Diagnosing covert movement Hadas Kotek Yale University hadas.kotek@yale.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology February 2017
The question Wh -questions in English involve an overt movement step : (1) Who did Mary introduce to Fred? In multiple wh -questions, only one wh -phrase moves overtly. (2) Who did Mary introduce to whom ? ☞ How are in-situ wh -phrases interpreted? 2
Two traditional approaches to wh -in-situ The covert movement approach: Wh -phrases must move to C by Logical Form (LF) for interpretability (Karttunen, 1977, among others). (3) to ? The in-situ approach: Wh -phrases are interpreted in their base-positions , without movement (Hamblin, 1973; Rooth, 1985, 1992, among others). (4) LF: Who C did Mary introduce to whom ? 3 LF: Who whom C did Mary introduce
Wh -in-situ and intervention efgects what- ACC data from Tomioka (2007) ‘What did no one read?’ read- NEG - PAST - Q yom-ana-katta-no? no-one dare-mo what- ACC Nani-o c. read- NEG - PAST - Q yom-ana-katta-no? nani-o Certain elements ( interveners ) cannot precede wh -in-situ. no-one b. ?* Dare-mo ‘What did Hanako read?’ read- PAST - Q yon-da-no? what- ACC nani-o Hanako- NOM a. Japanese: Intervention efgects avoided through scrambling (5) 4 ✓ Hanako-ga ✓
Wh -in-situ and intervention efgects Certain elements ( interveners ) cannot precede wh -in-situ. (see Erlewine and Kotek 2016) ‘Which book did no one read?’ read- NEG - AUX - Q lòk-ma-song(-pe)? no-one. ERG sùuchīye book-which thēp-kānghì c. read- NEG - AUX - Q lòk-ma-song(-pe)? book-which thēp-kānghì no-one. ERG * sùuchīye b. ‘Which book did Tenzen read?’ read- AUX - Q lòk-sòng(-pe)? book-which thēp-kānghì Tenzen- ERG a. Tibetan (Tashi Wangyal, p.c.) (6) 5 ✓ Tenzen-khi ✓
Wh -in-situ and intervention efgects has where angetrofgen? met c. who hat wo no-one where niemanden no-one angetrofgen? met ‘Who met no one where’? data from Beck (1996) wo niemanden (7) has German: intervention above wh -in-situ, rescued by scrambling a. who hat has Luise Luise wo where angetrofgen? met ‘Who met Luise where’? b. ?? Wer who hat 6 ✓ Wer ✓ Wer
Wh -in-situ and intervention efgects Intervention efgects afgect regions of alternative computation but not (overt or covert) movement (Beck, 2006; Beck and Kim, 2006; Kotek, 2014, 2016; Kotek and Erlewine, 2016) (8) The Beck (2006) intervention schema: Difgerent theories of what interveners/intervention is about: 7 a. LF: *[ CP C ... intervener ... wh ] b. LF: ✓ [ CP C ... wh intervener ... t ] • Focus (Beck, 2006; Beck and Kim, 2006) • Quantification (Beck, 1996; Mayr, 2014) • Topics (Grohmann, 2006) • Prosody (Tomioka, 2007)
Wh -in-situ and intervention efgects Puzzle : no intervention efgects in corresponding English questions. (9) a. meet anyone where ? b. where ? ... enter: Pesetsky (2000)! 8 ✓ Who did n’t ✓ Who met no one
Intervention efgects in English Which student didn’t TODAY: It’s about (covert) movement, not superiority. ?) (cf Which book did which student not read violating ? * Which book didn’t which student read d. obeying read which book ? c. Pesetsky (2000): intervention correlates with superiority violating ? Which book did which student read b. obeying read which book ? Which student a. (10) 9
Roadmap §1 Background: Pesetsky (2000) and Beck (2006) §2 Intervention is about movement, not superiority §3 A wrench in the works: ACD and parasitic gaps §4 Conclusion 10
Roadmap §1 Background: Pesetsky (2000) and Beck (2006) §2 Intervention is about movement, not superiority §3 A wrench in the works: ACD and parasitic gaps §4 Conclusion 11 • Some English data • An account of intervention efgects
Intervention efgects in English c. violating ? * Which book didn’t which student read d. obeying read which book ? Which student didn’t violating Pesetsky (2000): intervention correlates with superiority ? Which book did which student read b. obeying read which book ? Which student a. (10) 12
A note on judgments These judgments are hard! Note: for many (perhaps all) speakers, intervention will be diagnosed by the loss of the pair-list reading of the question. A single-pair may survive. (11) Who ate what ? a. Fred ate the beans. single-pair b. Fred ate the beans, Mary ate the eggplant, and John ate the broccoli. pair-list This has been reported for both English and German questions in footnotes in previous work (Beck, 2006; Pesetsky, 2000; Kotek, 2014, cf also Beck 1996). 13 ( )
