Minimality Effects in Syntax · The MLC and Derivational Economy ...

The MLC and Derivational Economy 

Gisbert Fanselow 

Introduction 

There is a certain tension between the role which the Minimal Link Condition 

(MLC, (1)) plays in at least the minimalist theories of syntax, and the existence 

of numerous (apparent or real) counterexamples such as (2) that arise 

in multiple questions. For such questions, the MLC seems to imply strict 

superiority effects. In particular, wh-objects should not be able to cross whsubjects 

on their way to Spec,CP. More often than not, this prediction fails 

to be observed. Put differently, the question arises as to why the MLC is 

respected strictly by head movement, and more of less so by A-movement, 

while it is a fairly poor predictor for grammaticality when the proper way of 

carrying out operator movement is at stake. 

(1) Minimal Link Condition (MLC) 

α cannot move to γ if there is a β that can also move to γ and is closer 

to γ than α 

(2) Constructions violating the superiority condition 

a. which book did which person read? 

b. was hat wer gelesen (German) 

what has who read 

“what was read by whom?” 

If correct, this characterization of the problem already suggests a solution: 

the MLC must be interpreted as a principle that is sensitive to interpretation/ 

expressivity (cf. also Kitahara (1993), (1994), Reinhart (1995), Sternefeld 

(1997)). Whenever it does not make a semantic difference whether the MLC 

is respected or not, the MLC must be obeyed strictly. However, the MLC is 

never (by itself) able to block a movement operation that is inevitable for 

expressing a certain meaning. Consequently, to the extent that head movement 

does not have any semantic effects, the MLC governs head movement

74 Gisbert Fanselow 

in a strict and exceptionless way. To the extent that different ways of carrying 

out operator movement are crucial in establishing different semantic relations, 

the MLC effects we observe in this domain are modulated by considerations 

of interpretation. 

Originally, the idea that the MLC decides between those structural alternatives 

only that have identical meanings was motivated by data involving 

different scope assignments to wh-operators (see sect. 1). The present paper 

argues that the required meaning identity must also involve distinctions of 

information structure (sections 3 and 4), which explains why many (if not 

most) languages are like German in not showing simple superiority effects 

at all. Languages like English and Bulgarian fit into such a picture as well – 

there is no variation among languages in this respect. Furthermore, we concur 

with Sternefeld (1997) in the claim that the MLC must be applied in a 

cyclic rather than global fashion (section 2.4), and we argue that it involves 

reference to LF-identity rather than meaning identity in a broad sense. 

1. The MLC and wh-phrase scope 

The MLC is a core principle of current syntactic theorizing, and has been 

made responsible for a wide variety of syntactic generalizations, such as the 

Head Movement Constraint of Travis (1984), the intervention effects 

restricting A-movement to subject position (Chomsky 1993, 1995, Stepanov 

2001, this volume), and the superiority effect governing the formation of 

multiple questions. In spite of the important role it plays in determining 

whether syntactic computations are formally correct, some aspects of multiple 

questions require that the MLC is sensitive to the interpretation of the 

structures or derivations that it compares. 

Before we discuss this fact, let us consider some simple superiority 

effects in English. Object wh-phrases cannot cross c-commanding subject 

wh-phrases (3), as was observed by Kuno and Robinson (1972). Haider 

(this volume) argues that the contrast in (3) involves a grammatical constraint 

that bans wh-phrases occupying the subject position of finite clauses 

(such as the Empty Category Principle of Chomsky 1981). 

(3) Simple subject-object asymmetry 

a. (It does not matter) who bought what 

b.(It does not matter) *what who bought _

Independent of whether such a factor contributes to making (3b) worse than 

(3a), the special status of the subject position cannot be the only source for 

superiority effects: wh-objects must not cross wh-subjects even when the 

latter are lexically governed, as in (4). Likewise, a wh-object from a lower 

clause cannot cross a wh-object from a higher clause on its way up to 

Spec,CP (5). The interaction of clausemate objects yields identical intervention 

effects, as evidenced by the contrasts in (6). 

