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11.3.1.1.Wh-movement in simplex clauses (short wh-movement)

quickinfo

This section discusses wh-questions derived by short wh-movement, that is, cases in which a wh-phrase is moved into the initial position of its own clause; cases of long wh-movement, in which a wh-phrase is extracted from its own clause and moved into the initial position of some matrix clause, are postponed until Section 11.3.1.2. The discussion is organized as follows, subsection I starts by showing that wh-movement is near-obligatory in the sense that one wh-phrase must be moved into clause-initial position, subsection II briefly discusses a hypothesis that aims at deriving this obligatoriness of movement from stating that wh-movement creates an operator-variable chain in the sense of predicate calculus (although some languages may also use alternative means like scope markers; see, e.g., Cheng (1991/1997), Bayer 2006, and also Section 11.3.1.2, sub V). An example like (96a) can be translated more or less directly into the semantic formula in (96b): if we ignore the feature -animate for the moment, the wh-phrase wat in clause-initial position corresponds to the question operator ?x, while the trace of the wh-phrase corresponds to the variable x. For completeness' sake, note that in formal semantics the question operator is normally expressed by the lambda operator: λx read(Peter, x). We will use more informal representations such as (96b).

a.	Wati	leest	Peter ti?
	what	reads	Peter
	'What is Peter reading?'

?x (Peter is reading x)

Subsection III restricts the discussion to wh-phrases consisting of a single wh-word like wie'who', wat'what' and hoe'how'; the aim of this subsection is to show that there are no restrictions on wh-movement related to the category or the syntactic function of the moved element, subsection IV briefly shows that the acceptability of embedded wh-questions depends on semantic properties of the matrix verb, subsection V discusses movement of larger wh-phrases, that is, phrases containing non-interrogative material besides the wh-element such as wiens boek'whose book' in (97a). According to the hypothesis to be discussed in Subsection II that wh-movement creates an operator-variable chain, it should suffice to simply move the wh-element, as the question is only concerned with the identity of the owner/writer of the book, as in the logical formula ?x (Peter is reading x's book); however, example (97b) shows that it is impossible to move the possessive wh-pronoun only. The fact that wh-movement may (or must) move a larger phrase than is needed for semantic reasons has become known as pied piping. We will say that in examples such as (97a) the wh-element wiens obligatorily pied-pipes the non-interrogative part boek of the direct object; example (97b) shows that stranding of this part is excluded.

a.	[Wiens boek]i	leest ti	Peter?
	whose book	read	Peter
	'Whose book is Peter reading?'

b.	*	Wiensi	leest	Peter [ti	boek]?
		whose	reads	Peter	book

Subsection V will show that pied piping can be forced by the fact that in some cases syntax simply does not allow wh-extraction. In other cases, however, stranding is possible or even required. There is, for instance, a contrast between pre- and postpositional phrases: while prepositions are normally pied-piped under wh-movement, postpositions are normally stranded, subsection VI will discuss a number of cases of wh-extraction.

a.	Jan is in die boom	geklommen?	preposition
	Jan is in that tree	climbed
	'Jan has climbed into that tree.'

a'.	In welke boom	is Jan geklommen?	pied piping
	in which tree	is Jan climbed
	'Into which tree has Jan climbed?'

b.	Jan is	die boom	in	geklommen.	postposition
	Jan is	that tree	into	climbed
	'Jan has climbed into that tree.'

b'.	Welke boom	<*in>	is Jan <in>	geklommen?	stranding
	which tree	into	is Jan	climbed
	'Into which tree has Jan climbed?'

The strongest hypothesis concerning pied piping and stranding would be that the two phenomena are in complementary distribution. We will formalize this by assuming a general constraint "avoid pied piping", which prohibits pied piping in constructions that allow stranding, subsection VI will show, however, that there are a number of potential problems with this constraint: there are cases in which pied piping and stranding are both excluded as well as cases in which they are both possible. For this reason we will briefly discuss the status of the constraint "avoid pied piping" in Subsection VII.

I. Wh-movement is near-obligatory
II. A functional motivation for wh-movement?
III. Categorial status and syntactic function of the wh-phrase
IV. Wh-movement in embedded clauses
V. Pied piping
VI. Stranding
VII. A note on the avoidance of pied piping

[+] I. Wh-movement is near-obligatory

The examples in (99) show that wh-movement is sometimes optional in interrogative main clauses; the wh-phrase normally occurs in clause-initial position but may also occur in clause-internal position in colloquial speech, provided that it is assigned a high tone, which we indicated by italics; cf. Zwart (2011:22).

a.	Wat	ga	je	doen?	regular form
	what	go	you	do
	'What are you going to do?'

a'.	Je	gaat	wat	doen?	colloquial speech
	you	go	what	do
	'What are you going to do?'

b.	Wanneer	ga	je	naar Utrecht?	regular form
	when	go	you	to Utrecht
	'When will you go to Utrecht?'

b'.	Je	gaat	wanneer	naar Utrecht?	colloquial speech
	you	go	when	to Utrecht
	'When will you go to Utrecht?'

