On Wh-Movement
We are happy to announce the workshop "On
Wh-movement", which will be jointly organized by the University
of Leiden Centre for Linguistics (ULCL) and the Utrecht
Institute of Linguistics (UiL-OTS). The workshop will take
place on December 12-13 (Thursday-Friday) and will be preceded on
Wednesday (December 11) by a tutorial on Chomsky's 1977 paper
"On WH-movement" that appeared 25 years ago and was a
major step in the development of a general theory on Wh-movement
processes.
Important:
If possible please register in advance for the workshop and/or
the tutorial on December 11 by filling out the on-line
registration form.
Organizers:
Lisa Cheng (Leiden University, L.L.Cheng@let.leidenuniv.nl)
Norbert Corver (Utrecht University, Norbert.Corver@let.uu.nl)
Workshop location:
December 11 (tutorial) & December 12: Leiden
University
December 13: Utrecht University
Invited speakers:
Tutorial:
Maggie Browning (Princeton University)
Workshop:
David Adger (University of York)
Hans Bennis (Meertens Institute, Amsterdam)
Gillian Ramchand (Oxford University)
Howard Lasnik (University of Maryland)
Luigi Rizzi (University of Siena/Geneva)
Akira Watanabe (University of Tokyo)
Workshop description:
On Wh-movement
It is 25 years ago that Chomsky's On Wh-movement
appeared. This article marks an important step in dismantling the
rich descriptive apparatus provided by the theory of
transformations and led to a general theory of wh-movement
processes. Properties of Wh-constructions were no longer described
in terms of single, construction-specific rules, such as Question
formation, Relative clause formation and Topicalization. Rather, a
general abstract rule "Move a constituent carrying the
feature Wh into COMP" was adopted and a small number of core
properties was identified which were considered to be automatic,
inescapable properties of any operation that involves movement to
COMP. Chomsky referred to these inherent properties of Wh-movement
as the wh-diagnostics. These diagnostics are: (a) COMP is
involved (b) Wh-movement leaves a gap; (c) it is subject to
Subjacency (i.e. it observes such island constraints as the CNPC
and wh-island constraint); (d) wh-movement appears to be unbounded
in contexts where a so-called bridge verb is involved. Chomsky's
contention was that, if a specific construction displays this
constellation of wh-properties, it may plausibly be understood as
a syntactic construct whose derivation involves displacement of a
wh-element. This search for commonalities among transformational
rules led to a dramatic reduction in the number of transformations
(ultimately Move alpha) and introduced the view that syntactic
constructions are nothing but a constellation of grammatical
properties, some of them being universal and some of them being
"construction-specific".
25 years after "On Wh-movement", the phenomenon of
wh-movement (or in current terms: wh-attraction) still figures
prominently on the generative research agenda and issues raised in
Chomsky's seminal article of 25 years ago still deserve careful
attention and further exploration. It is the aim of this workshop
to consider some of the "old" issues addressed in
Chomsky's paper, to elaborate on these and to raise new questions
which are within the scope of a general theory of wh-movement.
This will be done by focusing on the following four sub-themes:
(A) wh-diagnostics; (B) construction-specific properties; (C)
current views on Wh-movement constructions; (D) cyclicity.
(A) Wh-diagnostics. The diagnostic method employed in On
Wh-movement has been recognized as an important tool in syntactic
research. In On-wh-movement, emphasis was laid on the discovery of
those core properties of the wh-movement rule: i.e. what are the
core properties of the wh-movement rule. From a current
perspective, one might raise the question why wh-constructions
display the wh-diagnostics, as identified in the various
wh-constructions. That is, why does the wh-expression occupy COMP?
Why is there a trace (copy) of a particular kind in the extraction
site? Why is the relation between the wh-element and its copy
bounded? What explains the bridge properties of certain verbs,
permitting escape of the wh-phrase from the clause. The question
arises to what extent these wh-diagnostics can be accounted for in
terms of Interface conditions and general properties of
computational efficiency. At a more descriptive level, the issue
of wh-diagnostics raises questions like: (i) To what extent do
wh-in situ constructions (which arguably involve covert
wh-movement) display wh-diagnostic properties? (ii) Is Move wh
active in the non-clausal system (cf. which picture of Bill?
How afraid of cats?), and if so, what does this mean for the
wh-diagnostics? What are the implications of the decomposition of
the COMP-system in a focus-phrase, topic phrase etcetera for the
wh-diagnostic that Move wh moves an element to comp? To what
extent, do we reintroduce construction-specificity along these
lines?
(B) Construction-specific properties. Besides sharing the
general wh-diagnostic features, wh-constructions may differ from
each other with respect to more construction-bound
characteristics. Such possible asymmetries between
wh-constructions concern properties like: (i) pied piping; (ii)
P-stranding; (iii) overtness of the wh-phrase; (iv) obligatoriness
(versus optionality) of wh-movement; (v) the possibility of
multiple wh-movement; (vi) the possibility of partial wh-movement.
A major question for a research program on Wh-movement is how to
account for those construction-bound properties in terms of other
modules of the grammar. Furthermore, the question should be raised
to what extent these non-wh-diagnostic properties are truly
construction-specific. Very often, wh-constructions pattern on one
or more properties, which suggests that a more general explanation
should be sought.