(4) Subject-object asymmetry not involving proper government 

a. who do you expect _ to do what? 

b.*what do you expect who to do _ 

(5) Biclausal object-object-asymmetry 

a. who do you persuade _ to do what 

b.*what do you persuade who to do _ 

(6) Superiority effects among objects 

a.*what did you give who _ 

b. who did you give _ what 

c. what/which check did you send _ to who 

d.*who(m) did you send what/which check to _ 

The MLC and derivational economy 75 

As Hendrick and Rochemont (1982) correctly point out, data such as (4) – (6) 

are incompatible with the view that the superiority effect can be completely 

reduced to the ECP or a similar principle. What is called for is an account 

along the lines originally proposed by Kuno and Robinson (1972): A wh-DP 

a cannot cross a structurally higher wh-DP b when moving to Spec,CP. This 

generalization derives from the MLC in (1) straightforwardly. 

One notorious difficulty of purely formal accounts of the superiority 

condition derives from the fact that pairs of wh-phrases that take different 

semantic scope need not obey the MLC, as (7) illustrates (see, e.g., Huang 

1982, Lasnik and Saito 1992). If the lower occurence of who in (7a) takes 

matrix scope, the sentence is fine, although the movement of what across 

who fails to obey the MLC. If the lower who takes scope over the complement 

clause only, (7a) is as ungrammatical as (3b). The effect is not confined 

to clausemate wh-phrases. Of ten English native speakers (all linguists) that I 

consulted, seven accepted (7c), and five did not even find (7d) objectionable.


(7) Absence of superiority effects for wh-phrases with different scope 

a. who wonders what who bought? 

b. who wonders who bought what? 

c. who wonders what John persuaded who to buy __ ? 

d. who wonders what John told who that he should buy __ ? 

According to Golan (1993), Kitahara (1993), and Reinhart (1995, 1998), such 

facts suggest that the MLC must be interpreted as an economy constraint 

related to LF-outputs (meanings). Whenever there is no other way to express 

a certain meaning, the MLC need not be respected. Let us consider (7a) in 

more detail. Overt movement of a wh-phrase to Spec,CP fixes its scope. A 

wh-phrase merged in a complement clause can thus take matrix scope under 

two conditions only: it moves to the Spec,CP position of the matrix clause, 

or it stays in situ, and gets scope-bound by an element in the matrix clause. 

It must not, however, be placed into the Spec,CP position of the complement 

clause, and still take matrix scope. Thus, the subject of the complement clause 

who can take matrix scope in (7a) only if it stays in situ. In other words, it 

can take matrix scope only if crossed by the lower wh-phrase what targeting 

the complement clause Spec,CP position. The meaning (8a) of (7a) simply 

cannot be expressed differently – (7b) means something else (viz. (8b)). 

Whether the MLC is respected or not is irrelevant when the structural alternatives 

differ in interpretation. 

(8) a.For which persons x,y: x wonders what y bought 

b.For which person x, and for which z: x wonders who bought z 

In contrast to what holds for (7), the two derivational alternatives in (3) do 

not yield different interpretations: there is only one scope option available 

for the two wh-phrases. In such a situation (and only in such a situation), 

the MLC filters out derivations that are not in line with it. Further English 

constructions illustrating that the application of the MLC depends on the 

interpretation arrived at will be presented in sections 2.1. and 2.3. 

Given that the wellformedness of (7a) is of some theoretical importance, 

it is surprising that little evidence from other languages has entered the discussion 

of the interpretation-sensitivity of the MLC. According to one of 

my informants (Koyka Stoyanova, p.c.), (9a,b) are as fine in Bulgarian as 

they are in English if the second occurence of koj is stressed, but in her 

dialect, the order kakvo koj is grammatical in simple multiple questions, too.

Penka Stateva, my second Bulgarian informant, does not accept the order 

kakvo koj in a simple clause, and rejects (9) as well. No contrast such as the 

one between (3) and (7) exists in Bulgarian. The absence of this contrast 

will be explained in section 4.1: we argue there that the ordering restrictions 

among Bulgarian wh-phrases are not caused by the MLC. The ungrammaticality 

of (9) in some dialects therefore does not bear on the issue of the 

interpretation sensitivity of the MLC. 

