Simple and complex wh-phrases

While it is not possible to move several wh-phrases into the left periphery in English, it is well-known that the choice of thewh-element to be moved is not

16Note that Aboh & Pfau (2010) suggest that intonation (in spoken languages) and non-manual markings (in sign languages) are indicators of the Inter°. On the assumption that the interroga-tive force in polar and constituent questions is the same, we need to ask why there are so many spoken languages with different intonational patterns in polar and constituent interrogatives

random. Instead, thewh-phrase which is closest to SpecCP has to move while all otherwh-phrases need to stayin-situ. This phenomenon, known under the labels

‘Superiority Effect’, ‘Shortest Move Principle’, or ‘Attract Closest’, is illustrated in (77a) and (77b). While the sentence in (77a) is well-formed given that the subject-wh-phrase is moved as it is structurally closer to SpecCP (or the head attracting it), moving the structurally lower object-wh-phrase to SpecCP (or whatever its exact landing site may be), as in (77b) violates the Shortest Move Principle and leads to an ill-formed structure.

(77) a. *Who will drink what?

b. *What will who drink?

Although this generalization is very stable, it has long been recognized that there are some exceptions, as shown in (78) (this was first observed in a series of un-published papers by Reinhart 1990a; 1987; 1990b).

(78) *What did which student drink?

While thewh-question in (77b) is ill-formed because the object-wh-elementwhat does not obey the Shortest Move Principle, the structure in (78) is fine, although the same movement operation took place, as in both cases, (77b) and (78), it is the object-wh-phrase that is being preposed. The only difference between the two is that the ill-formed structure involves a simple (who) and the well-formed structure a complex wh-phrase (which student). A similar contrast is shown in (79), from Reinhart (1990b: 4–5). This minimal pair illustrates that simple wh-adjuncts are not well-formedin-situin awh-island (79a), but complexwh-phrases are (79b).

(79) a. *Who fainted when you behaved how?

b. *Who fainted when you behaved which way?

Following van Craenenbroeck (2010), I argue that simplewh-phrases, likewho, what, orhow, are syntactic operators while at least some complexwh-phrases are not (see also Cinque 1986; Pesetsky 1987; Dobrovie-Sorin 1990; Grewendorf 2012).

Thus, while the movement ofwhatinto a scope-taking position is blocked in (77b) because of the intervening operatorwho, the same movement is not blocked in (78), as the complexwh-phrasewhich studentis not an operator and thus does not intervene. In other words:wh-phrases in English move into the left periphery to take scope over the clause. When two or morewh-phrases are present in a clause,

the structurally highestwh-phrase that is a syntactic operator is moved and the lower ones remainin-situ(at least at PF).

Despite their different behavior in multiple wh-questions, both simple and complexwh-phrases are able to type a clause as awh-question (if one assumes thatwh-movement is involved in clause-typing) and both are able to create op-erator-variable dependencies. Without going into too much detail, I quickly il-lustrate that both simple and complexwh-phrases show the typical properties of operator-variable dependencies in (80) and (81), both from van Craenenbroeck (2010: 240). The examples in (80) illustrate that both are sensitive to weak cross-over effects and (81) shows that both can license parasitic gaps.

(80) a. *Who_idoes his_imother liket_i b. *Which boyidoes hisimother liketi

(81) a. *What_idid you filet_iwithout readinge_i? b. *Which book_idid you filet_iwithout readinge_i?

To account for these facts, van Craenenbroeck (2010; 2012) proposes to split up the CP into two projections, one responsible for clause-typing, called CP₁, and one for creating operator-variable dependencies, called CP2. While CP1contains a question feature, CP2contains an operator feature. This is illustrated in (82).

(82) CP₁

C₁ C₁°

[+Q]

CP₂

C₂ C₂°

[+Op]

IP nancy buy Note that splitting up the CP in this way is rather uncontroversial as it is generally assumed that the CP consists of a whole array of functional projections (Rizzi

1997; 2001). Similar accounts can be found all over the literature (e.g., Poletto &

Pollock 2002; Zanuttini & Portner 2003). In fact, it resembles the proposal by Aboh & Pfau (2010) of splitting up the CP into several projections that can host different types ofwh-phrases (see the previous subsection).

On van Craenenbroek’s account, simplewh-phrases move via SpecCP2to Spec-CP1to check both the operator as well as the clause-typing feature. Complex wh-phrases are base-generated in SpecCP₁ only checking the clause-typing feature while the operator feature is checked via empty operator movement from within the IP to SpecCP2. Splitting up the CP in this way makes sense for at least two reasons. First, from a Cartographic perspective it is desirable to assume that two distinct functions are represented in two heads (see the discussion of the One Feature One Head Principle on page 51). Second, the fact that simplewh-phrases behave differently from complexwh-phrases in multiplewh-questions has to be accounted for in some way.