Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement
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Silvio Cruschina
Abstract
It is commonly held that focus fronting exhibits similar properties to wh-movement. The syntactic parallelism between the two types of movement has been supported by the semantic analyses of wh-questions that assume that when wh-words function as interrogative operators, they are inherently focal. The main goal of this paper is to challenge this highly attractive picture of the relationship between wh-words, focus, and movement, and to claim that wh-phrases are not inherently focal. The results of a prosodic production experiment on the distribution of the nuclear pitch accent in Sardinian wh-questions, together with the syntactic properties related to the asymmetry between direct and indirect wh-questions, form the empirical basis of this study.
Abstract
It is commonly held that focus fronting exhibits similar properties to wh-movement. The syntactic parallelism between the two types of movement has been supported by the semantic analyses of wh-questions that assume that when wh-words function as interrogative operators, they are inherently focal. The main goal of this paper is to challenge this highly attractive picture of the relationship between wh-words, focus, and movement, and to claim that wh-phrases are not inherently focal. The results of a prosodic production experiment on the distribution of the nuclear pitch accent in Sardinian wh-questions, together with the syntactic properties related to the asymmetry between direct and indirect wh-questions, form the empirical basis of this study.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood 11
- Chapter 2. Infinitival complement clauses 25
- Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement 49
- Chapter 4. The varieties of temporal anaphora and temporal coincidence 71
- Chapter 5. The structure and interpretation of ‘non-matching’ split interrogatives in Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Differential object marking and scale reversals 117
- Chapter 7. Contact phenomena 131
- Chapter 8. - ŋ plurals in North Lombard varieties 151
- Chapter 9. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages 171
- Chapter 10. Aspect in the acquisition of the Spanish locative paradigm by Italian L2 learners 191
- Chapter 11. Catalan nativization patterns in the light of weighted scalar constraints 205
- Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean 225
- Chapter 13. Very …. extracted 249
- Chapter 14. On adverbial perfect participial clauses in Portuguese varieties and British English 263
- Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony 287
- Chapter 16. Fission in Romance demonstrative-reinforcer constructions 303
- Index 317
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Chapter 1. Processing clitic pronouns outside coargumenthood 11
- Chapter 2. Infinitival complement clauses 25
- Chapter 3. Focus fronting vs. wh -movement 49
- Chapter 4. The varieties of temporal anaphora and temporal coincidence 71
- Chapter 5. The structure and interpretation of ‘non-matching’ split interrogatives in Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Differential object marking and scale reversals 117
- Chapter 7. Contact phenomena 131
- Chapter 8. - ŋ plurals in North Lombard varieties 151
- Chapter 9. Brazilian and European Portuguese and Holmberg’s 2005 typology of null subject languages 171
- Chapter 10. Aspect in the acquisition of the Spanish locative paradigm by Italian L2 learners 191
- Chapter 11. Catalan nativization patterns in the light of weighted scalar constraints 205
- Chapter 12. Temporal marking and (in)accessibility in Capeverdean 225
- Chapter 13. Very …. extracted 249
- Chapter 14. On adverbial perfect participial clauses in Portuguese varieties and British English 263
- Chapter 15. Craindre (“fear”) and expletive negation in diachrony 287
- Chapter 16. Fission in Romance demonstrative-reinforcer constructions 303
- Index 317
