1Week 11a. Wh-movementCAS LX 522Syntax IReminder: Yes-no questionsn Recall that we motivated head-movementa couple of weeks ago in part by lookingat the relation between:n Pat will eat a sandwich.n Will Pat eat a sandwich?n The idea was that Pat in both sentences isin SpecIP where it belongs, but in yes-noquestions the I moves higher, to C.n Willi [IP Pat ti [eat a sandwich]]?Wh-questionsn Wh-questions are “information-seeking”questions, involving a wh-word.n Who, what, when, where, why, HoW, whichn What will they bake?n Observe that what is basically the object of bake.And look how far away it is from bake, the thingthat assigns it a q-role.n Cf also. “echo questions”: I drank WHAT?n Also, notice that I has moved to C here too (likeit does in yes-no questions).What will they bake?n So, we start outwith essentiallythe structure ofThey will bake whatas shown here.n What is a DP, butit’s a wh-DP, a[+WH] DP.What will they bake?What will they bake?n For wh-questions,we have anadditional itemon ourworkbench, a[+Q,+WH] C.n Two features itneeds to check:[+Q], checked bymoving I to C;[+WH] checkedby moving a[+WH] DP toSpecCP.2What will they bake?What will they bake?A-movement vs.Operator movementn Wh-movement of a DP into SpecCP issometimes called (a kind of) Operator movement.n Although it is movement of a DP, this isn’t thesame kind of movement as the other DP-movement (“A-movement”) we’ve seen.n A-movement: Movement to SpecIP (subjects,passive objects, subject raising).n Operator Movement: Movement to SpecCP andother things we’ll talk about later. A.k.a. “A¢-movement”n “A” is for “Argument”—that’s good enough for me.A-movement vs.Operator movementn Case: Whom is the accusative case version of who,although it’s not in common use colloquially.n Whom did you meet?n So: Who/whom/what, etc. are DPs, they’re just specialDPs, [+wh] DPs. And DPs need (and, in the case ofwho/whom, show) case.n Objects generally get case from V. So, we move objectwh-words away from their Case location.n A-movement ends in a Case location.n Operator movement starts in a Case location.Subject wh-questionsn Object wh-questions are pretty clear—we see Imove to C and the wh-word move to SpecCP:n What did John buy?n What will Mary eat?n But subject wh-questions don’t show inversion:n Who left?n Who will eat the sandwich?n Compare:n John left.n John will eat the sandwich.n So does I not move to C? Does who not move toSpecCP?Subject wh-questionsn Simpler: everything works the same way in allwh-questions.n [+Q] C needs I to move up to it.n [+WH] C needs a wh-element in its specifier.n Turns out that this predicts the subject wh-question pattern just as well…n Alert! Radford (section 7.7) follows the oppositepath, supposing that subject wh-questions aredifferent from object wh-questions. His is not astandard assumption (though it has beenentertained periodically), and his justificationdoesn’t apply to the way we’re viewing do-support.3Who left?n Note that I and V are still adjacent.Who left?n So, the difference between subject andobject wh-questions is that nothing gets inthe way between I and the verb in asubject wh-question:n Whoi C+Ij [IP t’i tj [vP ti leave ]]?n Whoi C+Ij [IP John tj [vP meet ti ]]?Embedded questionsn Just like with statement CPs, question CPs canbe embedded (under certain verbs).n I wonder who left.n Cf. I heard that John left. Bill said John left.n I asked who left.n I know who left.n I know what John will buy.n I wonder if John will leave.n Notice, though: It’s not:n *I know what will John buy.n For some reason: No IÆC movement inembedded clauses (English-specific)… only inmatrix clauses do you get IÆC for [+Q] C.Long-distance wh-movementn You can ask a question about something in anembedded clause too…n I said [that John ate a sandwich].n Whati did I say [that John ate ti]?n Mary wondered [whati I said [that John ate ti]].n Note that what gets its q-role from ate.n Note that the main clause C is the question ([+Q,+WH])—the embedded clause C here is a [-Q] CP.n Wh-movement the escapes its clause like this issometimes called “long-distance wh-movement”.Islandsn There are certain things that seem to “trap” wh-elements, though.n Whati did John claim [that Mary bought ti]?n John believes[DP the claim [that Mary bought cheese]].n *Whati does John believe[DP the claim [that Mary bought ti]]?n The claim that… is a DP. What starts inside.CNP Islandsn In general, it is notpossible to extract awh-phrase out of a DP,though you canextract out of anembedded clause thatisn’t inside a DP.n These are calledComplex NP islands.4You know what I blame thison the breakdown of?n I blame this on[DP the breakdown of society].n Questioning society requires extraction of a wh-phrase from inside a DP (the breakdown ofsociety).n *What he was stirring was up trouble has a differentproblem; what is being identified with up trouble,which isn’t a constituent. We’ll come back to verbswith particles like stir up next week.Bounding nodesn What makes islands different? Whatmakes them “opaque” like this?n The idea is essentially that (despiteappearances) wh-movement has to beover relatively short distances.n Islands block wh-movement because theyforce wh-movement to have to go “toofar.”Islandsn Another thing that seems to “trap” a wh-phrase isanother wh-question. (Called wh-islands)n Who bought a cheeseburger at Burger King?n John wondered [who bought a cheeseburger at BK].n *Whati did John wonder [who bought ti at BK]?n *Whoi did John wonder [whatj ti bought tj at BK]?Wh-islandsn So a wh-question is an island:n *What did John wonder [who bought at BK]?n But nevertheless, long-distance wh-movement ispossible.n Whati did John say [that Mary bought ti at BK]?n Whati did John say [that Mary heard [that Sue said [thatBill bought ti at BK]]]?n How can we resolve the idea that wh-movementmust be relatively short with the observation thatwh-movement can escape any number of clauses?Successive cyclicwh-movementn Supposethat when awh-wordmoves, ithas to moveto theclosestSpecCP. Itcan’t skip aSpecCP.What did you hear that they bought?Successive cyclicwh-movementn Supposethat when awh-wordmoves, ithas to moveto theclosestSpecCP. Itcan’t skip aSpecCP.What did you hear that they bought?5Successive cyclicwh-movementn The wh-phrasemoves first to theintermediateSpecCP.What did you hear that they bought?Successive-cyclicmovementn Then, the wh-phrase
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