Wh-scope Marking Research Articles

Wh-Scope Marking in Japanese: Evidence for the Indirect-Dependency Approach

The goal of this squib is to tease apart two competing approaches to wh-scope marking, the direct-dependency approach and the indirect-dependency approach, by introducing Japanese wh-scope marking. The two approaches make different predictions regarding the type of the embedded clause in wh-scope-marking constructions. The embedded clause is regarded as declarative under the direct-dependency approach but as interrogative under the indirect-dependency approach. What is especially interesting in this respect is that Japanese wh-scope marking requires the embedded clause to be marked by the interrogative complementizer ka. Japanese wh-scope marking thus provides clear morphological evidence for the indirect-dependency approach.

Derivational Complexity in EFL Learners’ Development of Bi-clausal Wh-questions

This paper aims to investigate Korean learners’ interlanguage with respect to the production of English bi-clausal wh-questions. One hundred seven adult Korean-speaking learners of English in three proficiency groups took part in a production task designed to elicit English bi-clausal wh-questions. The study specifically asked what interlanguage structures Korean EFL learners would produce and whether the structures would change as learners’ English proficiency advances. The results revealed that Korean EFL learners produced a range of alternative bi-clausal structures, including wh-scope marking, silent scope marking, wh-scope marking with embedded wh-in-situ, L1 clause order, and wh-about-wh type constructions. Comparison of three proficiency groups showed that as the learners’ English proficiency increases, they tend to produce an increasing number of derivationally more complex alternatives. It is argued that derivational complexity plays a role in the developmental process of Korean EFL learners’ interlanguage for bi-clausal wh-questions.

Introducing the Special Issue: Clausal and Nominal Complements in Monolingual and Bilingual Grammars

To introduce this Special Issue entitled Clausal and Nominal Complements in Monolingual and Bilingual Grammars, we begin by explaining what originally motivated this Special Issue [...]

Clausal Subordination and the Structure of the Verbal Phrase

In his first approach to recursion in clausal embedding, Chomsky (1957) postulates a proform in the matrix clause linked to an independently constructed clause that, via an application of the generalised transformation, eventually becomes the matrix verb’s complement. Chomsky (1965) replaces this with a direct clausal embedding analysis, with clausal recursion in the base component of the grammar. I argue here that, while direct clausal recursion is certainly needed, an update to the Chomsky’s (1957) approach (minus the application of the generalised transformation) deserves a prominent place in syntactic theory as well. The discussion is based on data from Dutch, German, and Hungarian. This paper addresses the role of presuppositionality in the context of clausal coordination, the analysis of the so-called wh-scope marking construction, and the importance of Agree in connection with a subordinate clause’s transparency or opacity to extraction. Central in the analysis is a perspective on the structure of the verbal phrase which accommodates two discrete structural positions for the object.

Interrogative Slifting: More syntactic, less parenthetical

In this article we re-assess the recent analysis of interrogative Slifting (e.g., Who is a Martian, do you think?) proposed in Haddican et al. (2014). In this analysis, the two component clauses have an indirect syntactic relation to each other, and the semantic and pragmatic relationship between the “slift” question and the main clause is conceived around the notion of evidentiality. We advance an alternative proposal whereby interrogative Slifting can be construed more on a par with wh-scope marking questions attested in languages like German or Hindi. Placing interrogative Slifting alongside wh-scope marking, a more familiar and better-studied construction type, avoids certain empirical difficulties of the original analysis and paves a way toward a uniform treatment of its syntactic, semantic and interface properties.

Overriding syntactic islands with prosodically marked wh-scope in South Kyŏngsang Korean and two dialects of Japanese

This article explores the effect of discourse context and prosody on the resolution ofwh-scope ambiguity in Tokyo Japanese, Fukuoka Japanese, and South Kyŏngsang Korean. It focuses onwh-islands in particular. There is little consensus in the literature as to whetherwh-island effects are present in Japanese or Korean (Huang 1982, Nishigauchi 1990, Lee 1982, Suh 1987, among others). A production study, in which a scope-ambiguouswh-interrogative was preceded by a disambiguating discourse context, demonstrates that speakers’ scope interpretation is consistent with the preceding discourse context. An additional comprehension study reveals that prosodicwh-scope marking observed in the languages studied improves the acceptability of the matrix scope readings in violation ofwh-islands. The experimental results support the view thatwh-island effects can be overridden by plausible discourse contexts as well as the appropriate prosodic marking ofwh-scope. These results highlight the interaction of grammatical knowledge, contextual factors, and prosody.

