Zipf, Jessica & Quaglia, Stefano: Asymmetries in Italian Matrix Wh-questions: Word Order and Information Structure
We develop an analysis that
accounts for word order asymmetries found in Italian wh-questions. In
particular, the different orderings of subject and verb in
perché-questions as opposed to wh-questions involving other wh-items. In
line with Butt (2014) and Mycock (2006, 2013), we see a strong interaction of
information structural content and the structure of questions. We argue that the
word order differences mirror the semantic divergence of perché in
contrast to other wh-items such as chi, quando or dove, among others. We suggest
that perché differs from the other wh-items with regard to the partition
it introduces at i-structure. While all wh-items introduce a partition between
FOCUS and BACKGROUND at i-structure, we argue for the BACKGROUND to be
articulated with perché. We show that this correctly captures the fact
that perché can scope over a focus operator, while all other wh-items are
within the scope of a focus operator, as well as the word order asymmetries
found in Italian matrix wh-clauses.
December 22, 2022 |
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