FACTORES SOCIALES PRESENTES EN EL DESARROLLO DEL

There has been extensive debate in the literature whether or not WH phrases in situ move at LF cross-linguistically. One camp argues that WH phrases in situ move covertly at LF, the other that WH phrases in situ remain in situ at all times. The movement approach to WH in situ dates back to Chomsky (1977) and May (1977), and was developed by Huang (1982) and May (1985), amongst others.

One of the main original arguments for movement of WH phrases in situ at LF is based on the complement-selection properties of verbs such as wonder, believe and know. In English, wonder requires an indirect question complement (cf. (6)), believe takes a non-interrogative prepositional argument (cf. (7)), and know allows either type of complement (cf. (8)):

(6) a. John wonders who Mary saw.

b. *Who does John wonder (that) Mary saw?

(7) a. *John believes who Mary saw. b. Who does John believe Mary saw?

(8) a. John knows who Mary saw. b. Who does John know Mary saw?

In Chinese, although the WH phrase remains in situ, the counterparts of (6), (7) and (8) receive the same interpretation:

(9) Zhangsan xiang-zhidao Mary kanjian shei. Zhangsan wonder Mary saw who a. ‘Zhangsan wonders who Mary saw. ’

b. * ‘Who does John wonder (that) Mary saw?’

(Chinese)

(10) Zhangsan xiangxin Mary kanjian shei. Zhangsan believe Mary saw who a. ‘Who did Zhangsan believe Mary saw?’ b. * ‘John believes who Mary saw.’

(Chinese)

(11) Zhangsan zhidao Mary kanjian shei.

Zhangsan know Mary saw who

a. ‘Zhangsan knows who Mary saw. ’ b. ‘Who does Zhangsan know Mary saw?’

(Chinese)

According to the movement theory, the difference between English and Chinese single WH questions is simply that in English WH phrases move overtly, prior to S-structure (or Spell-Out), whereas in Chinese WH phrases move covertly, in the LF component of the grammar (after Spell-Out).

Despite the similarities between English and Chinese questions in terms of distribution, important differences between the two languages have been noticed. One crucial difference concerns subjacency. In English, (overt) extraction of WH phrases is sensitive to subjacency, whereas in Chinese (covert) movement is not (Huang 1982) (abstracting away from WH phrases like ‘why’);^

(12) Ta xiang-zhidao SKEI maile shenme? (Chinese) he wonder who bought what

'What X, X a thing, he wonders who bought x? ’

(13) ?What; does he wonder WIIO bought t;? (English)

'What x ,x a thing, he wonders who bought x? '

Chinese WHl phrases in situ thus behave like English WH phrases in situ in multiple- WH-constructions. It has also been observed that multiple-WH-constructions are not sensitive to subjacency:

(14) Who wonders WHO bought what?

On the basis of these data, Huang (1982) reaches the conclusion that subjacency holds at S-structure and is not operative at LF. Consequently, covert movement is less restricted than overt movement.

However, there are two problems with this claim, one theoretical, the other empirical. As already pointed out in the introduction, under minimalist assumptions, the derivation from the Numeration to LF is uniform. S-structure has been rejected. Spell-Out is not a level of representation, but an operation, which can apply at any point. Therefore, it is impossible for subjacency, or indeed any other condition, to apply at Spell-Out.

The second problem is that there is empirical evidence to suggest that, as argued by Reinhart (1998), subjacency does indeed hold at LF: comparatives and other elliptical constructions yield subjacency effects, indicating that in (15) the associate -

the nominal expression - moves up to ‘more’. This movement is not clause-bound, as indicated in (15a), but must nevertheless obey subjacency as shown in (15b);

(15) a. More people said that they will vote for Blair in the last poll than for Hague, b. ?*More people who voted for Blair complained, than Hague.

On the basis of these facts, Reinhart (1997, 1998) takes the view that WH phrases in situ do not obey subjacency simply because they do not move.

Reinhart’s theory is the most recent account in a tradition which views WH phrases in situ as pure variables involving no movement. This approach originates in Baker (1970), according to whom WH phrases in English WH constructions are directly bound by an abstract Q morpheme. Nishigaushi (1986) and Pesetsky (1987) build on this insight by adding the mechanism of unselective binding (Heim 1982). On their view, the Q operator unselectively binds the variable in the WH phrase in situ. Pesetsky’s analysis is nevertheless different from Baker’s and Nishigaushi’s in that it applies only to so-called D(iscourse)-linked WH phrases.

The unselective binding account as envisaged by Pesetsky is criticised by Reinhart (1997, 1998) on the grounds that it cannot yield the right semantics. The argument goes as follows. In (16), if the semantic restriction in situ is left in situ, as indicated in (16a), anything which is not a philosopher could be a value for the variable y:

(16) [Who will be offended] [if we invite which philosopher]?

a. 'For which <x, y>, if we im ite y and y is a philosopher, the?i x will he offended. '

Assuming the semantics of questions proposed by Karttunen (1977), according to which questions denote the set of propositions that are true answers to it, a possible answer to (16) is Lucie will be offended i f we invite Donald Duck Of course, an answer to a question like (16) naturally requires that the answer involves a philosopher and not an entity which is not a philosopher. (16b), not (16a), is what the question is asking. In (16a), the sentence ends up a necessary truth in every world lacking philosophers, because the semantic restriction philosopher occurs in the antecedent clause of an //-clause. Clearly, the semantic restriction somehow needs to be pulled out of the ^ clau se in order to obtain the correct semantic interpretation.

So, we are left with a paradox; on the one hand, the semantic restriction needs to remain in situ (because there is no evidence for movement), on the other, it cannot stay there (because of the Donald Duck problem).

To resolve the quandary, Reinhart appeals to a semantic device, i.e. existential closure over a choice function (of type « e , t>, e>). Choice functions have a long tradition in mathematical logic, but have been used only recently in semantics. The choice functions Reinhart (1998) deals with are simpler than the Skolem functions which have been used to capture the narrow scope of existentials and where the choice of value for them varies with the choice value for some bound variable. What is new is the idea that with the help of simple choice functions, specific or referential^ indefinites can be interpreted without movement, by being existentially closed off.

The Donald Duck problem is solved because in-situ WH phrases can get existential wide scope without moving. They are interpreted outside islands while no movement is involved.

Note that according to Reinhart, indefinites are ambiguous, so the non-specific or non-referential reading (where the indefinite is dependent on a universal quantifier typically yielding pair-list readings) is still achieved via an existential quantifier.

A choice fianction is a function from a (non-empty) set of individuals (the restriction set) to a member of that set. The restriction set is the argument of the function while the member that is picked out is the range. In this approach, the Russellian uniqueness condition is thus replaced by the principle of choice. Indefinites are not quantifiers, but terms, i.e. entities that refer. On this view, it is not the indefinite that carries existential force but the choice fimction. I return to Reinhart’s (1998) analysis in section 2.4.2.

With the background about WH in situ in place, let us turn to French WH in situ in more detail. The question I want to address is whether French WH phrases in situ in single WH interrogatives involve movement. In addition, the task is to reconsider whether WH phrases in situ in multiple WH environments do indeed raise at LF or whether they remain in situ as argued by Reinhart. I begin, in section 2.3, with an overview and critical discussion of the various existing accounts of French WH in situ. This will lead us to an alternative proposal, worked out in sections 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6.