Abstract
We argue that English why-questions are systematically ambiguous between a purpose and a reason interpretation, similarly to Mandarin, Russian, and Polish (contra Stepanov & Tsai 2008). We argue that the distinct semantic interpretations correspond to two distinct base-generated positions of why. While reason why is base-generated within CP (Rizzi 2001, Ko 2005), purpose why is adjoined to vP (Stepanov & Tsai 2008). Furthermore, we show that English purpose why, similarly to previously reported data from Mandarin, is only compatible with dynamic predicates with agentive subjects. We argue that this selectional restriction follows from two properties: (i) why semantically requires a proposition as its argument, and (ii) only dynamic predicates with agentive subjects have a syntactic structure that accommodates two adjunction sites of the relevant semantic type, i.e., they contain two distinct propositional levels (Bale 2007) and therefore two attachment sites for why. In contrast, propositionally simple predicates only have one propositional level and hence only one possible attachment site, which corresponds to the reason interpretation of why. Evidence for this proposal comes from the observation that only the lower why - associated with the purpose reading - is sensitive to negative islands, which suggests that its attachment site is below negation (vP), whereas the higher why is insensitive to island effects of this sort, which suggests that its base generated position is above negation (CP).
Highlights
Cross-linguistically, why-questions have been shown to be ambiguous between a purpose and a reason interpretation
We will show that this prediction is borne out but we argue that the negative island effect is a weak island effect and not attributable to Relativized Minimality
We have argued that English monoclausal why-questions are systematically ambiguous between a reason and a purpose interpretation, to Mandarin, Russian, and Polish
Summary
Cross-linguistically, why-questions have been shown to be ambiguous between a purpose and a reason interpretation. Only the presupposition in the passive structure is compatible with the context These examples demonstrate that in contrast to the non-stative transitive in (7), the presupposition in stative transitives must necessarily include the subject, providing evidence that there is only one propositional level in stative transitive verbs. The presupposition holds in (9a) and (9c) because the wall was torn down before This test provides evidence that the dynamic predicates used for the current study are propositionally complex and have two propositional levels. Non-agentive predicates only have one propositional level and in turn, they only have one attachment site for why, i.e., spec-CP This correctly predicts that non-agentive predicates are only compatible with the reason interpretation but that dynamic predicates allow both readings.. The evidence for this comes from our third prediction: the weak island should be obviated by existential modals but the weak island effect should reappear with other downward entailing elements, e.g., few
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