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Locality in Movement and Scope Interpretation of In-Situ Wh-Phrases

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Locality in Movement and Scope Interpretation of In-Situ Wh-Phrases Locality in Movement and Scope Interpretation of In-Situ Wh-Phrases Ji Young Shim Master of Arts by Research University of York Language and Linguistic Science September 2011 ABSTRACT The dissertation investigates syntactic distributions and interpretations of wh-phrases in Korean and other languages from a minimalist perspective, and reveals patterns of similarities and differences between wh-in-situ languages and wh-movement languages. First, this dissertation examines Korean long distance wh-scrambling with respect to anti-radical reconstruction and semantic effects, arguing that Korean long distance wh- scrambling is motivated by discourse properties such as contrastive focus; hence long distance scrambling in Korean is not a purely optional movement but follows Scope Economy. This dissertation notes that left periphery movement of a wh-phrase in Korean is not a unitary construction: there is movement of a wh-phrase by an agreeing question morpheme, and movement of a wh-phrase by a non-agreeing question morpheme. This dissertation suggests that both wh-movement and wh-scrambling uniformly are motivated by an optional edge feature (Chomsky 2005) that marks specificity or definiteness when present. Second, this dissertation explores the correlation between superiority effects in wh- movement and head movement in head-final languages (e.g. Korean and Japanese), head- initial languages (e.g. English), and V2 languages (e.g. German and Spanish). Based on cross- linguistics data, the dissertation considers that in head-final languages such as Korean and Japanese, head movement may not occur at narrow syntax, whereas in other languages it obligatorily takes place, hence V-to-C is very closely related with the presence or absence of superiority, offering an analysis of the presence and absence of superiority effects in wh- movement in Korean (and Japanese): movement from a nonphase-edge to a phase-edge gives rise to superiority effects, but movement from a phase-edge to a phase-edge overrides superiority effects. Third, this disserttaion focuses on wh-scope interpretations between in-situ wh-phrases and the licensing heads (i.e, Q-morpheme) in Korean, proposing a local modeling of a non- local dependency that establishes a long distance wh-scope agreement relationship, a mechanism of indirect Agree mediating between a licensing head and wh-elements in an embedded clause. The dissertation argues that, in Korean, both wh- phrasal movement and wh-scope interpretations are constrained by local operations that the Minimalist Program takes to be one of the vital properties of the faculty of language. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. vi AUTHOR‟S DECLARATION ...................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1.1 Issues in the Study of Korean Wh-Phrases .............................................................. 1 1.2 The Proposal ............................................................................................................ 6 1.3 The Organization...................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2 THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS ........................................... 9 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Locality Constraints in Early Minimalism .............................................................. 9 2.3 Chomsky's Agree-based Phase Theory .................................................................. 13 2.3.1 Structure Building: Merge, Move and Agree................................................... 13 2.3.2 Phase, Transfer and the Phase Impenetrability Condition ............................... 16 2.3.3 Edge Feature .................................................................................................... 18 2.4 Summary ................................................................................................................ 20 CHAPTER 3 LONG-DISTANCE WH-MOVEMENT ............................................. 22 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 22 3.2 An overview of Long Distance Scrambling .......................................................... 22 3.2.1 Scrambling as a Base-Generation .................................................................... 22 3.2.2 Scrambling as a Movement .............................................................................. 24 3.3 Properties of Korean Long Distance Scrambling .................................................. 31 3.3.1 No Radical Reconstruction .............................................................................. 31 3.3.2 Semantic Effects .............................................................................................. 31 3.4 A Non-uniform Analysis of Wh-movement .......................................................... 35 3.4.1 Korean as a Non-operator Movement .............................................................. 36 3.4.2 Korean as an Operator Movement ................................................................... 39 3.5 Question Morpheme, Wh-movement and Scope ................................................... 44 3.6 Summary ................................................................................................................ 45 iii CHAPTER 4 SUPERIORITY IN MULTIPLE WH-CONSTRUCTIONS ............. 46 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 46 4.2 Cross-linguistic Data .............................................................................................. 46 4.3 Previous Analyses .................................................................................................. 48 4.3.1 Richards (1997, 2001) ...................................................................................... 49 4.3.2 Pesetsky (2000) ................................................................................................ 51 4.3.3 Boškovic(1999) ................................................................................................ 52 4.4 Agree in Multiple WH-Constructions ................................................................. 54 4.5 The Ordering of Wh-arguments and Superiority Effects ....................................... 55 4.5.1 Multiple WH Constructions in English ............................................................ 57 4.5.2 Multiple WH Constructions in Korean ............................................................ 59 4.6 The Ordering of WH-argument vs. WH-adjunct ................................................... 61 4.7 Summary ................................................................................................................ 63 CHAPTER 5 LONG-DISTANCE SUPERIORITY AND HEAD MOVEMENT ... 64 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 64 5.2 Cross-linguistic Data .............................................................................................. 64 5.3. Previous Analyses ................................................................................................. 67 5.3.1 Head Movement as a PF Operation ................................................................. 66 5.3.2 Head Movement as a Syntactic Operation ....................................................... 68 5.4 String Vacuous Head Movement ........................................................................... 72 5.5 Long Distance Superiority and Head Movement ................................................... 78 5.5.1 English (Head-Initial Languages) .................................................................... 78 5.5.2 German and Spanish (V2 Languages) ............................................................. 82 5.5.3 Korean (Head-Final Languages) ...................................................................... 83 5.6 Summary ................................................................................................................ 88 CHAPTER 6 WH-SCOPE INTERPRETATION IN INTERROGATIVES ........... 90 6.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 90 6.2 Wh-Scope and Locality Effects ............................................................................. 90 6.2.1 Scope of In-Situ and Scrambled WH-Phrases ................................................. 90 6.2.2 Island (In-) Sensitivity ..................................................................................... 92 6.3 Previous Analyses ................................................................................................... 94 6.3.1 LF Phrasal Movement ...................................................................................... 95 6.3.2 LF Pied-Piping ................................................................................................. 98 6.3.3 Operator Movement and Q-Movement .......................................................... 100 iv 6.3.4 Unselective Binding
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