The prosodically marked questions in the primed examples are normally ignored in syntactic descriptions of Standard Dutch, which may be due to the fact that they do not occur in written texts and formal speech. Unfortunately, we will not have much to say about these wh-constructions either, for want of sufficient in-depth research, although it is worth mentioning that leaving the wh-phrase in situ is a typical root phenomenon; Subsection IV will show that it does not occur in embedded wh-questions. Note further that the linear strings in the primed examples in (99) are also acceptable if they are construed as echo-questions: this reading requires the wh-element to be assigned emphatic accent. Echo-questions can be used if the hearer has the impression that he did not properly understand the speaker or if he wants to express surprise, disbelief, anger, etc.: echo-question (100a) could be used if B knows that A normally does not bother helping with domestic tasks, and echo-question (100b) could be used to express indignation or anger if A had promised B to spend the day together. We will not discuss echo-questions in what follows here.

100

a.	A:	Ik ga de afwas doen. B:	Je	gaat	wat	doen?
	A:	I go the dishes do	you	go	what	do
	'A: Iʼm going to do the dishes. B: You are going to do what?'

b.	A.	Ik	ga	vandaag	naar Utrecht. B:	Je	gaat	wanneer	naar Utrecht?
	A.	I	go	today	to Utrecht	you	go	when	to Utrecht
	'A: Iʼm going to Utrecht today. B. You are going to Utrecht when?'

The discussion of the examples in (99) has shown that wh-movement is more or less obligatory: it is the normal means to form a wh-question, although occasionally in colloquial speech it is not found in main clauses with a specific intonation pattern. The proper interpretation of the notion near-obligatoriness of wh-movement needs some special attention, though, as it pertains to the interrogative clause as a whole and not to individual wh-phrases. That wh-questions normally require the clause-initial position to be filled by some wh-phrase was already pointed out above. The so-called multiple wh-questions in (101) show, however, that it is possible for a wh-phrase to stay in its base position, provided the clause-initial position is filled by some other wh-phrase; it is in fact impossible to move both wh-phrases into clause-initial position, which can be attributed to the restriction that the clause-initial position can be filled by at most one constituent in Dutch; we will return to multiple wh-questions in Section 11.3.1.4.

101

a.	Wie	heeft	wat	gezegd?
	who	has	what	said
	'Who said what?'

a'.

Wie wat heeft gezegd?

b.	Wat	heeft	hij	aan wie	gegeven?
	what	has	he	to who	given
	'What has he given to whom?'

b'.

Wat aan wie heeft hij gegeven?

This subsection has shown that wh-movement is near-obligatory in the sense that the initial position of a wh-clauses must be filled by some wh-phrase; it is, however, possible for wh-phrases to remain in their original position if certain conditions are met, e.g., if the clause-initial position is already filled by some other wh-phrase.

[+] II. A functional motivation for wh-movement?

The near-obligatory nature of wh-movement in wh-questions can be attributed to the fact that this movement is needed to create an operator-variable relation in the sense of predicate calculus; see, e.g., Chomsky (1991) and Dayal (2006: Section 1.1.1). The syntactic representations in the primeless examples in (102), for instance, can be translated more or less directly into the (slightly informal) semantic representations in the primed examples. The preposed wh-phrases wat'what' and welk verhaal'which story' correspond to the question operator ?x plus a restrictor on the variable x (here: thing/story), while the trace of the wh-phrase corresponds to the variable x.

102

a.	Wati	heeft	Peter ti	gelezen?
	what	has	Peter	read
	'What has Peter read?'

a'.

?x [x: thing] (Peter has read x)

b.	[Welk verhaal]i	heeft	Peter ti	gelezen?
	which story	has	Peter	read
	'Which story has Peter read?'

b'.

?x [x: story] (Peter has read x)

Attractive as this may seem, it cannot be the whole story because it is not possible to translate the more complex wh-constructions in the primeless examples in (103) directly into the semantic representations given in the primed examples, as only a subpart of the wh-moved phrase corresponds to the question operator plus restrictor: the possessive pronoun wiens'whose' translates into ?x [x: person].

