13 Parametric variation concerning wh- movement


In this chapter, we discuss some important properties of wh- movement in various languages other than English. As we have seen, wh- phrases undergo movement to Spec(CP) in English. In many languages, however, wh- phrases occur in the same position as the corresponding ordinary phrases. In the first part of the chapter, we present a way of unifying the treatment of languages with and without wh- movement. In the course of doing so, we discuss a variant of wh- movement known as partial wh- movement (Who do you think who is coming?) which occurs in various adult languages as well as in child English. The second part of the chapter focuses on Hungarian, which resembles English in exhibiting wh- movement, but differs from it in that wh- movement targets different positions in questions and relative clauses.


To move or not to move?

Wh- scope

For the purposes of this chapter, it is convenient to introduce the notion of wh- scope. For simplicity, we restrict our attention for the moment to direct questions, and define the notion as in (1).

(1)     The scope of a wh- phrase in a question is determined with respect to some full answer to the question.
The wh- phrase's scope in the question is the IP that corresponds to the root node in the full answer.

In (2), the wh- phrases are highlighted in red, and their scope is indicated by underlining.1

(2) a. Question: Wheni did [IP the visitors arrive ti ] ?
Full answer: [IP The visitors arrived at noon. ]
b. Question:   Whoi do [IP the parents think that the children saw ti ] ?
Full answer: [IPThe parents think that the children saw the teacher. ]

It is useful to think of the wh- phrases in (2) as marking their scope in the sense that they move from inside their scope to the edge of it. In structural terms, a wh- phrase moves to the specifier of the lowest projection that dominates its scope. We will refer to this position as the wh- phrase's scope-marking position or scope position.

Wh- in situ

In English, wh- phrases generally come to occupy their scope position by wh- movement. In other languages, however, wh- phrases do not undergo wh- movement, but instead remain in situ (that is, in the position where the wh- phrase enters the derivation of the question, whether by substitution or adjunction). Such wh- in situ languages include Chinese, Hindi, Korean, and Japanese, among many others. (3) gives the Japanese counterparts of (2).2 Once again, the wh- phrases are highlighted in red, and their scope indicated by underlining. As is evident, a wh- phrase in a wh- in situ language is contained within its scope, rather than moving to the edge of it. (We assume that the question marker -ka is the overt counterpart to the silent complementizer that we have been assuming for English questions; this is why it is represented outside of the IP, in the clause-final position that is expected given the head-final character of Japanese phrase structure.)

The abbreviations used in the glosses are: acc(usative), loc(ative), nom(inative), pl(ural), pres(ent tense), que(stion), top(ic).

(3) a. Question:
[IP kengakusha-wa  itsu tsuki- mashita- ] ka ?
    visitor    top when arrive past       que
'When did the visitors arrive?'
Full answer:
[IP kengakusha-wa  hiru-ni tsuki- mashita ] .
    visitor    top noon at arrive past
'The visitors arrived at noon.'
b. Question:  
[IP ryoshin-wa kodomo-tachi-ga  dare-o   mi- ta   to    omoi- masu- ] ka ?
    parents top child  pl    nom who  acc see past that think pres    que
'Who do the parents think that the children saw?'
Full answer:
[IP ryoshin-wa  kodomo-tachi-ga  sensei- o   mi- ta   to   omoi- masu ] .
    parents top child  pl    nom teacher acc see past that think pres
'The parents think that the children saw the teacher.'

A copy theory of movement

Given the aim of generative syntax of minimizing the differences among languages, it has been proposed to derive wh- in situ questions by wh- movement - contrary to superficial appearances. This becomes possible by slightly revising our ideas about movement. Instead of saying that movement leaves a trace, let us say that it leaves a copy and that Universal Grammar allows parametric variation concerning which copy is pronounced. In English, it is the highest copy of wh- movement that is pronounced;
3 in wh- in situ languages like Japanese, the lowest copy. In what follows, we indicate silent copies by striking them out.