(9) Anti-superiority in Bulgarian 

a.#koj se chudi, kakvo koj kupi? 

who wonders what who bought 

“who wonders what who bought?” 

b.#na kogo kaza, kakvo koj kupi? 

who.dat you-tell what who bought 


For other languages, it is not much easier to construct relevant evidence, 

because the simple superiority effect exemplified in (3) is not a widespread 

phenomenon. The following data from German, however, provide further 

evidence for the interpretation sensitivity of the MLC. (2b) has already 

shown that the formation of multiple questions is not affected by the MLC 

in German (at least superficially) when clausemates are involved, but it has 

been claimed frequently that a wh-phrase from a lower clause cannot cross 

a matrix wh-word. 

(10) Superiority for non-clausemates in standard German 

a.*wen hat wer gehofft, dass Irina einlädt 

wh.acc has who.nom hoped that Irina invites 

b. wer hat gehofft, dass Irina wen einlädt 

“who has hoped that Irina will invite who?” 

There are reasons to doubt, however, that the ungrammaticality of (10a) (in 

the standard dialect) is caused by the MLC. Superiority effects disappear 

when the wh-phrases are discourse-linked in the sense of Pesetsky (1987). 

However, (10a) does not improve in the standard language when d-linked 

wh-phrases are used. Thus, what rules out (10a) must be different from the 

MLC.


(11) *welchen Studenten hat welcher Professor gehofft, 

dass Irina einlädt 

which.acc student.acc has which.nom professor hoped 

that Irina invites 

“which professor has hoped that Irina invites which student?” 

In less restrictive dialects (such as the one spoken by the author), all sentences 

in (12) are acceptable up to a certain degree, but (12a) and (12b) 

have different interpretations. If (12a) is completely wellformed at all, the 

sentence allows a single-pair interpretation only. A pair-list-reading is available 

for (12b) only, i.e., for the structure which violates the MLC. In addition 

the “scope-marking” construction (12c) allows the pair-list-reading as 

well. 

(12) Nonstandard German: Subordinate clause wh-elements crossing matrix 

wh-phrases 

a.(?)wer hat gehofft, dass Irina wen einlädt 

who has hoped that Irina who invites 

b. wen hat wer gehofft, dass Irina einlädt 

who.acc has who.nom hoped that Irina invites 

c. was hat wer gehofft, wen Irina einlädt 

what has who hoped who.acc Irina invites 

How can these data be understood? 1 In quite a number of languages, in situ 

wh-phrases cannot take scope out of the minimal (finite) clause they are 

contained in. Hindi is a case in point (see Mahajan 1990). The scope of an 

in-situ wh-phrase must be determined by linking it to a higher wh-phrase, or 

to a scope marker. The linking might be arrived at in various ways (binding, 

covert movement), but the important observation concerning Hindi and other 

languages is that linking is subject to strong locality requirements. In contrast 

to what holds for overt movement (=wh-scrambling in the case of Hindi), 

finite CPs are barriers for the linking relation. Consequently, (13) is ungrammatical 

because the lower occurence of kis-ko must be linked to a whphrase 

or a scope marker, but cannot be so because it is embedded in an 

island for linking.


(13) Clauseboundedness of the binding of in situ wh-phrases in Hindi 

*Raam-ne kis-ko kahaa ki Sitaa-ne kis-ko dekhaa 

Raam-erg who.dat told that Sita-erg who saw? 

“who did Ram tell that Sita saw who?” 

Let us now come back to (12). First, we want to explain why (12a) is out with 

a pair-list interpretation. This follows if (the relevant version of) German 

resembles Hindi in that finite CPs are barriers for the scope linking of in 

situ wh-phrases. Consequently, wen cannot be scope-linked to wer in (12a), 

which renders the structure ungrammatical under the intended interpretation. 

Finite clauses are not, however, barriers for overt movement. Therefore, 

there is a way of constructing a Logical Form for (12) in which both whphrases 

take matrix scope, viz. by moving the wh-element from the complement 

clause into the matrix-Spec-CP position, and by scope-linking the 

matrix subject to the matrix Spec,CP position. This is what has happened in 

(12b). None of the relations established there is in conflict with locality 

requirements – but the MLC is violated. Apparently, this MLC-violation is 

licensed because the relevant Logical Form cannot be arrived at in a different 

way – the structure (12a) respecting the MLC is incompatible with the locality 

of the licensing of wh-phrases in situ. (12) illustrates the same phenomenon 

as (7), but in a rather different context. 

