Reasons for looking at EQs

1. Echo Question Syntax Nicholas Sobin The University of Texas at El Paso • Reasons for looking at EQs • English echo questions (EQs) are exemplary untutored constructions; however, they appear to operate contrary to the system of ‘normal’ question formation. • Thesis • EQs are explained in terms of independently necessary scope assignment mechanisms and a complementizer which subordinates the utterance being echoed and ‘freezes’ its CP structure. No norms of question formation are violated. • The EQ challenge • The problems posed by EQs (relative to ‘normal’ question formation) include the following: • simple wh-in-situ (‘Mary saw who?’); • apparent Superiority violations (‘What did who • see?’); • (iii) apparent verb movement without wh movement • (‘Has Mary seen what?’); • (iv) requisite wide scope for an EQ-introduced wh- • phrase (underlined in these examples), and • requisite narrow scope for other wh phrases (only • who in ‘What did who see?’ is being asked about • in the EQ); • (v) partial wh marking (eg the what) possible in EQs but not in normal questions (‘You saw the • what?’, but not *‘The what did you see?’) • The scope of wh-phrases • Preliminary to the analysis of EQs is the question of how wh-phrases get wide or narrow scope. C L Baker (1970) noted the wh-scope ambiguity in (1), where (1a) may be answered by (1b) with what having narrow scope, or by (1c) with what having wide scope. • (1) a. Who knows where Mary bought what? • b. Bill does. • c. Bill knows where she bought the soap, Jane • knows where she bought the toothpaste, etc. Proposal for scope assignment: Following Baker (1970), Chomsky (2000) and of Adger (2003) and Adger & Ramchand (2005), a wh-phrase in a WHQ bears a feature [uwh: ] which is uninterpretable for lack of a scope value. An interrogative complementizer CWH (feature composition: CWH[Int, Q, uwh* ]) assigns a scope value to a wh-phrase by assigning its (that is, CWH’s) label as the requisite value for [uwh: ], effectively binding the wh-phrase to that CWH. CWH probes every wh-phrase in its domain and it may value (or not) any of the wh-phrases in its domain. However, the [uwh*]/EPP feature of interrogative CWH can only be satisfied by raising to its SpecCP a wh-phrase which is both scope-valued and ‘nearest’ to CWH (following the MLC). A wh-phrase left in-situ with an unvalued [uwh: ] may receive a value from a higher CWH by being assigned the label of that higher CWH. Thus, the ambiguity in (1) is explained in terms of the two possible scope assignments in (2). (2) a. [ Who [uwh: Ci] Ci[uwh*] knows [ where [uwh: Cj] Cj[uwh*] Mary bought what [uwh: Cj] ]] ? b. [ Who [uwh: Ci] Ci[uwh*] knows [ where [uwh: Cj] Cj[uwh*] Mary bought what [uwh: Ci ] ]] ? Two types of EQs Pseudo EQs: •Echo intonation •Formed along lines of ‘normal’ interrogatives (no ‘echo’ syntax) •Only used to question a declarative (3) a. U: Mary saw a flying saucer. b. PseudoEQ: What did Mary see? Syntactic EQs: •Echo intonation •Comp Freezing--a copy of the CP structure of U •CEQ--an EQ complementizer which (i) takes CP of U as a complement thereby giving wh-phrases of U narrow scope, and (ii) scope-binds all EQ-introduced interrogatives, giving them wide scope •a (possibly loose) copy of non-CP elements of U Mechanisms of syntactic EQ formation -Comp Freezing: If CP of U is declarative, this declarative CP must be used in a syntactic EQ: (4) a. U: Mary had tea with Cleopatra. b. E: Mary had tea with who? (= a syntactic EQ) c. E: Who did Mary have tea with? (= a pseudo EQ) d. E: Did Mary have tea with Cleopatra? (= a pseudo EQ) e. E: *Did Mary have tea with who? If CP of U is YNQ-interrogative, this interrogative CP must be used in a syntactic EQ: (5) a. U: Did Mary have tea with Cleopatra? b. E: Did Mary have tea with who? (= a syntactic EQ) c. E: *Who did Mary have tea with? (= a pseudo EQ) d. E: *Mary had tea with who? •  If CP of U is wh-interrogative, this wh-interrogative CP must be used in a syntactic EQ: • (6) a. U: What did Dracula drink at Mary’s party? • b. E: What did who drink at Mary’s party? (= a syntactic EQ) • c. E: *Who drank what at Mary’s party? (= a pseudo EQ) • d. E: *Did who drink what at Mary’s party? • Non-CP material need not show strict copying, as in (7) and (8). However, the same variation is not available if it involves elements in frozen CP, as in (9) and (10). • (7) a. U: Has Mary eaten the fried worms? • b. E: Has what been eaten by Mary? • (8) a. U: Have the Martians been taken to the airport by Bob? • b. E: Has Bob taken who to the airport? • (9) a. U: Who was spotted by the Martians? • b. E: Who was spotted by who?/c. E: *Who spotted who? • (10) a. U: Who did the Martians spot? • b. E: Who did who spot?/c. E: *Who was spotted by who? • -Unselective binding by CEQ:All EQ-introduced ‘interrogative-marked’ phrases bear [ui-m: ], which requires a scope value. EQs utilize CEQ (feature composition: CEQ [Int, ui-m]) which assigns scope to any interrogative-marked expression, including ‘fully wh-marked’ interrogative phrases as in (6), ‘partially-marked’ interrogative phrases, as in (11), and intonationally-marked interrogative phrases as in (12). CEQ has no EPP property. • (11) a. U: What did the vampire drink at Mary’s party? • b. E: What did the what drink at Mary’s party? • (12) a. U: What did Dracula drink at Mary’s party? (= (6a)) • b. E: What did DRACULA drink at Mary’s party? • Sample EQ structures with unselective binding • (13) a. U: What did Dracula drink at Mary’s party? (= (6a)) • b. E: What did DRACULA drink at Mary’s party? (= (12b)) • b’. [CP [CEQInt, ui-m] [CPWhat[uwh: CWH ] [CWH did [Int, Q, uwh*] ] • [TPDRACULA[ui-m: CEQ ] drink <what> at ...? • c. E: What did who drink at Mary’s party? (= (6b)) • c’. [CP [CEQInt, ui-m] [CPWhat[uwh: CWH ] [CWH did [Int, Q, uwh*] ] • [TPwho[ui-m: CEQ ] drink <what> at …