(4) a.   [CP Which movie did [IP the children watch which movie ] ] ?
b.   The parents asked [CP which movie [IP the children watched which movie ] ]
(5) a.  
[CP dono eiga-o [IP kodomo-tachi-wa  dono  eiga- o   mi- mashita- ] ka ] ?
                    child  pl    top which movie acc see past       que
'Which movie did the children watch?'
b.  
ryoshin-wa [CP dono eiga-o [IP kodomo-tachi-ga  dono  eiga- o   mi- ta- ] ka ] kii-ta
parents top                    child  pl    nom which movie acc see past que  ask past
'The parents asked which movie the children watched.'

For convenience, we will continue to use the terms 'wh- movement' and 'wh- in situ' to refer to languages, questions, and so on, in which the highest and lowest copies of a wh- phrase are pronounced, respectively.

Independent evidence in favor of the copy theory of movement comes from the judgments of speakers of certain languages who do not allow ordinary long-distance movement. For instance, there are speakers of German who reject the examples in (6), while accepting the corresponding wh- copy questions in (7).

(6) a. %
Wen     denken die Besucher, dass sie  gesehen haben?
who-acc think  the visitors  that they seen    have
'Who do the visitors think that they saw?'
b. %
Wen     denkst du, dass Martin meint,   dass du  magst?
who-acc think  you that        believes that you like
'Who do you think that Martin believes that you like?'
(7) a.  
Wen     denken die Besucher, wen     sie  gesehen haben?
who-acc think  the visitors  who-acc they seen    have
same as (6a)
b.
Wen     denkst du, wen     Martin meint,   wen     du  magst?
who-acc think  you who-acc        believes who-acc you like
same as (6b)

The overt repetition of the wh- phrase in (7) lends strong support to the idea that wh- phrases move through Spec(CP) in long-distance movement. In addition, it supports the idea that grammars can differ as to which copies of movement are pronounced. (8) and (9) give isomorphic structures for (6) and (7), which differ only in which links are pronounced: only the highest one in ordinary long-distance wh- movement, or all links except the lowest in the coresponding wh- copy questions. ø indicates the silent counterpart of the complementizer dass 'that'; like modern standard English, the varieties of German under discussion allow either Spec(CP) or C, but not both, to be filled with overt material in subordinate clauses.

(8) a.  
[CP Wen denken die Besucher, [CP wen dass sie wen gesehen haben ] ]
b.  
[CP Wen denken die Besucher, [CP wen ø    sie wen gesehen haben ] ]
(9) a.  
[CP Wen denkst du, [CP wen dass Martin meint, [CP wen dass du  wen magst ] ] ]
b.  
[CP Wen denkst du, [CP wen ø    Martin meint, [CP wen ø    du  wen magst ] ] ]

Partial wh- movement

Certain languages exhibit yet a further variant of wh- movement in which the wh- phrase undergoes wh- movement, but to a position lower than its scope position. The scope position itself is occupied by a distinct wh- phrase (generally the language's counterpart of what). This phenomenon, known as partial wh- movement, is illustrated for German in (10).
4 The true (= contentful) wh- phrase is in red, and the scope-marking wh- phrase is highlighted in blue.

(10) a.  
Was  denken die Besucher, wen     ø sie  wen gesehen haben?
what think  the visitors  who-acc   they     seen    have
'Who do the visitors think that they saw?'
b.  
Was  denken die Besucher, mit  wem     ø sie  mit wem gesprochen haben?
what think  the visitors  with who-dat   they         spoken     have
'Who do the visitors think that they talked with?'

For comparison, (11) shows the full wh- movement counterparts of (10), where the wh- phrase functions as a scope marker on its own.5

(11) a.
Wen     denken die Besucher, wen dass sie  wen gesehen haben?
who-acc think  the visitors      that they     seen    have
'Who do the visitors think that they saw?'
b.
Mit  wem     denken die Besucher, mit wem dass sie  mit  wem gesprochen haben?
with who-dat think  the visitors          that they          spoken     have
'Who do the visitors think that they talked with?'

