wh-Movement, licensing and the locality of feature-checking
This thesis is a cross-linguistic examination of the syntactic mechanisms which licence wh-phrases, and of the implications of wh-licencing for other dependency-types with similar licencing requirements. In chapter 1 a wide variety of evidence is presented that wh-phrases occurring in situ at Spell-Out do not undergo any raising at LF. In chapter 2, arguing that wh-movement essentially occurs to satisfy a purely formal licencing requirement on wh-phrases, identified as wh-feature-checking, data from Hindi, Iraqi Arabic(IA) and various East European languages then show that it is wh-features carried by all wh-phrases rather than any on a +Q Comp which require checking, and that (wh)feature-checking is not restricted to taking place solely within the strict locality of Spec-head/head-adjoined configurations but must in fact be possible 'long-distance' and within larger domains, this possibility ultimately allowing for a linguistic model in which Spell-Out is identical with LF. Movement is then suggested to occur for two essential reasons: i) to trigger an ambiguous potential licencing head as a licencor for features of a particular type, and ii) in order that an element occurs within the licencing domain of
Simpson, Andrew
Linguistics
wh-Movement, licensing and the locality of feature-checking. This thesis is a cross-linguistic examination of the syntactic mechanisms which licence wh-phrases, and of the implications of wh-licencing for other dependency-types with similar licencing requirements. In chapter 1 a wide variety of evidence is presented that wh-phrases occurring in situ at Spell-Out do not undergo any raising at LF. In chapter 2, arguing that wh-movement essentially occurs to satisfy a purely formal licencing requirement on wh-phrases, identified as wh-feature-checking, data from Hindi, Iraqi Arabic(IA) and various East European languages then show that it is wh-features carried by all wh-phrases rather than any on a +Q Comp which require checking, and that (wh)feature-checking is not restricted to taking place solely within the strict locality of Spec-head/head-adjoined configurations but must in fact be possible 'long-distance' and within larger domains, this possibility ultimately allowing for a linguistic model in which Spell-Out is identical with LF. Movement is then suggested to occur for two essential reasons: i) to trigger an ambiguous potential licencing head as a licencor for features of a particular type, and ii) in order that an element occurs within the licencing domain of
wh_movement license locality feature cross_linguistic examination syntactic mechanism implication dependency types similar requirement wide_variety evidence_present occur situ spell_out undergo raise argue wh_movement essentially occur satisfy purely formal requirement identify feature data iraqi arabic various east european language show features carry rather comp require feature restrict take_place solely within strict locality spec_head head configuration must fact possible long_distance within large domain possibility ultimately allow linguistic_model spell_out identical movement suggest occur essential reason trigger ambiguous potential head feature particular_type order element occur_within domain