Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2006

Publication Title

Proceedings of the 41st Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 41)

Abstract

The general goal of this paper is to explore the interaction between multiple whfronting, left-branch extraction (LBE) and sluicing, with the hope of finding insights into the nature of each of the phenomena. One of the issues I will address is why, even though LBE is available in certain multiple wh-fronting languages (e.g. Russian, Serbo-Croatian), multiple LBE is prohibited in these languages. In order to solve this puzzle, we will take a close look at the processes underlying LBE as compared to regular wh-movement. In Section 3, I will argue that LBE, unlike regular wh-movement, is headmovement to a Topic head above TP, essentially a scrambling type of move. The account builds on the unified analysis of d-linking and scrambling developed by Boeckx and Grohmann (2004) and draws on the connection between LBE and movement of d-linked wh-phrases. The conclusion that will be reached is that prohibition against multiple LBE is a result of a minimality violation (i.e. Minimal Link Condition of Chomsky (1995)). The analysis in Section 3 will provide a ready solution to another puzzle, namely, why multiple LBE violations are not repaired by sluicing, given that sluicing is known to repair certain types of derivations. The answer will come from the fact that sluicing cannot repair minimality violations in principle, and violations of multiple LBE are analyzed as minimality violations.

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Postprint

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