More intervention efgects in English * Which student did no one give which book to ? picture to * Which teacher did very few children want to show which b. which teacher ? to Which picture did very few children want to show a. (14) ? b. Pesetsky (2000): intervention correlates with superiority to which student ? Which book did no one give a. (13) ? * Which student did only Mary give which book to b. to which student ? Which book did only Mary give a. (12) 14
An account of intervention efgects Superiority-violating questions: intervention! Predict: ? LF: Which book C did which student read (16) Wh is truly LF-in-situ, interpreted via focus-alternatives computation. intervention Syntax by Pesetsky (2000); Semantics by Beck (2006): Predict: no ? read (15) Superiority-obeying questions: Wh -in-situ covertly moves to C at LF. 15 LF: Which student which book C
Roadmap §1 Background: Pesetsky (2000) and Beck (2006) §2 Intervention is about movement, not superiority §3 A wrench in the works: ACD and parasitic gaps §4 Conclusion 16 • Covert wh -movement as covert scrambling • Intervention and islands • Manipulating movement and consequences for intervention
Covert wh -movement as scrambling wo landing site. Wh -in-situ can scramble (potentially up to C); interpreted in-situ in its ☞ scrambling (= 7c) ‘Who met no one where’? met angetrofgen? no one niemanden where has In previous work I have argued that covert wh -movement is not a hat who LF: Wer (18) scrambling (= 9b) ? met where no one LF: Who C (17) Instead, it is a local scrambling operation (Kotek, 2014, 2016) long-distance operation that necessarily targets interrogative C. 17
Intervention in superiority-obeying questions ☞ wh C CP (19) alternatives must be used. the barrier, where focus Intervention happens above 18 Intervention is avoided in superiority-obeying questions because where movement happens No intervention in region ☞ intervener occurs above highest possible landing site of movement . Prediction: If covert movement is restricted, intervention happens when wh -in-situ can covertly move above interveners. • Wh can move up to the barrier • Wh cannot move past barrier
Multiple questions with islands Baseline: Multiple wh -questions with islands are grammatical. (20) Context: The linguists at the conference are very picky about attending the conference dinner. However, each of them adores one philosopher and will certainly attend the dinner if that philosopher is invited. What I want to know is: Q: Which linguist will come [ if we invite which philosopher]? A: Chomsky will come if we invite Quine, Kayne will come if we invite Lewis, Labov will come if we invite Russell, ... (based on Cheng and Demirdache 2010, citing Tancredi (p.c.), cf Dayal 2002) 19 ✓ Pair-list answer:
Multiple questions with islands A: Intervener inside the island is grammatical . ☞ Labov will come if we only invite Russell, ... Kayne will come if we only invite Lewis, Chomsky will come if we only invite Quine, Which linguist will come [ if we only invite which philosopher]? Add interveners: here, only . Q: philosopher alone is invited. What I want to know is: philosopher and will attend the dinner just in case that conference dinner. However, each of them dislikes all but one Context: The linguists at the conference are looking forward to the (21) 20 ✓ Pair-list answer:
Multiple questions with islands A: Intervener above the island causes an intervention efgect . ☞ Labov will only come if we invite Russell, ... Kayne will only come if we invite Lewis, Chomsky will only come if we invite Quine, Which linguist will only come [ if we invite which philosopher]? Add interveners: here, only . Q: philosopher is invited. What I want to know is: philosopher and has said that they will come just in case that attend the conference dinner. However, each of them adores one Context: The linguists at the conference don’t really want to (22) 21 * Pair-list answer:
Multiple questions with islands: Summary Intervention can be used as a diagnostic for regions of in-situ composition and regions of (covert) movement. Intervention efgects happen above an island but not inside it. 22 • Confirms the need for covert wh -movement. • Confirms the need for in-situ composition.
Intervention in superiority-obeying questions Adding an intervener: * Which daughter showed only Obama which picture of himself ? b. a. Target sentences: (24) 23 Prediction: Intervention detected if covert wh -movement is restricted. b. a. Baselines, with binder underlined: (23) Using binding to restrict mvt: bindee cannot move out of scope of binder. Which daughter showed Obama which picture of herself ? Which daughter showed Obama which picture of himself ? ? Which daughter showed only Obama which picture of herself ?
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