merged into the derivation: [CP C[iQ] [TP T [vP [QP Q wh][uQ] v ]]]
Step 3: QP moves to Spec,CP:
[CP [QP Q wh]i[uQ] C[iQ] [TP T [vP ti v ]]]
Step 4: QP and C undergo Q-agreement: [CP [QP Q wh]i[uQ] C[iQ] [TP T [vP ti v ]]]
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As shown in (2), in every wh-fronting language the wh-item appears at the left edge of a clause as a result of being merged in its base position (vP-internally) with a (phonetically null) Q-particle. The wh-containing QP projection moves into Spec,CP, in order to check its uninterpretable Q-feature, and as a result the
wh-phrase appears at the left edge of the clause.
However, as we will see along this chapter, different patterns of Q-movement can be much better appreciated when multiple wh-questions are considered (i.e., interrogative sentences containing more than one wh-word). As is well-known, languages with overt wh-movement can be divided into two main groups with respect to multiple wh-questions. Consider the examples below:
(3) a. Who1 bought what2? (English)
b. * Who1 what2 bought?
c. * What2 did who1 buy?
(4) a. ¿Quién1 compró qué2? (Spanish)
who bought what ‘Who bought what?’
b. * ¿Quién1 qué2 compró?
who what bought
c. ¿Qué2 compro quién1?
what bought who
(5) a. Koj1 kakvo2 e kupil? (Bulgarian)
who what is bought
‘Who bought what?’ b. * Koj1 e kupil kakvo2?
who is bought what c. * Kakvo2 koj1 e kupil?
what who is bought
(6) a. Kto1 čto2 kupil? (Russian)
who.NOM what.ACC bought
‘Who bought what?’ b. * Kto1 kupil čto2?
who.NOM bought what.ACC
c. Čto2 kto1 kupil?
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In multiple (binary) wh-questions, in languages like English, (3), or Spanish, (4), only one wh-phrase appears preverbally at the leftmost position, while the rest remains in-situ. Meanwhile, in other group of languages —with the so-called
Multiple Wh-Fronting (henceforth, MWF)— all wh-items obligatorily undergo
movement to the left edge of a clause and appear preverbally. The Bulgarian and Russian examples in (5) and (6) illustrate the MWF phenomenon respectively.
Moreover, from the (c) sentences of the above examples, the reader may notice that, apart from the multiple vs. single dichotomy, there is an additional parameter of variation at stake. The most well-known contrast between different patterns of multiple questions formation is exhibited by different sensitivity to Superiority violations across languages, a phenomenon which has been under focus since Chomsky (1973). That is, some languages, like English and Bulgarian, are sensitive to Superiority violations, whereas others like Spanish and Russian are not.
This chapter offers an overview of the attested crosslinguistic variation regarding Q-movement in multiple questions between different wh-fronting languages. I mainly focus on two widely-discussed parameters of variation: whether all wh-items obligatorily appear at the left edge of a clause and whether
wh-phrases are subject to strict word ordering. I also take into account certain
additional aspects of parametric variation, such as sensitivity to Intervention effects and their correlation with Superiority.
In section 2, I focus on the distribution of Superiority effects in monoclausal binary questions in the two Slavic languages exhibiting MWF: Russian and Bulgarian. I address the traditional distinction between two types of MWF languages and consider two different influential proposals made in the literature: (i) CP- vs. IP-absorption distinction (since Rudin 1988; Richards 1997, 2001) and (ii) wh-movement vs. focus-fronting (since Bošković 1998b, 1999, 2001a, 2002a). In section 3, I contemplate the key properties of Russian multiple wh-questions with respect to Superiority and offer some novel data. In section 4, I outline a number of previous proposals made in the literature on Russian single and multiple wh-questions and discuss some challenges they face. In section 5, I introduce some basic assumptions that I adopt regarding the analysis of Superiority and Intervention effects within Q-theory. Section 6 summarizes the main points of this chapter.
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