103

a.	[Wiens boek]i	heeft	Peter ti	gelezen?
	whose book	has	Peter	read
	'Whose book has Peter read?'

a'.

?x [x: person] (Peter has read x's book)

b.	[Wiens vaders boek]i	heeft	Peter ti	gelezen?
	whose fatherʼs book	has	Peter	read
	'Whose fatherʼs book has Peter read?'

b'.

?x [x: person] (Peter has read x's father's book)

The phenomenon of pied piping thus makes it impossible to propose a one-to-one relationship between syntactic structure and semantic representation: pied piping makes it impossible to state in simple direct terms that wh-movement creates an operator-variable chain. This problem is normally solved by assuming some form of reconstruction of the non-interrogative part of the wh-phrase in its original position. That such a mechanism is needed is clear from examples such as (104); since the anaphor zichzelf must have a c-commanding antecedent, the sentence is interpreted as if at least the non-wh-part gerucht over zichzelf'rumor about himself' still occupies the original position of the wh-moved phrase indicated by the trace. We will return to pied piping in Subsection V and to reconstruction in Section 11.3.6.

104

[Welk gerucht over zichzelfi]j	heeft	Peteriti	ontkent?
which rumor about himself	has	Peter	denied
'Which rumor about himself has Peter denied?'

Another problem we need to mention here involves multiple wh-questions such as (105a). Again, the syntactic structure does not directly correspond with the desirable semantic representation in (105b): because there is only one wh-phrase in clause-initial position, we would expect only one operator-variable chain in the corresponding semantic representation, while we seem to need two operator-variable chains to capture the interpretation of (105a). Section 11.3.1.4 will solve this problem by showing that the semantic representation in (105b) is actually not a proper semantic representation of (105a); multiple wh-questions do not quantify over entities but over ordered pairs of entities <x,y>, as indicated in the semantic representation in (105b').

105

a.	Wie	heeft	wat	gelezen?
	who	has	what	read
	'Who has read what?'

?x ?y (x has read y)

b'.

<x,y> (x has read y)

Observe that we omitted the restrictors from our semantic representations in (105). For the sake of simplicity, we will follow this convention from now on whenever the restrictors are not immediately relevant for our discussion.
This subsection discussed the hypothesis that there is a direct link between the obligatory nature of wh-movement and the semantic interpretation of wh-questions, in the sense that wh-movement is instrumental in creating operator-variable chains. Although we have seen that there are a number of potential problems with this hypothesis, to which we will return in Sections 11.3.1.4 and 11.3.6, we will adopt this hypothesis as a leading idea in the following discussion.

[+] III. Categorial status and syntactic function of the wh-phrase

There seem to be few restrictions on the categorial status of moved wh-elements; the only requirement seems to be that an interrogative pro-form be available. We illustrate this here for clausal constituents. The examples in (106) start by showing that all nominal arguments can be questioned.

106

a.	Jan/Hij	heeft	Marie/haar	die baan	aangeboden.
	Jan/he	has	Marie/her	that job	prt.-offered
	'Jan/He has offered Marie/her that job.'

b.	Wie	heeft	Marie/haar	die baan	aangeboden?	subject
	who	has	Marie/her	that job	prt.-offered
	'Who has offered Marie/her that job?'

c.	Wat	heeft	Jan/hij	Marie/haar	aangeboden?	direct object
	what	has	Jan/he	Marie/her	prt.-offered
	'What has Jan/he offered [to] Marie/her?'

d.	Wie	heeft	?Jan/hij	die baan	aangeboden?	indirect object
	who	has	Jan/he	that job	prt.-offered
	'Who has Jan/he offered that job [to]?'

Note that the question mark on Jan in (106d) is not intended to suggest that there is a syntactic impediment on wh-movement of the indirect object if the subject is non-pronominal. The contrast between (106b) and (106d) suggests that there is indeed a tendency to interpret an animate wh-phrase in clause-initial position as the subject of the clause, but the fact that the use of a subject pronoun gives rise to a fully felicitous result in both examples shows that this tendency is not syntactic in nature. The examples in (107) show that we find the same tendency in the case of subjects and direct objects. The fact that we do not find a similar tendency in German or English suggests that Dutch clearly has a computational disadvantage compared to these languages, in which the intended reading is clear from morphological case marking and word order, respectively.

107

a.	Wie heeft	Jan/hem	gezien?
	who has	Jan/him	seen
	'Who has seen Jan/him?'

b.	Wie	heeft	?Jan/hij	gezien?
	who	has	Jan/he	seen
	'Who has Jan/he seen?'

