Wh-Constructions
Grohmann’s chapter is concerned with monoclausal question constructions from German that involve two wh-phrases between which a topicalized constituent may or may not be sandwiched. He argues that what may look like a multiple wh-question involving a fronted topic is in fact a case of multiple topicalization and does not serve as a proper information question. Grohmann starts by claiming that the so-called intervention effect, also dubbed the ‘‘Beck effect,’’ does not exist in German multiple wh-questions. That is, any attempt to capture the Beck effect in terms of some notion of intervention undergenerates and consequently fails. Grohmann then develops an alternative that capitalizes on a property other than quantification that illegitimate interveners share: they are all nontopicalizable. Thus, wh-movement is permitted only across a fronted topic in German. Building on this topicalizability-based account of intervention effects, Grohmann proposes that multiple wh-questions involving a fronted topic are derived by movement to a left-peripheral topic position of both wh-phrases (as well as the intervening topic). In other words, these multiple wh-interrogative constructions are actually multiple wh-topic constructions. Finally, Grohmann further connects these multiple wh-topic constructions to instances of clitic-doubling wh phrases in (colloquial) Bulgarian.
Sura´nyi’s chapter deals with multiple wh-constructions in Hungarian. Sura´nyi argues that Hungarian exhibits (at least) three syntactic patterns of multiple wh-questions, which he relates in a principled way to different focus structures. Modulo distinctions in focus structure, he relates the three multiple wh-constructions to three distinct sets of answerhood conditions they are matched with, arguing that multiple (overt or covert) movement to the same projection results in a pair-list interpretation, while otherwise only a single-pair reading is available. In closing, Sura´nyi offers a typological perspective on languages that permit multiple wh-fronting and languages that do not. He shows that the account of answerhood conditions he has proposed on the basis of Hungarian can be maintained in the context of a more general typology of interpretations available in multiple wh-constructions.
Ko’s chapter discusses the structural position of the reason wh adverbial ‘why’ in three typical wh-in-situ languages: Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. Ko proposes that in these languages, ‘why’ is externally merged in Spec,CP as a CP modifier and that this high base position of ‘why’ plays a central role in determining its unique syntax in wh-in-situ languages. Evidence for base generation in Spec,CP comes from the interaction between ‘why’ and scope-bearing elements in Korean and Japanese. Additional support comes from acquisition data: children learning Korean make systematic distinctions, signaled by placement, between the wh-expression way ‘why’ and other wh-adjuncts such as eti ‘where’. Ko further explores the implications of the fine structure of CP for the syntax of ‘why’ in wh-in-situ languages. Examining the antisuperiority effect, she argues that there are two distinct C heads in wh-in-situ languages for licensing wh-interrogatives. In particular, ‘why’ is licensed by a lower C (CInt), whereas the other wh-phrases are licensed by a higher C(CFoc). This approach, in conjunction with other independent proper ties of wh-in-situ languages—in particular, the presence or absence of A ¯ scrambling—explains the crosslinguistic variations between Korean and Japanese, on the one hand, and Chinese, on the other hand, regarding multiple wh-questions.