Syntactic creativity in second language English: wh-scope marking in Japanese-English interlanguage

This article documents a fairly rare kind of interlanguage phenomenon, namely one in which interlanguages exhibit syntactic constructions that are grammatical neither in a learner’s native language nor in his or her target language, but are nevertheless typologically attested. The target construction is wh-scope marking, a cross-linguistically attested form of complex question formation. Using an elicited production experiment, an off-line acceptability judgment task and an on-line acceptability judgment task, it is argued that wh-scope marking is a genuine phenomenon in Japanese—English interlanguages despite the fact that it is ungrammatical both in English and in Japanese. Given that the acquisition of wh-scope marking cannot be explained by these learners’ first language nor by their target language, the current study investigates what other mechanism these learners might be drawing on in their acquisition process. The article proposes that wh-scope marking in Japanese—English interlanguages results from a simplification strategy that learners adopt in order to ease the processing burden.

Reconsidering the Indirect Dependency Approach to Wh-Scope Marking

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Indirect scope marking again: a case for generalized question formation

In this paper we describe and analyse a particular scope marking construction that has not received attention in the generative literature so far: scope marking into relative and noun-associate clauses, which we will refer to as adjunct scope marking. In this type of scope marking system, a wh-element in an embedded adjunct clause takes matrix scope when it occurs in a clause that syntactically and semantically modifies a wh-phrase in the matrix. These facts provide unambiguous evidence for the indirect dependency approach to wh-scope marking advocated by Dayal (1994, Natural Language Semantics, 2, 137–190; 2000, Scope Marking: Cross linguistic variation in direct dependency. In U. Lutz, G. Muller, & A. V. Stechow (Eds.), Scope Marking (pp. 157–193). Amsterdam: John Benjamins), where the embedded question provides a semantic restriction for the matrix wh-element. Dayal’s theory will be extended to provide a compositional analysis of these constructions. The extended approach argues for a generalization of the question-formation procedure to different clause types, as first advocated in Sternefeld (2001, Partial movement constructions, pied piping, and higher order choice functions. In C. Fery, & W. Sternefeld (Eds.), Audiatur Vox Sapientiae. A Festschrift for Arnim von Stechow (pp. 473–486). Berlin: Akademieverlag).

Differences between the Wh-Scope-Marking and Wh-Copy Constructions in Passamaquoddy

Several phenomena in Passamaquoddy clearly distinguish wh-scope marking with ‘what’ from an apparently similar wh-copy construction. These facts argue for a theory of wh-scope marking like that in Bruening 2004 (based on Dayal 1994), where the embedded question is the syntactic and semantic restriction on the matrix wh-word ‘what’. The wh-copy construction, in contrast, is best analyzed as spelling out multiple copies of a long-distance movement chain. This copy theory is extended to scope marking with tan and comparatives in Passamaquoddy.

Disjunction in Kannada and Korean

Abstract. This paper compares disjunction in Kannada and Korean and examines the morpho-syntactic properties of it in these languages, focusing on Kannada -oo/illa and Korean -na. Kannada and Korean are genealogically unrelated, but share SOV word order. It is thus expected that the disjunction head follow its complement. Indeed, Kannada -oo and Korean -na follow their comple-ments. What is truly intriguing is that it shows surprisingly parallel properties. For example, Kan-nada -oo and Korean -na not only yield disjunction but also invoke indirect question interpretation. That is, both of them are used as a disjunctive conjunct as well as a question marker. In this paper, we examine the parallels and differences between the disjunction in these languages and show that the conjunctive and disjunctive reading is expressed in different modes. Under the present analysis, we can readily explain the indirect question formation, wh-scope marking, and the dummy wh-phrases in the oo-complementation. We also show that the existential quantifier interpretation of wh-indefinites plus -oo can be accounted for, assuming -oo to be a wh-question marker. Unlike what Amritavalli (2003) predicts, wh-indefinites plus disjunctive morpheme yields universal quantifier interpretations in languages like English, Japanese, and Korean.