PP-arguments like indirect and prepositional objects cannot be replaced by a simple interrogative pro-form. This does not mean that such arguments cannot be wh-moved, but that this is only possible if the wh-phrase pied-pipes the preposition, as shown in (108). Such examples will be discussed in Subsection V.

108

a.	<Aan>	wie	heeft	Jan die baan <*aan>	aangeboden?	indirect object
	to	who	has	Jan that job	prt.-offered
	'To whom has Jan offered that book?'

b.	<Naar>	wie	staat	Jan <*naar>	te kijken?	prepositional object
	to	who	stands	Jan	to wait
	'Who is Jan looking at?'

The examples in (109) show that complementives can easily be questioned: we illustrate this by means of three examples of complementives with a different categorial status.

109

a.	Wie	ben	jij	eigenlijk?	Een vriend van Jan.	nominal
	who	are	you	prt	a friend of Jan
	'Who are you? Iʼm a friend of Janʼs.'

b.	Hoe	is de nieuwe directeur?	Aardig.	adjectival
	how	is the new director	nice
	'How is the new director? Heʼs nice.'

c.	Waar	heb	je	de schaar	gelegd?	In de la.	adpositional
	where	have	you	the scissors	put	in the drawer
	'Where have you put the scissors? In the drawer.'

Example (110) shows that supplementives can be questioned as well. Note that hoe'how' can also be used as a wh-adverb so that the interpretation of the question Hoe vertrok hij?'How has he left' depends on the context.

110

a.	Hoe vertrok	hij?	Kwaad.	supplementive
	how left	he	angry
	'How did he leave? He was angry.'

b.	Hoe vertrok	hij?	Met de auto.	adverbial
	how left	he	with the car
	'How did he leave? By car.'

Finally, the examples in (111) show that adverbial phrases with various functions can also be questioned when a wh-proform is available. Typical simplex adverbial wh-phrases are: hoe'how', hoezo'why/in what way', waarom'why', wanneer'when', and waar'where'.

111

a.	Waar	slaap	ik	vanavond?	In Peters kamer.	place adverbial
	where	sleep	I	tonight	in Peterʼs room
	'Where will I sleep tonight? In Peterʼs room.'

b.	Wanneer	vertrekken	we?	Na de vergadering.	time adverbial
	when	leave	we	after the meeting
	'When shall we leave? After the meeting.'

c.	Hoe	heb	je	het	gelezen?	Oppervlakkig.	manner adverbial
	how	have	you	it	read	superficially
	'How have you read it? Superficially.'

The examples above have amply demonstrated that there are few syntactic restrictions on question formation: clausal constituents with virtually any syntactic function and of any categorial type can be wh-questioned. The main restriction is lexical in nature in that there must be a wh-word available that can be used to question the intended phrase. This accounts for the fact that non-gradable clausal adverbs such as misschien'maybe' cannot be questioned: cf. *zeer/hoe misschien'very/how maybe'.

[+] IV. Wh-movement in embedded clauses

The discussion in the previous subsections was confined to wh-movement in main clauses. The primeless examples in (112) show that wh-movement is also possible in embedded clauses, and the primed examples show that wh-movement is obligatory: the embedded clauses cannot be interpreted as wh-questions if the wh-phrase stays in situ. The number sign in (112a') indicates that the embedded clause is acceptable as a yes/no-question if wat is interpreted as an existentially quantified personal pronoun ("something"), but this is of course not relevant here.

112

a.	dat	Jan wil	weten	[wat	(of)	je	gaat	doen].
	that	Jan wants	know	what	comp	you	go	do
	'that Jan wants to know what youʼre going to do.'

a'.

datJan wil weten [of je wat gaat doen].

b.	dat	Jan wil	weten	[wanneer	(of)	je	naar Utrecht	gaat].
	that	Jan wants	know	when	comp	you	to Utrecht	go
	'that Jan wants to know when you go to Utrecht.'

b'.

dat Jan wil weten [of je wanneer naar Utrecht gaat].

The examples in (113) show, however, that embedded wh-questions have a limited distribution. The question as to whether they are acceptable depends on the matrix verb; while (112) has shown that weten'to know' can license a wh-question, the verb ontkennen'to deny' cannot.