The other examples in (12) illustrate two further points. (12c) shows that 

German is like Hindi in having a wh-scope-marking construction, in which 

a scope marker (was) rather than the real wh-phrase appears in Spec,CP. 

(12c) is well-formed in all dialects of German, and expresses a pair-list 

interpretation. A minor point illustrated by this example is that finite clauses 

are islands for scope taking in German only for wh-phrases that do not 

occupy a Spec,CP position (note that the lower wh-phrase is fronted in the 

complement clause). There are various ways of analysing the construction 

(see, e.g., the contributions in Lutz, Müller and von Stechow 2000), but 

details are irrelevant for the more important point: long wh-movement in 

(12b) and wh-scope marking in (12c) yield the same interpretation, but the 

wh-scope-marking construction (12c) avoids an MLC violation, in contrast 

to (12b). This shows that the sensitivity of the MLC to interpretation cannot 

involve a simple, “global” concept of meaning identity. If it would, the 

wellformedness of (12c) should imply that the MLC is able to rule out 

(12b). Given (12c), no MLC-violation is necessary for expressing the 

“meaning” of (12b). The MLC must therefore not be sensitive to “meaning 

identity” in a global sense. Rather, the identity of interpretation that is rele-


vant for the applicability of the MLC must be a matter of identical (or closeto-identical) 

Logical Forms. The LF of (12c) is different from the one of (12b) 

(see in particular Fanselow and Mahajan (2000) for arguments), and therefore, 

(12c) does not count when the grammaticality of (12b) is established. 

Haider (1997: 221) exemplifies the claim that complement clause whphrases 

may cross matrix wh-phrases in German with examples such as (14). 

To me, (14) invites a single-pair answer only, so that (14) is not fully comparable 

to the multiple questions discussed so far. Furthermore (14) involves 

apparent movement from a V2-complement clause, and the theoretical 

status of such an operation is quite unclear, see Reis (1996, 1997) for arguments 

that the construction is parenthetical. I therefore refrain from discussing 

such examples in more detail. 

(14) Superiority violations in a construction with extraction out of a V2 

complement 

wemi Bild 

hat wer 

verkauft]? 

gesagt [ei habe sie ei ein 

who.dat hat who.nom said has.subjunctive she a 

picture sold 

“who said she had sold a picture to whom?” 

Our argumentation presupposes that single-pair interpretations of multiple 

questions (for which (12a) seems marginally acceptable) have a derivation 

different from the one for multiple questions with a pair-list reading. This 

claim is supported by the observation that further constructions are ungrammatical 

with a pair-list reading, but acceptable under a single-pair interpretation. 

E.g., most native speakers of German (including the author) reject 

(15) as a question asking for pair-lists, but the single pair interpretation is 

fine. 

(15) Multiple adjunct question with a single pair interpretation 

wie hat er es warum geschrieben 

how has he it why written 

“how did he write it, and why” 

Examples such as (7) show that the applicability of the MLC depends on 

the interpretation of the structure that it would block. German data such as

(12) constitute further evidence for this. At the same time, the data in (12) 

shows that the MLC is not sensitive to “meaning” in a global sense – rather, 

it is the nature of the LF that a movement operation creates that determines 

whether the MLC must be respected. 

2. The MLC and expressivity 

The strongest conclusion one can draw from from the discussion in the preceding 

paragraph is that requirements of semantic expressivity always override 

the MLC. A structure violating the MLC is ungrammatical only if the 

Logical Form it would express can be arrived at with a structure respecting 

the MLC. In this section, we defend this strong conclusion against potential 

counterexamples, and discuss how the MLC can be applied in local fashion. 

First, we discuss the interaction of the MLC with the that-trace filter. 

Section 2.2 focuses argument-adjunct asymmetries, while section 2.3 is 

dedicated to nestedness effects, which have been related to the MLC. 

Finally, we will briefly discuss what a cyclic application of the MLC might 

look like. 

