'Wh'-in-situ in Constituent Questions

Louise Mycock

Abstract

Proceedings of LFG05; CSLI Publications On-line

All languages have constructions which enable speakers to ask constituent ('wh'-) questions. While cross-linguistically question formation strategies differ, these strategies may share certain features. One such feature is 'wh'-in-situ, the appearance of a question word in a position associated not with syntactic focusing but with a non-question word bearing the same grammatical function. This paper discusses 'wh'-in-situ as it is found in English and Japanese. By fully exploiting the architecture of Lexical-Functional Grammar with its distinct yet parallel projections 'wh'-in-situ is captured by a single non-derivational analysis, providing the basis for future analysis of constituent questions cross-linguistically.