The Syntax and Semantics of Wh-Questions

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The goal of this thesis is to show that there is a syntactic position for an exhaustive interpretation. A constituent that can be interpreted exhaustively bears a [foc(us)]-feature, and enters into an agreement relation with a functional cateory Foc(us). This means that an identificational focus and a nominal wh-phrase bear the same feature, establish the same kind of agreement, and in some languages undergo the same kind of movement. The suggested analysis adopts Chomsky's (1998, 1999) minimalist framework. Chapter 2 reviews several major minimalist concepts, and proposes a new constraint on locality. In Chapter 3, I demonstrate that the suggested analysis accounts for various facts about focus sentences and wh-questions in "focus" languages such as Hungarian, Basque, and Serbo-Croatian. Focus languages are peculiar in that an EPP-feature is obligatorily associatedwith a [foc]-feature of a goal, which induces an obligatory "focus"-movement to SPEC-Foc. Therefore a focus and a nominal wh-phrase, but not an adverbial wh-phrase, undergo the same movement. Chapter 4 considers focus- and wh-phenomena in Japanese. Japanese is slightly different from "focus" languages in that an EPP-feature is optionally associated with a [foc]-feature of a goal, which induces an optional "focus"-movement to SPEC-Foc. Under this assumption, it follows that a nominal wh-phrase optionally moves out of v*P to have an exhaustive interpretation. I also show that the suggested analysis accounts for a strong island effect of a focalized wh-clause and anti-superiority effects. Chapter 5 considers focus- and wh-phenomena in English. In English, an EPP-feature is never associated with a [foc]-feature of a goal, which means that neitehr a focus nor a nominal wh-phrase undergo "focus"-movement. However, they establish the same agreement relation with Foc. It explains why a focus and a nominal wh-phrase cannot cooccur. The suggested analysis also accounts for the facts about multiple wh-questions and weak island phenomena.