Abstract
This paper is concerned with two variants of Wh-movement, +Wh-question-movement and topicalization. Drawing on German material, we argue that they crucially differ as to the features of the landing sites: Wh-question movement is movement of +Wh-phrases into A-bar positions marked by +Wh, which assigns clausal scope to the +Wh-phrases; topicalization is movement of XP-phrases into A-bar positions unmarked by +Wh. Since +Wh-phrases are also XP-phrases, our account predicts that +Wh-phrases may undergo not only +Wh-question movement, but also topicalization, i.e., that they can be Wh-moved without the scope effects typical of +Wh-interrogatives. This prediction is borne out by the existence of Wh-imperatives in German, i.e., long distance extractions of ±Wh-phrases into imperative clauses, which we discuss in detail. It is shown that +Wh-imperatives presuppose complements with an initial +Wh-phrase, which is topicalized into the matrix clause, thus showing conclusively that scope assignment is independent of Wh-movement.
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