The scope of the wh- phrase needs to be indicated in one of the two ways just presented. The absence of scope marking results in severe ungrammaticality, as shown in (12).

(12) a. *
Denken die Besucher, wen     ø sie  wen gesehen haben?
think  the visitors  who-acc   they     seen    have
Intended meaning: (11a)
b. *
Denken die Besucher, mit  wem     ø sie  mit wem gesprochen haben?
think  the visitors  with who-dat   they         spoken     have
Intended meaning: (11b)

The scope-marking wh- phrase in (10) is often called a wh- expletive. The idea is that the relationship between it and the true wh- phrase is comparable to the relationship between the expletive subject and the logical subject in the expletive there construction. In that construction, the logical subject occupies a VP-internal position marking its function as an argument of a verb (we will remain agnostic about the exact location of the position), and expletive there occupies Spec(IP), marking the subject's function as the subject of predication. It is this higher position that the logical subject occupies in an ordinary sentence without expletive there. As (13) shows, the higher position cannot be left empty.

(13) a.   There remain several vexing problems. - analogous to (10)
b.   Several vexing problems remain several vexing problems. - analogous to (11)
c. * Remain several vexing problems. - analogous to (12)

The analysis of partial wh- movement that we will propose relies on the copy theory of the movement as well as on the idea that the elements that the syntax manipulates are not words per se, but rather features or bundles of features that are spelled out by the morphology. This idea was introduced in earlier chapters in connection with possessive marking on pronouns and tense marking on verbs in English.

  Features Spellout
(14) a. [person: 3]
[number: sing]
[gender: masc]
[case: poss]
his
b. [root: sing]
[tense: past]
sang

In the present case, let us assume that wh- phrases consist of a wh- feature and some remaining substantive content. This syntactic dichotomy corresponds semantically to a so-called wh- quantifier (which takes scope over some proposition) and a restriction on the quantifier. For instance, if the wh- quantifier is restricted to humans, the bundle consisting of the features [wh: +] and [human: +] is spelled out as who. Otherwise, the wh- quantifier is spelled out by default as what. In ordinary wh- movement, the wh- feature and the features that are associated with it in its in-situ position always move together. In partial wh- movement, however, the feature bundle moves only as far as the next highest Spec(CP). After that, the wh- feature moves on alone. When the sentence is spelled out, lone wh- features are spelled out as the language's default wh- word. Under this analysis, partial wh- movement is partial in two distinct (though related) senses. First, the true wh- phrase moves only part of the way to its scope position. Second, the wh- phrase in the scope position contains only part of the features of the true wh- phrase. The derivations that we are proposing for the partial movement in (10a) and its full movement counterpart in (11a) are indicated schematically in (15).

(15) a.   [wh: +] denken die Besucher, [wh: +]
[human: +]
ø sie [wh: +]
[human: +]
gesehen haben?
b.   [wh: +]
[human: +]
denken die Besucher, [wh: +]
[human: +]
dass sie [wh: +]
[human: +]
gesehen haben?

In instances of partial wh- movement with more than two clauses, the true wh- phrase can move to the lowest Spec(CP) or to the intermediate one. The two options are shown in (16a,b). (16c) gives the variant with full wh- movement by way of comparison. For simplicity, we show the questions after the features have been spelled out.

(16) a.  
[CP Was     denkst du, [CP was  ø   Martin meint, [CP wen ø    du  wen magst ] ] ]
b.  
[CP Was     denkst du, [CP wen  ø   Martin meint, [CP wen dass du  wen magst ] ] ] 
c.  
[CP Wen     denkst du, [CP wen dass Martin meint, [CP wen dass du  wen magst ] ] ]
    who-acc think  you        that        believes       that you     like
'Who do you think that Martin believes that you like?'