Successive cyclicity as residual wh-scope marking

We argue that the syntactic structure of wh-scope marking questions understood in the sense of the Indirect Dependency Approach (Dayal, 1994) is utilized in standard long-distance wh-questions, with some important differences at the derivational level. In essence, long-distance questions involve an (abstract) wh-scope marker which initially forms a constituent with an embedded clause. Long-distance wh-movement becomes possible when the (abstract) wh-scope marker is able to undergo incorporation with the matrix verb, ‘freeing up’ the path for the wh-phrase originating in the embedded clause, to proceed beyond a finite clause boundary. The proposal formalizes a long-standing intuition behind an intuitive notion of ‘bridgehood’, and enables us to provide a simple and conceptually appealing explanation to the effect of ‘successive cyclicity’ in wh-movement, which has long resisted a satisfactory explanation in the literature. It also allows us to explain a near complementarity of the ‘long-distance’ and ‘ wh-scope marking’ strategies in languages of the world, stating the relevant parameter in terms of lexical properties of wh-scope markers.

Two Types of Wh-Scope Marking in Passamaquoddy

There are two competing analyses of wh-scope marking in the world's languages: the direct dependency analysis, which posits LF movement of an embedded wh-phrase; and the indirect dependency analysis, which does not. I show here that both analyses are necessary to account for wh-scope marking: Passamaquoddy (Algonquian) actually possesses two different scope marking constructions, which I argue to differ in exactly the ways that would be expected if one were a direct dependency and the other an indirect dependency. The facts of Passamaquoddy also argue for a syntactic analysis of the indirect dependency that generates the scope marker and the embedded question as a constituent.

Wh -scope marking. Edited by Uli Lutz, Gereon M??ller, and Arnim von Stechow. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 37.) Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2000. Pp. vi, 483. Hardcover. $98.00.

The edited volume under review contains an introduction followed by fifteen articles, most of which grew out of a workshop on wh-scope marking held in December 1995 at the University of Tübingen. Earlier versions of twelve of the contributions to the present collection have previously appeared in the workshop proceedings edited by Lutz and Müller (1996). Several of these have undergone rather substantial changes, though, and three articles (Cheng, Cole and Hermon, and Horvath), as well as the editors' introduction, were not included in the earlier collection of working papers at all.

Multiple WH-Phrases and the WH-Scope-Marker Strategy in Hungarian Interrogatives

The paper assesses earlier analyses of the Wh-scope-marker/partial Wh-movement phenomenon and tests an alternative account developed on the basis of Hungarian in Horvath (1995; to appear) in light of novel types of evidence, involving scope-marker constructions with multiple contentive Wh-phrases in their embedded clause.Multiple Wh data in Hungarian are shown to offer an ideal testing ground, due to the variety of syntactic options they display. After reviewing the two major syntactically distinct types of multiple Wh-questions, we explore the adequacy of direct Wh-dependency/Wh-chain accounts and indirect Wh-dependency/CP-as-associate accounts of Wh scope-marking. We discuss three distinct sets of phenomena involving multiple Wh-phrases generated in the embedded CP of the scope-marker construction, which differ from each other in terms of having interrogative ([+WH]) vs. declarative ([-WH]) selecting matrix predicates, and in terms of the syntactic position of the multiple Wh-phrases within their embedded CP. The first two patterns analyzed will confirm Horvath's (1995; to appear) conclusion regarding the inadequacy of any direct dependency account, and the superiority of the indirect dependency approach for this empirical domain. The third pattern of data, involving split multiple Wh-interpretations, will be shown to provide (further) evidence in favor of a syntacticassociation between the scope marker and the embedded CP motivated in Horvath (1995; to appear), as opposed to Dayal's (1994) purely semantics-basedindirect dependency account.