Q-particles and the nature of covert movement: Evidence from Bùlì
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810-15332-1-PB.pdf
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3.54 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Sulemana, Abdul-Razak
Alternative Title
Q-particles and the nature of Covert movement: Evidence from Buli
Date Issued
August 23, 2019
Journal
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics
Publisher
Ubiquity Press, Ltd.
Citation
Sulemana, Abdul-Razak. "Q-particles and the nature of Covert movement: Evidence from Buli." Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 4, 1 (August 2019): 99 © 2019 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
There are a number of intriguing issues surrounding wh-questions that have drawn considerable attention in the literature. Among the most commonly observed is the fact that in certain languages, wh-phrases move overtly from their base-generated positions to a clause-peripheral position, while in other languages the wh-phrases remain in-situ and are not overtly moved. A well known and contentious issue, to which this paper contributes with novel data from Buli, is the status of the in-situ wh-phrase. For instance, do in-situ phrases undergo covert movement? If so how is this movement similar or different from overt movement? I argue that the language distinguishes two kinds of wh-in-situ phrases: one undergoes covert movement, a movement I claim is comparable in many ways to overt wh-movement, while the other one doesn’t. The key to this observation, I further argue, is the presence of an overt Q-particle in the language. Whenever the Q-particle is absent, the signs of movement disappear. This provides a very transparent set of arguments in favor of the mixed view that sometimes you have movement of wh-in-situ and other other times you don't. Keywords: Bùlì; wh-in situ; Q-particles; Covert movement
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.810