But what if they're errors?

Although adult English does not exhibit wh- copy questions or partial wh- movement, both types of questions have been reported for child English (Thornton 1995:187), as illustrated in (17) and (18).

(17) a.   Who do think who Grover wants to hug?
b.   Who do you think who's in there, really, really, really?
(18) a.   What do you think what Cookie Monster eats?
b.   What do you think what the baby drinks?

The availability of partial wh- movement in child English raises a subtle issue. We have been assuming that the various constructions that we have been discussing (ordinary long-distance wh- movement, wh- copy questions, and partial wh- movement) are generated by grammars that are parametrically slightly distinct. But the fact that wh- copy questions and partial wh- movement occur in acquisition suggests the possibility that these variants aren't generated by separate grammars, but that they reflect a failure to properly implement structures that are generated by the adult standard grammar. We know that speakers make performance errors under taxing conditions, and long-distance wh- movement imposes a greater processing load than does local wh- movement, especially for speakers with immature cognitive resources. Under this latter view, wh- copy questions and partial wh- movement are comparable to the restart questions that we mentioned in Chapter 1.

(19)     Is the boy who was holding the plate, is he crying?

As it turns out, both views are correct - for different speakers (Crain and Thornton 1998:196-198). Some children produce wh- copy questions and partial wh- movement only rarely and under special conditions (for instance, at the beginning of an experimental session, when they are more nervous than later on). For such children, it is reasonable to assume that the nonadult questions are in fact performance errors. But other children produce the nonadult questions consistently and independently of various factors that favor performance errors (such as beginning of session, young age, and distance between the scope position and the in-situ position, whether measured in terms of numbers of words or number of intervening clauses). For such children, it is reasonable to assume that the nonadult questions are generated by grammars that are parametric options of Universal Grammar, although they happen not to be the grammars in use in the child's language community. Analogous reasoning of course extends to adult usage, leading us to assign a different status to the one-time production of a wh- copy question by a highly embarrassed English speaker than to the consistent production of such questions by an entire speech community.

A final note is in order. Even if it had turned out that wh- copy questions and partial wh- movement were performance errors every time they occurred for all speakers, these phenomena would still provide insight into the speakers' underlying grammars. The reason is that even indubitable performance errors respect the structures generated by the grammar and therefore provide evidence concerning them.6 The canonical example is slips of the tongue, like the classic examples in (20). Such errors provide clear evidence that syllables consist of onsets and rhymes (as indicated by hyphenation), since they involve switching onsets.

(20)     You have h-issed all my m-ystery lectures ... in fact, you have t-asted the whole w-orm.

Speech errors like the hypothetical example in (21), though conceivable in principle, never occur because they do not respect syllable structure.

(21)   * ... in fact, you have ter-sted the whole wa-me.

Analogously, there are hypothetical errors concerning wh- movement that are attested in neither child English nor German. For instance, the examples in (22) involve pronouncing copies of the wh- phrase right after each subject.

(22) a. * Do [IP you what think that [IP Cookie Monster what likes ] ]
intended meaning: 'What do you think that Cookie Monster likes?'
b. *
Glauben [IP die Besucher wen,    dass [IP sie  wen     gesehen haben ] ]
think       the visitors who-acc that    they who-acc seen    have
intended meaning: 'Who do the visitors think that they saw?'

Given the absence of such "crazy" errors, we can conclude that wh- copy questions and partial wh- movement provide evidence for cyclic wh- movement to Spec(CP), parametric variation concerning the spellout of traces, and the existence of syntactic features - completely independently of whether these constructions are performance errors.

Where to move?

Hungarian questions

(23) gives a Hungarian sentence with so-called neutral order.

(23)    
Emöke látta Attilá-t   tegnap    este.
      saw          acc yesterday evening
'Emöke saw Attila last night.'

