1Week 9. Wh-movementCAS LX 522Syntax IRemindern They will bake a cake.n Bake has two thetaroles, the agent(baker, they) and thetheme (baked, acake).n These need to beassigned in the VP.Remindern They will bake acake.n T hasfuture/modal willin it.n It’s a statement, soC is [-Q].Remindern DS: Okn Now, some thingsto fix:n DPs need Case.n TP needs a Spec(EPP).Remindern Object can getaccusative Case frombake.n Bake is transitive.n Bake governs the DPa cake.n Subject needs tomove to satisfy theEPP.Remindern Subject moves toSpecTP.n EPP is satisfied.n Subject can getnominative Casefrom (finite) T.n SS: Ok.2Y/N Q?n What if it had beenWill they bake a cake??n Everything wouldhave been the same,except that (since it isa question), C wouldhave been [+Q] (sincethe beginning, in DStoo)n And, there would beanother thing still tofix: [+Q] C needs a T.Y/N Q?n So, T moves toC.n [+Q] feature ofC is “taken careof”.n SS: Ok.Wh-questionsn Wh-questions are information-seeking questions(vs. yes/no 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 What has John baked?Wh-questionsn Wh-questionsare questions,but with anextra [+WH]feature in C.n A [+WH]feature on Cworks kind oflike the EPP: Cneeds a [+wh]element in itsspecifier.n 2 things tosolve:n [+Q] C needs Tn [+WH] C needsa [+wh] spec.Wh-questionsn 1 thing to solve:n √[+Q] C needs Tn [+WH] C needsa [+wh] spec.n Wh-movementof what toSpecCP willsolve theproblem.Wh-questions3A-movement vs. A¢-movementn Wh-movement of a DP into SpecCP issometimes called (a kind of) A¢-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 SpecTP (subjects,passive objects, unaccusatives, subject raising).n A¢-movement: Movement to SpecCP and otherthings we’ll talk about later.n “A” is for “Argument”—good enough for me.A-movement vs. A¢-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 justspecial DPs, [+wh] DPs. And DPs need (and, inthe case of who/whom, show) case.n Objects generally get case from V. So, we moveobject wh-words away from their Case location.A- vs. A’-movementn A-movement ends in a Case location.n A’-movement starts in a Case location.n So, consider:n What was broken?n Passive—what can’t get Case in its DS position (sisterof V).n What needs to get Case, standard procedure inpassives is DP-movement (A-movement) to SpecTP.n Then, what needs to get to SpecCP.Aside: tense and aspectn In order to bring our view of participles more inline with our view of tense, let’s complicate ourview of auxiliary+participle constructions a bit.n Tense: Time with respect to a reference time (insimple sentences, generally the utterance time).n Past: John left. (before now)n Present: John knows French. (now)n Future: John will eat caviar. (after now)Aside: tense and aspectn Aspect: The relation between the time Tensepoints to and the event.n Perfective: John had written the letter(before now, already done—have+-en)n Progressive: John was writing the letter(before now, ongoing—be+-ing)n Passive: The letter was written(before now, passive—be+-en).n So, let’s treat Aspect like Tense—an affix thatheads its own projection.Aside: tense and aspectn Where is AspP?n John has been running.n We can think of this as:n John [past] have -en be -ing runn Where have moves to T, pronounced withT as has, be is pronounced with -en as been,and -ing is pronounced with run.n So, there’s an AspP above each VP…4Tense andaspectn They are writing theletter.A little evidence?n Consider this:n John will leave and Mary will leave too.n Hypothesis: Ellipsis of the second VP ispossible where it is identical to the first.n John left and Mary will leave too.n John left and Mary did leave too.n Why is this possible? Left and leave arenot the same.J left and M will — too.J will have left and M will too.What was broken?n So, back to the problem: We were wonderingabout wh-movement in What was broken?n What gets the theme q-role, but broken is passive,so there is no external q-role and no caseassigned to the object.n What needs case, and TP needs a specifier, so itmoves up to SpecTP (A-movement).n CP needs a [+wh] specifier, so it moves on toSpecCP.What was broken?5What was broken?Subject wh-questionsn Object wh-questions are pretty clear—we see Tmove 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 T not move to C? Does who not move toSpecCP?Subject wh-questionsn A simpler analysis is just to suppose thateverything works the same way in all wh-questions.n [+Q] C needs T to move up to it.n [+WH] C needs a wh-element in its specifier.n Turns out that this predicts the subjectwh-question pattern just as well…Who left?Who left?n So, the difference between subject andobject wh-questions is that nothing gets inthe way between T and the verb in asubject wh-question:n Whoi Tj … t’i tj … ti leave?n Whoi Tj John tj 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 TÆC movement inembedded clauses (English-specific)… only inmatrix clauses do you get TÆC for [+Q] C.6Long-distance 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[the claim [that Mary bought cheese]].n *What does