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Theoretical Approaches to Linguistic Variation
Edited by Ermenegildo Bidese, Federica Cognola and Manuela Caterina Moroni
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 234] 2016
► pp. 145–176

Deriving idiolectal variation

English wh-raising

ORCID logo | Ghent University | FWO, GIST
| Ghent University | FWO, GIST
| Ghent University | FWO, GIST

The focus of this paper is on apparent cases of subject-to-subject raising out of finite clauses in English, which are accepted as (fully) grammatical by a minority of native speakers. The basic pattern involves a bi-clausal structure in which a displaced subject triggers agreement in both the embedded and the matrix clause. Crucially, this ‘double agreement’ pattern is only acceptable when a subject is wh-moved. Our analysis builds on the criterial approach to subject extraction developed in Rizzi (2006) and Rizzi & Shlonsky (2006, 2007). We propose that the main ingredient of the wh-raising pattern is incorporation of a functional head in the embedded left periphery into the matrix V.

Keywords: criterial freezing, idiolectal variation, incorporation, raising, Subject Criterion, wh-movement
Published online: 1 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.234.06dan
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