In such neutral sentences, which are felicitous as answers to the question What happened?, the subject occupies clause-initial position and precedes the verb. By contrast, in wh- questions like (24), the clause-initial position is occupied by the wh- phrase, and the subject follows the finite verb.

(24) a.  
Ki -t   látott Emöke tegnap    este?
who acc saw          yesterday evening
'Who(m) did Emöke see last night?'
b.  
Mikor látta Emöke Attilá-t?
when  saw                acc
'When did Emöke see Attila?'

It is noteworthy that answers to such questions preserve the constituent order of the question when the answer is intended as an exhaustive answer to the question. In fact, under such an interpretation, the variant without subject-verb inversion is ungrammatical.

(25) a.  
Attilá-t   látta Emöke tegnap    este.
       acc saw         yesterday evening
'Emöke saw Attila (and no one else) last night.'
b.  
Tegnap este       látta Emöke Attilá-t.
yesterday evening saw                acc
'Emöke saw Attila last night (and only then).'
(26) a. *
Attilá-t Emöke látta tegnap este.
b. *
Tegnap este Emöke látta Attilá-t.

As expected if focused phrases (including questioned phrases) move to the same syntactic position, questions with focused constituents are ungrammatical in Hungarian.

(27) a. *
Ki -t   tegnap    este    látta Emöke?
who acc yesterday evening saw 
'Who(m) did Emöke see last night?'
b. *
Mikor Attilá-t   látta Emöke?
when         acc saw
'When did Emöke see Attila?'

The constituent order in (24) and (25) is reminiscent of English questions), and so it is natural to propose that focused phrases move to Spec(CP) in Hungarian, with concomitant movement of the verb to C. But contrary to what that proposal predicts, the complementizer hogy 'that' precedes the wh-/focus position in various types of subordinate clauses: in ordinary complement clauses with a focused constituent, in indirect yes/no questions with a focused constituent, and in indirect wh- questions. (Hungarian is a so-called null subject language, so the subjects of finite clauses can be silent, as they are in the matrix clauses in the following examples.)

(28) a.  
Azt mondják, hogy Attilá-t   látta Emöke tegnap    este.
it  say-3pl  that        acc saw         yesterday evening
'They say (it) that Emöke saw (only) Attila last night.'
b.  
Azt mondják, hogy tegnap    este    látta Emöke Attilá-t.
it  say-3pl  that yesterday evening saw                acc
'They say (it) that Emöke saw Attila last night (only).'
(29) a.  
Azt kérdeztük, hogy Attilá-t   látta-e   Emöke tegnap    este.
it  asked-1pl  that        acc saw   que       yesterday evening
'We asked (it) whether Emöke saw (only) Attila last night.'
b.  
Azt kérdeztük, hogy tegnap    este    látta-e   Emöke Attilá-t.
it  asked-1pl  that yesterday evening saw   que              acc
'We asked (it) whether Emöke saw Attila last night (only).'
(30) a.  
Azt kérdeztük, hogy ki -t   látott Emöke tegnap    este.
it  asked-1pl  that who acc saw          yesterday evening
'We asked (it) who(m) Emöke saw last night.'
b.  
Azt kérdeztük, hogy mikor látta Emöke Attilá-t.
it  asked-1pl  that when  saw                acc
'We asked (it) when Emöke saw Attila.'

The examples in (28)-(30) clearly show that the target of focus movement in Hungarian cannot be Spec(CP), but rather must be some lower position. Accordingly, it has been proposed that the clausal structure of Hungarian is as indicated schematically in (31).

(31)     [CP [C hogy [FocP Focus [FocVerb] [IP Subject ... Verb ... Focus ... ] ] ]

It is worth noting that the facts presented above are also consistent with an alternative structure in which FocP and IP in (31) are replaced by IP and VP, respectively. Under this alternative, Spec(IP) would not be the position for subjects, as it is in English, but rather the position for wh- and focused constituents. The canonical position for subjects would be Spec(VP), and nominative case would be checked by finite I in the head-spec configuration, as it clearly is in Welsh and Irish.

