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Decomposing Questions Paul Alan Hagstrom B.A. MathematicsPhysics Carleton College, 1993 Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 1998 O 1998 Paul Hagstrom. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author: 11 Department of Linguistics and Philosophy August 28, 1998 Certified by: David Pesetsky Professor of Linguistics Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: Michael Ke~~stowicz Professor of Linguistics OF TECHNOLOGY Chair of the Linguistics Program ( 1 SEP 2 1 1998 1 1 ( LIBRARIES I Decomposing Questions Paul Alan Hagstrom Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on August 28, 1998 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics ABSTRACT The primary proposal of this thesis that in questions, a "Q morpheme must undergo syntactic movement from a clause-internal position to a clause-peripheral position. Throughout this thesis, we develop a syntactic analysis and a semantic formalism for questions that accounts for the facts observed in wh-in-situ languages (focusing mainly on Japanese, Sinhala, Shuri Okinawan, and premodern Japanese). We contrast two unrelated languages, Japanese and Sinhala, which form questions in a nearly identical way, but which differ in the placement of Q. We hypothesize that in both languages Q moves from a clause-internal position (corresponding to its overt position in Sinhala) to a clause-peripheral position (corresponding to its overt position in Japanese). We argue for this movement relation by examining the effects of movement islands and other "intervenors" when placed in the path of the hypothesized movement. We also observe that in both languages, indefinites can be formed by appending Q directly to a wh-word in a declarative sentence. Using this, we develop a compositional semantic account under which wh-words like who are represented as sets of individuals and Q is represented as an existential quantifier over choice function variables. This, in conjunction with the proposed syntax, allows us to derive the semantics both of questions and of indefinites containing wh-words. More complex issues arise when considering questions with multiple wh-words and with quantifiers. It is proposed that in multiple questions, Q originates by the lowest wh-word. If Q moves to the clause periphery from the.re, a "pair-list" reading will result, while if Q first moves above the wh-words, a '"single-pair" reading results. Through the use of a semantic mechanism called "flexible functional application", this generalization is derived from the proposed semantics of pair-list questions, which are semantically represented as a set of questions. Questions with quantifiers with functional readings and with pair-list readings are also discussed in detail. Arg~mentsfor several more theory-internal proposals are made as well, including an argument for a "single cycle" syntax, and an argument for a type of movement labeled "migration" which is crucially different from "feature attraction." Thesis Supervisor: David Pesetsky Title: Professor of Linguistics Acknowledgments The other day I got out a can opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought "What am I doing?!" -Jack Handey, Dcepesr Ttlnrlghr.~ Like all theses-in fact, probably like all work in linguistics-actually, like all work in science-well, perhaps just like everything-this has been a collaborative effort on a colossal scale. I have received much help along the way from various and sundry sources. And I'm ready to name names. I must of course begin with my thesis committee, each member of which has had an enormous impact on how this thesis turned out. I owe them each and collectively a great debt of gratitude. David Pesetsky, chair of my thesis committee and long-time syntactic confidant, has been immensely helpful (and very patient) since he was chair of my generals committee all those many years ago. He withstood well the barrage of densely written and internally inconsistent handouts, papers, abstracts, and drafts, always managing to be both tangibly helpful as well a.s encouraging. David is also very good at viewing a troublesome problem from a completely different angle, which has often proved extremely enlightening (though often entirely inconsistent with my assumptions about the world). I am also very fortunate to have been able to work with Noam Chomsky on this thesis; his contributions to this work have had both subtle and catastrophic impact on the final shape of the account. He read several drafts with meticulous care, missir~gnary a one of my leaps of logic. His comments were always extremely insightful and encouraging. Without fail, just after each meeting I had with Noam, some fundamental aspect of my analysis would change-and always for the better. This geiieralization