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Article published In:
Variation in C: Comparative approaches to the Complementizer Phrase
Edited by Jacopo Garzonio and Silvia Rossi
[Linguistic Variation 18:2] 2018
► pp. 299–314

Variation in wh-expressions asking for a reason

 | Kanda University of International Studies
In this paper, I will discuss some types of variation in wh-expressions asking for reasons such as why, what…for and how come with special attention to their base-generated positions in the framework of the cartography of syntactic structures. I will first discuss why and what…for to illustrate variation in the base-generated position of wh-expressions asking for reasons. I will next explore a new dimension in the cartography of syntactic structures by discussing some variation in the use of how come and the complementizer that among speakers.
Keywords: Criterial Freezing, CP, ReasonP, why , how , come , what for
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Rizzi (2001, 2004) and Shlonsky and Soare (2011)
  • 3.Two reason projections
  • 4.How come
    • 4.1Background
    • 4.2Variations of how come questions
    • 4.3Capturing the variations of how come questions
      • 4.3.1 How come that = *in the absence of an intervening adjunct (many speakers)
      • 4.3.2 How come mod that = OK (many speakers)
      • 4.3.3How come that=OK even in the absence of an intervening adjunct (some speakers)
      • 4.3.4How come that=* even in the presence of an intervening adjunct (some speakers)
  • 5.Coda
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Published online: 1 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00024.end
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