wh-duplication in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

Chiara Branchini | Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

Anna Cardinaletti | Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Carlo Cecchetto | Sapienza Università di Roma

Caterina Donati | Institut Jean-Nicod CNRS Paris

Carlo Geraci

This paper focuses on those wh-questions in Italian Sign Language (LIS) featuring two lexically identical wh-signs. We show that wh1 (the first wh in linear order) is shorter than wh2 (the second wh in liner order). However, there is evidence that this different duration is due to a phrase-final lengthening, as wh2 occupies a sentence-final position. We therefore conclude that the two wh-signs are identical full copies: one sitting in Spec,CP on the right in LIS and the other one sitting in Spec,FocP on the left. We show that this construction yields a (focused) cleft question interpretation and we speculate that both copies are phonologically realized because the wh-signs in Spec,CP and Spec,FocP are the heads of two distinct chains. Finally, we distinguish identical wh-duplication from improper wh-duplication, namely cases where one of the two wh-elements is what we call qartichoke, an underspecified interrogative sign only surfacing in wh-questions.

Keywords: sign language, Italian Sign Language (LIS), doubling, cleft questions, wh-questions, copy theory of traces

Published online: 12 December 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.16.2.03bra

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