does not exclude my defense. I am glad to have had the opportunity to work with Irene Heim in this process. Meetings with her about the semantic parts of this thesis always managed to soothe my fears about parts of my account which I was unsure about, while at the same time wreaking terrible havoc on the parts that I thought were innocuous. In semantics, the formalisms can sometimes make it hard to differentiate the redly interesting problems from the purely notational ones. Usually I got it backwards, of course, but Irene was able to set me right. The debt I (and this thesis) owe to Shigeru Miyagawa is tremendous. Meetings with him were invariably productive, even (or especially?) when they went in a direct~onI had not expected. Shigeru was always quick to riotice predictions I had missed, and always k11ew who had worked on similar things in the past. His enthusiasm and encouragement made working with him a very enjoyable experience. In addition, his heroics in [he face of my never-ending stream of judgment questions was truly the stuff of legends. Outside of' our academic contact, I was also lucky to have worked with Shigeru during the year that I was a graduate resident tutor at the East Campus dormitory and Shigeru was our (very active and caring) housemaster. I am hugely grateful to the many people who took the time to answer my crazy- sounding (and often very subtle and difficult) questions about their native languages. For 4 Acknowledgments their patience and helpfulness in discussing many Japanese examples, I would like to thank Takako Aikawa, Shigeril Miyagawa, Shins110 Miyara, Mamoru Saito, Junko Shimoyama, Hidekazu Tanaka, Kazuko Yatsushiro, Keiko Yoshida, and Tomoyuki Yoshida. 1 would also like to thank Dileep Chandralal, Rapti Dietrich, Kumara Henadeerage, Sanith Wijesinghe, and Arjuna Wijeyekoon for their speedy and patient responses to my questions about Sinhala examples (and to Carmen de Silva for helping me get in touch with Rapti). For help with the Ohnawan (RyOkyiian) examples, thanks to Rumiko Shinzato S; and Tomoaki bna for their judgments (and to Izumi Nishi for helping direct mj to the right person). Thanks to Uli Sauerland, Jaemin Rhee, and Martin Hack1 fo~. ~p with the German examples, and thanks to Hooi Ling Soh for help with the Chinese examples. For help with the Malay data, thanks to both Hooi Ling Soh and Solakhiah Januri. And, finally, for help with the two Bulgarian examples, thanks to Marina Todorova. In addition, I would like to thank several people who discussed aspects of the material in this thesis with me at various points along the way. John Whitman has been very helpful and encouraging both with the material contained here and with earlier work I have done. In fact, it was in a draft of a paper he sent me that I saw the first reference to premodern Japanese kakari-musubi, which started me down the path this thesis travels. Leon Serafim was also generous with his time over email to answer my nayve questions about RyUkyiian and premodern Japanese. Ken Hale and Peggy Speas helped me understand something about Navajo, although not too much of it surfaced in this thesis. Thanks also to the participants in Navajo Language Academy 1998 summer workshop for putting up with the questions I sent along with Ken and Peggy. I also benefited from discussion of this material with the Takako Aikawa, Joseph Aoun, Sigrid Beck, Eun Cho, Hyon-Ssok Choe, Danny Fox, Bob Frank, Jim Gair, Howard Lasnik, Martha McGinnis, Shinsho Miyara, Orin Percus, Paul Portner, Mamoru Saito, Uli Sauerland, Mariko Sugahara, Junko Shirnoyanla, Hidekazu Tanaka, Kazuko Yatsushiro, the MIT LF reading group, and the UMass Amherst syntax reading group. There are surely others whose names belong here but have slipped my mind; thanks also to them. And of course, many, many people have been very, very helpful in discussions of my previous work. I couldn't possibly list them all here, and I am sure I would forget somebody important. But, still, thanks! My pre-thesis life was improved greatly by the attentions of the rest of the faculty in the department as well, of course. Some I interacted with more than others, but every faculty member here has always been interested to discuss and advise and encourage. Morris Halle was a very valuable member of my generals committee. He was interested in everything (whether phonology or not), and he always made sure I was honest to the data. We often seemed to disagree on what "simpler" means, but his advice was invariably wise. Speaking of generals committee members, Ken Wexler played an important role in my earlier work here. My syntax generals paper and much of the work of the ensuing few years were based on a suggestion Ken made about the course of acquisition of negation in Korean.

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