Rightward-movement analyses

Proponents of rightward-movement analyses claim that sign languages differ from spoken languages in that SpecCP (or some similar projection hosting wh-phrases) is right-branching. In the earliest versions of this kind of analysis (e.g., Aarons et al. 1992; Aarons 1994; Neidle et al. 1998) it was assumed that clause-initial wh-phrases in doubling constructions were base-generated in an unla-belled left-branching topic position, as shown in the tree in (98).²³

23The tree is a simpified version of what can be found, for example, in Neidle et al. (1994), taken from Petronio & Lillo-Martin (1997: 27).

(98)

what CP

C IP

nancy buytyesterday

C°

[+wh]

SpecCP what base-generated

topic

An argument in favor of an analysis of clause-initialwh-phrases as topics comes from non-manual markings. It was argued that these clause-initialwh-phrases receive brow-raise just as regular topics in American Sign Language do (Neidle et al. 1998; 2000). However, there are also arguments speaking against this analysis.

Wilbur (2011), for example illustrates that clause-initialwh-elements can occur in embedded clauses without brow-raising, as shown in (99).

(99) American Sign Language (Wilbur 2011: 160) cary wonder what_isusant_ibuy yesterday^wh

‘Cary wonders what Susan bought yesterday.’

Additionally, the behavior of non-manual markers in American Sign Language points in the direction of a right-headed projection attracting thewh-phrase.²⁴ In clause-final wh-questions there are two possible markings. Either the non-manuals only accompany thewh-element or they spread over the whole clause, as illustrated in the examples from Neidle (2002: 76) in (100).

(100) American Sign Language (Neidle 2002: 76) a. arrive who^wh

‘Who arrived?’

b. arrive who^wh

‘Who arrived?’

24Being right-headed, of course, does not imply that this projection is right-branching.

In the latter case, where the non-manuals spread over the whole clause, the in-tensity of the marking is strongest on thewh-element. This can be interpreted, in the spirit of Bahan (1996), as an indication that the head triggering the non-manuals is located in a clause-final position. For Neidle (2002), the non-non-manuals are triggered by the syntactic position of the[+wh]feature, located in C° (as well as in thewh-phrase itself). That the whole clause receives non-manual markings is also true forin-situ questions. The same is true for clause-initial content in-terrogatives. In both cases, the non-manuals obligatorily spread over the whole clause and are disallowed to appear on thewh-sign only, as shown in (101), from Neidle (2002: 77).

(101) American Sign Language (Neidle 2002: 77) a. *who arrive^wh

*‘Who arrived?’

b. *who arrive^wh

*‘Who arrived?’

The spreading facts presented are suggestive. It seems as if the origin of the non-manual marking is in a clause-final position. When thewh-phrase moves to this position the non-manuals only need to occur with thewh-phrase itself. When the wh-phrase stays in-situ or is moved into a clause-initial position, the non-manuals need to spread over the whole clause.

Neidle (2002) claims that the position ofwh-phrases can affect the interpre-tation of questions. To be more precise, clause-finalwh-phrases trigger presup-positions. This is illustrated by the minimal pair in (102). While the clause-final wh-question in (102a) presupposes that someone arrived, the same is not true for thein-situquestion in (102b):

(102) American Sign Language (Neidle 2002) a. A:arrive who^wh

B: #nobody b. A:who arrive^wh

B:#nobody

On Neidle’s (2002) account, focused DPs move into a clause-initial position in the left periphery as claimed by Aarons (1996) (see the discussion in Section 3.2.2).

To account for the presented distribution ofwh-phrases, the behavior of the non-manual markers and the presuppositional facts, it is claimed that clause-final wh-questions are generally focused as they first move to a left-branching focus position that she labels FP and then move from SpecFP to a right-branching CP, arriving at the representation in (103), from Neidle (2002: 82).

(103) CP

FP

SpecFP TP

SpecCP

Unfocusedwh-phrases in contrast must stayin-situ. This then predicts that there should be no clause-final (or clause-initial)wh-questions with an additional fo-cused phrase (as there is only one higher focus projection per clause). According to Neidle (2002: 83), this is indeed the case as shown in the contrast in (104).

(104) ?*American Sign Language (Neidle 2002: 83)

?*Context: I know who will eat the rat, but a. ?*mouse^tm1_iwho eat^wht_i

?*‘Who will eatthe mouse?’

b. ?*mouse^tm1_i

wh

t_jeat t_iwho_j

?*‘Who will eatthe mouse?’

When there is a focused phrase in the specifier of the focus projection, as in (104a) (marked with Aaron’s gloss ‘tm1’ marking contrastive focus), thewh-phrase, in this case who, has to stay in its original position. This means that who cannot move into SpecFP to check its focus features as this position is blocked. Neidle tries to show that such a movement of the wh-phrase to the focus projection is not possible by the ill-formedness of example (104b) in which not only the

object DP mouse is moved (again, to the specifier of FP), but also the subject wh-phrase who is moved (to SpecCP). The ill-formedness of this example can be easily accounted for when assuming that thewh-phrase checks its focus features in the specifier of FP that is blocked in the examples.

Taken together, the rightward-movement accounts presented assume a right-branching specifier as a landing site forwh-movement in sign languages together with a left-branching specifier that is able to host copiedwh-phrases. The copies can be either modeled as base-generated topics (e. .g, Neidle et al. 1994) or as being spelled-out copies that result from movement to SpecCP via SpecFP (Neidle 2002) (although Neidle 2002 does not explicitly discuss this possibility). As I will show in the following discussion of leftward-movement analysis, both rightward-movement accounts fail to predict what is found when it comes towh-doubling in American Sign Language.