Wh-copying in German

Crucially, simple and complexwh-phrases actually behave differently not only in multiplewh-interrogatives, but in a number of others constructions in various languages. Of special interest for the purpose of the present study arewh-copying phenomena as these constructions show that the split betweenwh-phrases be-ing operators andwh-phrases not being operators is not a split between simple and complexwh-phrases, but a split between simplewh-phrases andwh-phrases contained in a PP on the one hand and complexwh-phrases on the other: while many complexwh-phrases do not allow copying, presumably because they are not operators, simplewh-phrases, as well aswh-PPs, do. One language in which suchwh-copying phenomena are found is German.

The phenomenon under discussion concerns long-distance movement of wh-phrases out of an embedded clause into the left-periphery of a matrix clause.

In this kind of construction, German allows an overt copy of the moved wh-phrase in the left edge of the embedded clause, as illustrated in (83) – although the sentences are interpreted as containing only onewh-phrase. Note that it is also possible in German to only spell out the higher copy.¹⁷

17I will not discuss examples of sentences with only the higher copy spelled out. However, for a true understanding of this phenomenon it would be necessary to take into account that when only the higher copy is spelled out additional verb movement is required (the example in (83b), with one copy would beWas glaubst du, kauft er?). This, however, is unproblematic for the current analysis.

(83) German

‘Who do you think will win?’

b. Was

‘What do you think will he buy?’

c. Wie

‘How do you think it will end?’

The traditional analysis of this kind of data is that the spelled out copy (i.e., the lower one) is left behind by a sucessive cyclic upward movement (McDaniel 1986;

Fanselow & Mahajan 2000; Höhle 2003; Nunes 2004; Schippers 20012; Pankau 2013; Bayer 1984; 2014). Interestingly, this construction is only possible with wh-operators and is thus banned with complex wh-phrases, as shown in (84) – a situation that parallels the restrictions of English multiplewh-question formation as the grammaticality contrasts also arise through the difference between simple and complexwh-phrases (and as I will discuss later, it also parallels the situation found in many sign languages).

(84) German

*‘Which car do you think will Otto buy?’

b. *Wessen

*‘Whose car do you think that is?’

On van Craenenbroeck’s (2010; 2012) account, the ill-formedness of the examples in (84) is a direct consequence of the complexwh-phrases being base-generated in (the structurally higher) CP₁. Thus, it is not possible to spell out a copy in the embedded clause, simply because there is no such copy (note that the exam-ples would be well-formed if only the first instances of thewh-phrases would be present; cf. Footnote 17). Crucially, however, this construction is only banned with complexwh-phrases that behave in a non-operator way and works quite well with those that do not – and for some reason to be explored, it is not only simplewh-phrases that behave like operators, but alsowh-phrases contained in a

PP. This is illustrated in (85). Note that I marked the construction as being marked – but crucially, it is not ill-formed.¹⁸

(85) Colloquial German

%‘Who do you think is he meeting with?’

b. %Auf

%‘At whom do you think he is angry?’

The examples show that it is indeed possible to copy a complex wh-phrase in Germanwh-copying constructions (McDaniel 1986; Felser 2004; Nunes 2004; van Craenenbroeck 2010). This is, however, only true for PPs containing awh-phrase, likemit X ‘with X’,auf X ‘at X’, orfür X‘for X’.¹⁹

While it is clear that a more elaborated analysis of the presented data is needed, the crucial point is that there are some complexwh-phrases that do not behave as syntactic operators (especially the which-N and whose-N construction) and others that do (PP-wh-phrases, e.g.,with whom).

18Some authors (e.g., Felser 2004) mark similar examples as being marked, while others do not (e.g., van Craenenbroeck 2010). Indeed, some German speakers find examples like the ones in (85) totally natural, while others perceive them as a little marked. I think the reason for the different judgments is that this phenomenon is restricted to colloquial speech styles.

19There are, as already noted, many languages for which there is evidence that simplewh-phrases pattern together withwh-phrases contained in a PP and that the former two behave differently from complexwh-phrases. Due to reasons of space I will only discuss data from German and Italian. For more evidence for the different behavior of simple and complexwh-phrases see the data from English, Frisian, German, Afrikaans, and Dutch in van Craenenbroeck (2010;

2012) and Felser (2004). Additionally, I refer the reader to McDaniel (1986; 1989) for data from Romani to De Villiers et al. (1990), Thornton (1994), Thornton & Crain (1999), and McDaniel et al. (1995) for enlightening data from child English in which sentences with simplewh-phrases often show copying like in (i.a), while the same phenomenon with complexwh-phrases is not found (i.b). Instead children produce sentences like (i.c) (examples from Thornton & Crain 1999:

7).

(i) a. *Who do you think who’s in the box?

b. *Which Smurf do you think which Smurf is hiding in the box?

c. *Which guys did they guess which had the ants in the their pants?