On some special properties of why in syntax and prosody

Abstract

Luigi Rizzi (Collège de France) * Come Gianni contatterà Piero how Gianni contact.FUT.3SG Piero c. Perché Gianni contatterà Piero why Gianni contact.FUT.3SG Piero 'Why will Gianni contact Piero?' To account for this syntactic asymmetry Rizzi (2001a) proposed that, while other wh-elements are extracted from the IP, perché (why) is externally merged in the left periphery. More precisely, why is first merged in the Spec of Int(errogative), a dedicated left-peripheral position also hosting se (if), the marker of embedded yes/no questions. 1 Whereas other wh-elements target the lower Foc(us) position, which in turn attracts the inflected verb endowed with +Q,Int° is inherently endowed with +Q, hence it does not trigger movement of a verbal element to the left periphery. This captures the absence of obligatory inversion with why.1 See Shlonsky and Soare (2011) for a revised version of this analysis, according to which why is externally merged in the left periphery, but in a lower dedicated functional layer. In this analysis, why reaches its final position in Spec of Int via movement. Crucially, this approach maintains that why is not extracted from the IP since it is first merged in the left periphery.

Focus and Focus Structures in the Romance Languages

“…11 The wh-phrase is typically considered to be the focus of the wh-question in which it occurs, and is therefore incompatible with a (further) narrow focus within the same sentence (Rizzi 1997, Shlonsky andSoare 2011), as illustrated in (39) and (40). 12 The obligatory subject inversion that is found in whquestions in most Romance varieties ( 40) is structurally motivated and should not to be related to the information structure of the sentence (Leonetti 2018, Bianchi et al 2017 A well-known exception to these generalizations is constituted by why-questions, which admit both a preverbal subject and a co-occurring narrow focus (see Rizzi 2001, Shlonsky and Soare 2011, Bocci et al 2021. A great deal of variation characterizes the types and range of wh-elements that admit preverbal subjects in different dialects of Spanish (see Baković 1995and Gutiérrez-Bravo 2005.…”