Hungarian relative clauses

In addition to Spec(FocP), wh- movement can also target Spec(CP) in Hungarian - namely, in relative clauses. We can't tell this directly since relative pronouns, as in English, can't co-occur with the complementizer.

(32) a.  
a   férfi aki-t   (*hogy) Emöke látott tegnap    este
the man   who acc   that        saw    yesterday evening
'the man who(m) Emöke saw last night'
b.  
a   nap amikor (*hogy) Emöke látta Attilá-t
the day when     that        saw          acc
'the day when Emöke saw Attila'

However, focus movement is possible in relative clauses (though not in questions - recall the ungrammaticality of (27)). This is as expected if relative pronouns move to a position distinct from Spec(FocP).

(33) a.  
a  férfi aki-t   tegnap    este    látott Emöke 
the man  who acc yesterday evening saw   
'the man who(m) Emöke saw last night (only)
b.  
a   nap amikor Attilá-t   látta  Emöke 
the day when          acc saw
'the day when Emöke saw (only) Attila'


Notes

1. In questions with a single wh- phrase, the scope of the wh- phrase coincides with the question's ground (recall the discussion of it clefts in Chapter 2). However, the notions of scope and ground aren't identical, as they don't coincide in more complicated questions with multiple wh- phrases (questions of the type Who saw what?).

2. As noted in Chapter 7, Note 3, topic -wa marking overrides nominative -ga marking in Japanese matrix clauses. For simplicity, we give matrix clauses here, since case marking is not at issue.

3. Even languages that ordinarily require wh- movement allow wh- in situ under certain circumstances. For instance, English echo questions commonly exhibit wh- in situ (see Information versus echo questions for examples), and all but one wh- phrase is required to remain in situ in English multiple wh- questions like (i).

(i) a.   Who who saw what?
b. * Who what who saw what?

4. A classic reference for partial wh- movement is McDaniel 1989, which discusses the phenomenon in German and Romani. Lutz et al. 2000 is a collection of papers providing a cross-linguistic survey of partial wh- movement and wh- scope marking more generally.

5. As we noted in the previous section, not all German speakers accept long-distance wh- movement as in (6).

6. Performance errors also provide insight into the structure of various cognitive domains other than language. For instance, if an instructor misremembers the names of Jeannine and Mark as Jennifer and Michael, that tells us that names are organized in her memory by first letter. Another person might misremember Jeannine as Evelyn because Jeannine resembles Evelyn; for such a person, names would be organized by facial similarity.


Exercises and problems

Exercise 13.1

Given what you know about wh- movement, which (if any) of the following sentences are expected to be grammatical in Hungarian?

(1) a. Relative out of question:
a   férfi aki-nek kérdezik, hogy mi  -t   mondott Emöke 
the man   who dat asked-3pl that what acc told
'the man such that they asked what Emöke told him'
b.
a   titok  ami  -t   kérdezték, hogy ki -nek mondta Emöke 
the secret which acc asked-3pl  that who dat told
'the secret such that they asked to whom Emöke told it'
(2) Relative out of relative:
a   férfi aki-t   Emöke hívta  a   nöt   aki ismeri
the man   who acc       called the woman who knows
'the man such that Emöke called the woman who knows him'
(3) Question out of relative:
Ki- t   hívott Attila a   nöt   aki ismer?
who acc called        the woman who knows
'Who is the person such that Attila called the woman who knows that person?'
(4) a. Question out of question:
Ki- nek kérdezik, hogy mi-  t   mondott Emöke?
who dat asked-3pl that what acc told
'Who is the person such they asked what Emöke told that person?'
b.
Mi-  t   kérdezték, hogy aki-nek mondta Emöke?
what acc asked-3pl  that who dat told
'What is it such that they asked to whom Emöke told it?'