Wh-movement, interpretation, and optionality in Persian

Simin Karimi

Azita H. Taleghani

We examine the syntactic behavior of wh-arguments and wh-adjuncts in Persian, a wh-in-situ language that exhibits (seemingly) optional wh-movement. We show that the two types of wh-phrases have distinct internal structures that are responsible for their different syntactic behavior. The analysis indicates that wh-movement has an effect on the semantic output of the derivation, and thus wh-scrambling is not a semantically vacuous operation. We finally show that the wh-feature must be in a local Agree relation with a wh-operator in Spec/CP to allow scope marking and sentence typing. This last claim predicts that an intervening polarity item would block the Agree relation, a prediction that is borne out empirically.

Published online: 21 February 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.101.09kar

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Fanselow, Gisbert

2017. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition, ► pp. 1 ff.

Karimi, Simin

2008. Scrambling. Language and Linguistics Compass 2:6 ► pp. 1271 ff.

Shiamizadeh, Zohreh, Johanneke Caspers & Niels O. Schiller

2018. When is a wh-in-situ question identified in standard Persian?. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 33:9 ► pp. 1168 ff.

Shiamizadeh, Zohreh, Johanneke Caspers & Niels O. Schiller

2019. Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?. Language and Speech 62:2 ► pp. 229 ff.

TOOSARVANDANI, MAZIAR

2008. Wh-movement and the syntax of sluicing. Journal of Linguistics 44:3 ► pp. 677 ff.

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