Focus, exhaustivity and the syntax of Wh -interrogatives
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Julia Horvath
Abstract
Hungarian wh-interrogatives are reexamined in light of Horvath’s (2007) Exhaustivity operator (EI-Op) analysis for movements earlier (mis)construed as triggered by a syntactically active [Focus] feature. Taking a fresh look at the EI-Op proposal, the paper reexamines what drives obligatory wh-preposing in interrogatives, its potential landing sites and relation to preposed non-wh-phrases, and analyzes the role played by the syntactic EI-Op, a clausal EI0 head, and the head of CP (Force0) in wh-movement and interpretation. I motivate a variant of the cross-linguistically attested phrasal Q-particle, namely a [Q]-bearing EI-Op heading Hungarian “wh-phrases”, and show the EI0 clausal head to trigger overt “wh-movement”, and the [Q]-feature of the head of CP to only undergo ‘Agree’ with the [Q]-bearing EI-Op phrase (alias wh-phrase).
Abstract
Hungarian wh-interrogatives are reexamined in light of Horvath’s (2007) Exhaustivity operator (EI-Op) analysis for movements earlier (mis)construed as triggered by a syntactically active [Focus] feature. Taking a fresh look at the EI-Op proposal, the paper reexamines what drives obligatory wh-preposing in interrogatives, its potential landing sites and relation to preposed non-wh-phrases, and analyzes the role played by the syntactic EI-Op, a clausal EI0 head, and the head of CP (Force0) in wh-movement and interpretation. I motivate a variant of the cross-linguistically attested phrasal Q-particle, namely a [Q]-bearing EI-Op heading Hungarian “wh-phrases”, and show the EI0 clausal head to trigger overt “wh-movement”, and the [Q]-feature of the head of CP to only undergo ‘Agree’ with the [Q]-bearing EI-Op phrase (alias wh-phrase).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Reanalysis in Hungarian comparative subclauses 5
- Silent people 33
- Clausal Coordinate Ellipsis (CCE) in Hungarian compared to CCE in Dutch, German, and Estonian 45
- Pseudoclefts in Hungarian 67
- Focus, exhaustivity and the syntax of Wh -interrogatives 97
- A phi-agreement constraint on subject extraction in Finnish 133
- Remarks on a novel LFG approach to spatial particle verb constructions in Hungarian 149
- Resultative passives in Finnish 179
- Discourse new, focused, and given 199
- Harmony that cannot be represented 229
- Index 253
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Reanalysis in Hungarian comparative subclauses 5
- Silent people 33
- Clausal Coordinate Ellipsis (CCE) in Hungarian compared to CCE in Dutch, German, and Estonian 45
- Pseudoclefts in Hungarian 67
- Focus, exhaustivity and the syntax of Wh -interrogatives 97
- A phi-agreement constraint on subject extraction in Finnish 133
- Remarks on a novel LFG approach to spatial particle verb constructions in Hungarian 149
- Resultative passives in Finnish 179
- Discourse new, focused, and given 199
- Harmony that cannot be represented 229
- Index 253
