Island Effects and NCI Fragment Licensing

Abstract

When extraction occurs out of Complex NP or adjunct islands, the sentence gets unacceptable. That is, extraction of an element out of each island is unacceptable. At this point, it is worthy of notice that while its plain fragment counterpart such as Swukhi-lul ‘Swukhi-ACC`` or sakwa-lul ``apple-ACC`` is acceptable, its negative concord item (hereafter, NCI) fragment counterpart such as amwu-(N)-to ‘any-N``even`` is unacceptable. When the NCI undergoes extraction out of the embedded island to the position in the matrix clause where the negative head appears, it not only shows island effect, but also its trace within the island violates the clause-mate condition with the negative head, which induces the sentence to be totally out. When the NCI fragment appears as a response to a matrix question containing a wh-question in the embedded island, its trace in the embedded clause cannot be licensed by the invisible Neg in the matrix clause. However, there does not arise an island effect in the NCI fragment since ellipsis repairs the problem. By showing that there arises a grammatical contrast between fragment answers to an ECMed wh-question and a matrix question containing a wh-question in the embedded islands, we set forth evidence that would support Merchant``s (2004) and Park``s (2013) stance that the NCI fragment answer to a matrix question containing a wh-question in the embedded clause is not acceptable