This paper presents a comparative study of English and Chinese wh-questions and aims at providing explanations of distinctions between English and Chinese wh-questions.The different feature strength of the position C ...This paper presents a comparative study of English and Chinese wh-questions and aims at providing explanations of distinctions between English and Chinese wh-questions.The different feature strength of the position C causes the different sentence pattern of Chinese and English wh-questions and the aim is to meet the requirement of feature-checking.The overt whmovement is constrained by some principles.Then Do Chinese learners of English also have this principle in their mind? Through the experiment,the study compared the rates of accuracy of the Chinese group and the native controls.展开更多
Operator movement is one of the scholastic views which have been advanced to analyse expressions that contain an operator of some kind.In this work,attention will be focused on interrogative operator in Fulfulde.This ...Operator movement is one of the scholastic views which have been advanced to analyse expressions that contain an operator of some kind.In this work,attention will be focused on interrogative operator in Fulfulde.This work examines the nature of wh-movement in Fulfulde using the minimalist programme.In conducting the research,primary and secondary sources of data collection were employed.The native speaker’s intuition forms the primary source of data while the secondary source involves three competent native speakers of Adamawa Fulfulde to validate the data.The outcome of the study reveals four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde.The four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde are the subject preposed from its canonical position in declarative sentences to a new position in interrogative sentences.There are both left to right movement and right to left movement.The interrogative questions are marked by an optional‘na’at the end of the sentence.It is possible and grammatical to have double interrogatives but only one of the elements can move.The movement is determined by proximity,short or long movement of the interrogative marker to either left to right or right to left.However,wh-or interrogative element in Fulfulde is represented by-ye and-e suffixes bound to stems of pronouns and some prepositions.Pied-piping and preposition stranding are also observed.In some whmovement,the question remains in place called wh-in-situ;here,the interrogative marker does not move at all.When this happens the interrogative marker occupies the position of the element in question.When there is movement,each move element leaves behind a trace marked by‘t’and the trace is co-indexed so that we can see the extraction sites and the landing sites of the elements that have moved.The direct object preposed to the complementizer position through wh-movement and the subject of the main clause raises and moves into the subject position of the relative clause in order to check the question feature of comp in Fulfulde.展开更多
In this article,we examine the syntactic derivation of subject wh-words in Jordanian Arabic.Firstly,we provide empirical evidence that questions with a subject wh-word are syntactically derived by overt movement of th...In this article,we examine the syntactic derivation of subject wh-words in Jordanian Arabic.Firstly,we provide empirical evidence that questions with a subject wh-word are syntactically derived by overt movement of the given subject wh-word to the left periphery.This empirical evidence is based on the position of the subject wh-words to the left of the high IP adverbials,including epistemic adverbials and evidentials,as well as the position of the subject wh-words relative to topical elements.Secondly,we examine the intriguing ban on the use of subject wh-words in VSO sentences although non-interrogative subjects are permitted to occur in such clauses,and other wh-words may appear in their thematic positions(given the appropriate context).We show that this ban results from the effects of a proposed economy-driven condition that disallows the use of an expletive(to fill Spec,TP)while the thematic subject is available(in Spec,vP).Additionally,we show that this ban results from the interactions of the effects of criterial freezing and the conditions that licence elements in the low IP area.展开更多
文摘This paper presents a comparative study of English and Chinese wh-questions and aims at providing explanations of distinctions between English and Chinese wh-questions.The different feature strength of the position C causes the different sentence pattern of Chinese and English wh-questions and the aim is to meet the requirement of feature-checking.The overt whmovement is constrained by some principles.Then Do Chinese learners of English also have this principle in their mind? Through the experiment,the study compared the rates of accuracy of the Chinese group and the native controls.
文摘Operator movement is one of the scholastic views which have been advanced to analyse expressions that contain an operator of some kind.In this work,attention will be focused on interrogative operator in Fulfulde.This work examines the nature of wh-movement in Fulfulde using the minimalist programme.In conducting the research,primary and secondary sources of data collection were employed.The native speaker’s intuition forms the primary source of data while the secondary source involves three competent native speakers of Adamawa Fulfulde to validate the data.The outcome of the study reveals four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde.The four types of wh-movement in Fulfulde are the subject preposed from its canonical position in declarative sentences to a new position in interrogative sentences.There are both left to right movement and right to left movement.The interrogative questions are marked by an optional‘na’at the end of the sentence.It is possible and grammatical to have double interrogatives but only one of the elements can move.The movement is determined by proximity,short or long movement of the interrogative marker to either left to right or right to left.However,wh-or interrogative element in Fulfulde is represented by-ye and-e suffixes bound to stems of pronouns and some prepositions.Pied-piping and preposition stranding are also observed.In some whmovement,the question remains in place called wh-in-situ;here,the interrogative marker does not move at all.When this happens the interrogative marker occupies the position of the element in question.When there is movement,each move element leaves behind a trace marked by‘t’and the trace is co-indexed so that we can see the extraction sites and the landing sites of the elements that have moved.The direct object preposed to the complementizer position through wh-movement and the subject of the main clause raises and moves into the subject position of the relative clause in order to check the question feature of comp in Fulfulde.
文摘In this article,we examine the syntactic derivation of subject wh-words in Jordanian Arabic.Firstly,we provide empirical evidence that questions with a subject wh-word are syntactically derived by overt movement of the given subject wh-word to the left periphery.This empirical evidence is based on the position of the subject wh-words to the left of the high IP adverbials,including epistemic adverbials and evidentials,as well as the position of the subject wh-words relative to topical elements.Secondly,we examine the intriguing ban on the use of subject wh-words in VSO sentences although non-interrogative subjects are permitted to occur in such clauses,and other wh-words may appear in their thematic positions(given the appropriate context).We show that this ban results from the effects of a proposed economy-driven condition that disallows the use of an expletive(to fill Spec,TP)while the thematic subject is available(in Spec,vP).Additionally,we show that this ban results from the interactions of the effects of criterial freezing and the conditions that licence elements in the low IP area.