(C) Current views on Move WH-constructions. After the
appearance of "On Wh-movement", a great number of
studies appeared on a variety of wh-constructions (e.g.
topicalization, dislocation, (pseudo)clefts, relativization,
comparative formation), each of them trying to show, on the basis
of the wh-diagnostics, that Move wh is involved. This question
about the empirical range of Move wh is still relevant.
Furthermore, from a more recent perspective, the question arises
how wh-movement is implemented in each of these construction
types. That is: What triggers movement? Which scopal and
discourse-related properties motivate the application of the Move
wh rule at the interface? What movement steps are involved in the
"Wh-movement process" (cf. e.g. Kayne's 1994 promotion
analysis of relative clause constructions)? To what extent is
covert wh-movement (feature movement) active in the various
constructions that carry the label of "wh-construction"?
How do we account for the presence of wh-reflexes on items such as
Comp or Tense in certain wh-constructions? Is this wh-reflex a
construction-specific property (e.g. only showing up in question
formation) or does it apply at a more general level?
(D) Cyclicity. Wh-movement meets the condition of the (strict)
cycle. In line with the cyclicity of derivation, wh-movement can
be apparently unbounded via stepwise movement on successive cycles
(through COMP-to-COMP movement). In On Wh-movement, it is further
stated that Move wh, being a cyclic rule, is subject to the
Subjacency condition, which states that a cyclic rule cannot move
a phrase across two cyclic nodes. In recent work, Chomsky
formulates the cyclicity condition in terms of the notion
"Phase". Derivations proceed Phase by Phase and apparent
unbounded movement is the result of short movement steps from the
edge of one phase to the edge of a more inclusive phase. The issue
of cyclicity raises a number of questions which are in need of
further exploration: (i) What exactly are phases and what are the
criteria for identifying them? (ii) Can the island effects,
formerly subsumed under the Subjacency condition (i.e. no movement
across two cyclic nodes), be reduced to a more strict locality
constraint like Chomsky's Phase Impenetrability Condition ? (iii) Could it be that the inventory of Phases may vary from
language to language (comparable to the idea put forward in On
Wh-movement that there may be cross-linguistic variation in the
inventory of bounding/cyclic nodes for Subjacency; cf. also Rizzi
1978/1982). (iv) To what extent does Cyclicity hold for covert
displacements? (v) what formal reflexes (on C, on T, or on other
functional heads) are found of the application of successive
cyclic movement?; (vi) How do we account for apparent extractions
from the non-periphery (i.e. non-edge) of certain phrases (e.g.
Who did you see a picture of --?).
By organizing this workshop, we
hope to provide a forum to work towards settling at least some of
these questions.
Programme:
Wednesday,
December 11: TUTORIAL
(Location: Leiden University,
Building 1175 room 148: see map, red
cross)
| 13.00
– 14.00 |
Registration
for the workshop |
| 14.00
– 17.00 |
Tutorial
by Maggie Browning (Princeton University) on Chomsky’s
1977 article ‘On Wh-movement’. |
Thursday,
December 12:
(Location: Leiden University,
Rapenburg 73 klein auditorium: see map,
blue cross)
Workshop-day 1. Themes (i) On
wh-diagnostics
(ii)
On the nature of wh-movement
|
9.00
– 10.00 |
Registration
for the workshop |
| 10.00
– 11.00 |
Luigi
Rizzi (Universita' di Siena/Geneva): Wh
movement: Cartography and Locality |
| 11.00
– 11.15 |
Coffee
break (and registration) |
| 11.15
– 12.00 |
Heejeong
Ko (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): The origin of
'why-in-situ' |
| 12.00
– 12.45 |
Chris Reintges, Philip LeSourd, and Sandra Chung
(U. of Leiden, Indiana U, and UC Santa Cruz): Movement,
Wh-agreement, and apparent Wh-in-situ |
| 12.45
– 14.00 |
Lunch |
| 14.00
– 14.45 |
Ricardo Etxepare & Miriam Uribe-Etxebarria (CNRS/LEHIA,
EHU-UPV/LEHIA):
Wh-Movement
in Spanish: The Right Side of It |
| 14.45
– 15.30 |
Brian
Agbayani (California State University, Fresno): The
Trouble with Wh-Subjects |
| 15.30
– 16.00 |
Tea Break |
| 16.00
– 16.45 |
Caterina
Donati (Universita' di Urbino): Deriving phrasal movement |
| 16.45
– 17.45 |
Akira Watanabe (U. of Tokyo):
The pied piper feature |
Friday December 13 (Location:
Utrecht University)
Drift 21
(= streetname) room 032
Workshop-day 2. Themes (i) (Successive) Cyclicity
(ii)
Types of wh-constructions
Alternates:
1. Toru Ishii (Meiji University)
On
the proper treatment of relaxation of Intervention effects
2. Henrietta Yang (University of Texas at Austin)
Partial movement and multiple spellout in Punjabi
relative clauses
Fact sheet:
Dates:
11 December, 2002 (Wednesday) (tutorial by Maggie Browning)
12-13 December, 2002 (Thursday-Friday)
Presentations will be 30 minutes + 15 minutes for questions,
discussion, feedback.
Organizers:
Lisa Cheng (Leiden University, L.L.Cheng@let.leidenuniv.nl)
Norbert Corver (Utrecht University, Norbert.Corver@let.uu.nl)
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