113

a.	*	dat	Jan ontkent	[wat	(of)	je	gaat	doen].
		that	Jan denies	what	comp	you	go	do

b.	*	dat	Jan ontkent	[wanneer	(of)	je	naar Utrecht	gaat].
		that	Jan denies	when	comp	you	to Utrecht	go

A warning flag is in order here given that free relatives (relative clauses without a phonetically expressed antecedent) have the appearance of interrogative clauses and can therefore easily be confused with them. They can however be recognized by the fact that they may occur in argument positions, that is, in the subject/object position preceding the clause-final verbs, as shown in (114a). Caution is only needed when they are extraposed (which is possible with all relative clauses modifying an object) or when there is no verb in clause-final position: cf. Jan ontkent wat je zegt'Jan denies what youʼre saying'.

114

a.	dat	Jan	[wat	je	zegt]	heeft	ontkend.
	that	Jan	what	you	say	has	denied
	'that Jan has denied what youʼre saying.'

b.	dat	Jan heeft	ontkend	[wat je zegt].
	that	Jan has	denied	what you say
	'that Jan has denied what youʼre saying.'

For more discussion of the semantic selection restrictions on embedded clauses, we refer the reader to Section 4.1. The reader is also referred to Section 4.2 for a discussion that embedded infinitival wh-questions are mainly found in formal language; in colloquial speech they mainly occur in formulaic expressions such as Ik weet niet wat te doen/zeggen'I don't know what to do/say. Note in passing that such infinitival clauses are also frequently used as independent expressions (e.g. in instructions or as rhetorical questions): cf. Wat te doen in het geval van brand'What to do in case of fire'. More examples of this type can be found in Vos (1994:148).

[+] V. Pied piping

Subsection III dealt with wh-moved phrases consisting of a single word such as wie'who', wat'what', hoe'how' and waar'where'. This subsection will show that wh-movement may also affect larger phrases. This is illustrated in (115b-d) for nominal arguments with an interrogative demonstrative pronoun as determiner.

115

a.	Jan/Hij	heeft	Marie/haar	die baan	aangeboden.
	Jan/he	has	Marie/her	that job	prt.-offered
	'Jan/He has offered Marie/her that job.'

b.	Welke functionaris	heeft	Marie/haar	die baan	aangeboden?	subject
	which official	has	Marie/her	that job	prt.-offered
	'Which official offered Marie/her that job?'

c.	Welke baan	heeft	Jan/hij	Marie/haar	aangeboden?	direct object
	which job	has	Jan/he	Marie/her	prt.-offered
	'Which job has Jan/he offered [to] Marie/her?'

d.	Welke sollicitant	heeft	?Jan/hij	die baan	aangeboden?	indirect object
	which applicant	has	Jan/he	that job	prt.-offered
	'Which applicant has Jan/he offered that book?'

Wh-movement of larger phrases has become known as pied piping: the interrogative demonstrative welke'which' is said to pied-pipe the non-interrogative part of the noun phrase into clause-initial position. The reasons for using this notion will be made clear in Subsection A, subsections B to D continue with a detailed discussion of the restrictions on pied piping of, respectively, NPs, PPs and APs, subsection E concludes by showing that pied piping of (extended) verbal projections is not possible. We aim at keeping the discussion relatively brief, given that some of the issues are discussed more extensively elsewhere; more detailed discussion on the NP data in Subsection B and the AP data in subsection D can be found in N2.2.1, sub V and A3.1.2, sub IV, respectively.

[+] A. Pied piping as a repair strategy

The fact that wh-moved phrases consisting of a single word such as wat'what' in (116a) move into clause-initial position is expected on the hypothesis discussed in Subsection II that wh-movement derives an operator-variable chain in the sense of predicate calculus. This does not hold, however, for the fact that there are also cases of wh-movement in which wh-movement applies to phrases including non-interrogative material, like welke auto'which car', wiens auto'whose car', and wiens vaders auto'whose father's car' in (116b-d); the non-interrogative parts of the wh-phrases are in italics.

116

a.	Wat	is de snelste auto?
	what	is the fastest car
	'What is the fastest car?'

b.	Welke auto	is de snelste?
	which car	is the fastest
	'Which car is fastest?'

c.	Wiens auto	is de snelste?
	whose car	is fastest
	'Whose car is fastest?'

d.	Wiens vaders auto	is de snelste?
	whose fatherʼs car	is the fastest
	'Whose fatherʼs car is the fastest?'

The hypothesis that wh-movement derives an operator-variable chain requires movement of the interrogative pronouns only; movement of the non-interrogative material in these examples is therefore superfluous from a semantic point of view. Consequently, there must be some other reason for the fact that wh-movement of the interrogative demonstrative and possessive pronouns in (116b-d) pied-pipes the non-interrogative parts of these noun phras