Wh-movement and the syntax of sluicing

Abstract

Sluicing – the elliptical construction in which all of a constituent question goes missing except for the interrogative phrase – is commonly analyzed as involving movement of the interrogative phrase to Spec-CP followed by deletion of TP (Ross 1969, Merchant 2001). In this paper, I examine how well the movement-plus-deletion analysis extends to Farsi, a wh-in situ language that, surprisingly, has a sluicing construction nearly identical to its English counterpart. I argue that the interrogative phrase in Farsi sluicing escapes deletion not by wh-movement as in English but by a type of focus movement. This operation, which normally applies very generally and is optional, is restricted in sluicing contexts in two ways: (i) it is obligatory, and (ii) it only applies to interrogative phrases. I propose a formal implementation that integrates these two properties into the licensing requirement on deletion, advancing the current understanding of the syntax of sluicing.

The Role of Prosody in the Identification of Persian Sentence Types: Declarative or Wh-question?

“…In fronted wh-questions the wh-phrase moves to the beginning of the sentence to form a wh-question (see example 1) whereas in wh-in-situ questions the wh-phrase does not move to the sentence-initial position (Carnie 2007;Chomsky 1977). One of the languages which is characterized by wh-in-situ is Persian (Abedi et al 2012;Adli 2007;Gorjian et al 2012;Kahnemuyipour 2009;Karimi 2005;Karimi and Taleghani 2007;Lotfi 2003;Megerdoomian and Ganjavi 2000;Mirsaeedi 2006;Toosarvandani 2008). In Persian, wh-questions are in-situ by default; the wh-phrase does not need to move to the beginning of the sentence, rather it occurs at the same site where its declarative counterpart is expected to occur (see example 2).…”

A Comparative Study of WH-Movement in Urdu and English: A Minimalist Perspective

“…In some languages in which Wh-expression does not move from its authoritative position towards Specifier position of CP, the movement said to take place at the semantic level. In simple terms, according to Simpson and Bhattacharya (2003), such languages are regarded as "Wh-in-situ language, in which movement occurs but not visible at S. structure of the sentence and the movement of Wh-word occurs at logical form (LF) of the language-independent component of human language faculty and used for interrogative purposes (Toosarvandani, 2008). In Government and Binding theory, it is maintained though Wh-phrases do not move in a syntactic part in Wh-in-situ languages, a rule such as Wh-movement in logical form is applied (Manetta, 2010).…”

Polarity Items under Ellipsis

“…In this appendix, I present a formal version of the identity requirement on ellipsis alluded to in the body of the paper, implemented by an E-feature. (For development and discussion of the E-feature, see Merchant 2001, van Craenenbroeck and Lipták 2006, Vicente 2006, Corver and van Koppen 2007, 2009, Ha 2007, Toosarvandani 2008, Aelbrecht 2009, van Craenenbroeck and Lipták 2010 Recall the voice mismatch asymmetry, and note that focussed elements can be disregarded as well:…”