2.1. Interactions with the ECP 


As one of the anonymous reviewers has pointed out, the absence of a contrast 

in (16) might pose a problem for the idea that the MLC applies only if 

that does not prevent a certain interpretation from being expressed: 

(16) Two wh-phrases merged in a finite complement clause 

a.*who do you think that _ bought what 

b.*what do you think that who bought _ 

(16b) violates the MLC, so its ungrammaticality is expected. However, the 

constellation that respects the MLC, viz., (16a), is ungrammatical as well 

because of a that-trace-filter violation. In contrast to what we saw in section 1, 

the MLC violation of (16b) is not tolerated by the grammatical system of 

English, in spite of the fact that this renders the interpretation of (16b) inexpressible. 

The absence of a contrast in (16) does not show, however, that the MLC 

is able to block structures even if the competing structure respecting the


MLC violates a further condition on LF. Aoun et al. (1987) and others have 

argued that the principle Q responsible for the that-trace effect applies at 

PF, and not at LF. Consequently, Q cannot interact with the MLC: the MLC 

applies to LFs, and compares derivations that yield (close-to-) identical LFs. 

It is blind to what happens in other branches of the derivation. A structure 

that has an optimal LF and is accepted by the MLC need not be in line with 

further PF-requirements, rendering the LF unpronouncable. Given this relevance 

of PF-constraints, (16) does not exclude an interpretation of the MLC 

that compares different ways of arriving at essentially the same LFs – while 

it falls in line with an other conclusion arrived at in section 1: the MLC is not 

a principle that takes care of “expressivity” in a literal sense. 

The following observation leads to a modification of our analysis of (16), 

which leaves the crucial point intact, however: the MLC responds to the 

need of respecting further LF-constraints, but it is blind to what happens in 

the PF-branch of grammar. Haider (this volume) argues that there is an extra 

constraint banning wh-phrase occupying the specifier position of a finite IP 

in English. The constraint is independent of the MLC, since it shows its 

force even in constructions that do not involve a crossing wh-dependency, 

as was already observed by Chomsky (1981). Interestingly, as (17) illustrates, 

the relative degree of (un-)acceptability involves dimensions such as 

discourse-linking (see 17b), and, as Bresnan (1972) has observed, in situ 

wh-subjects are much better when they appear in subjunctive clauses. 

(17) Wh-subjects in situ 

a.*who believes that who loves Irina? 

b.?who believes that which man loves Irina? 

c.?who demands that who be arrested? 

The ungrammaticality of (16b) might therefore also be caused by the presence 

of an in situ wh-subject in a finite clause quite independent of the MLC. 

Given the contrasts in (17), one would expect that structures like (16b) 

improve if, e.g., the complement clause appears in the subjunctive mood. In 

such a construction, the overt movement of the subject of the complement 

clause still implies a that-trace filter violation, but the additional ban against 

in situ wh-subjects is now much less strict. According to Anthony Green and 

Sue Olsen (p.c.), (18a) is indeed much better that (16b).

(18) Missing superiority effect for extraction out of a subjunctive complement 

a.(?)what do they require that who buy? 

b.*who do they require that buy what 

c.*what do you expect who to buy 

d. who do you expect to buy what 

If the contrast between (16b) and (18a) generalizes, we have a further example 

from English that shows that the MLC does not block a construction 

(viz., (18a)) if the structure that conforms to the MLC (viz., (18b)) violates a 

different principle. The contrast between (18a) and (18b) would force upon 

us the assumption that the that-trace filter banning overt subject movement 

in fact applies at LF, and not at PF. Otherwise, its effects would not be visible 

to the MLC, as necessary for (18a). Consequently, the PF-located constraint 

that is invisible to the MLC (as required for (16)) is rather the further ban 

against in situ wh-subjects argued for by Haider (this volume) and not the 

that-trace filter. 

It should finally be noted that the contrast between (18a) and (18c) is due 

to the fact that the MLC-respecting competitor is well-formed in the case of 

(18c), but not in the case of (18d). 

2.2. Adjuncts 

Multiple questions with adjunct wh-pronouns constitute a second domain 

that is relevant for the status of the MLC as an economy constraint. None of 

the structures in (19) is grammatical – although there is no other (monoclausal) 

way of expressing the intended interpretations. 

(19) Adjunct effects in English 

a.*who came why 

b.*why did who come 

c.*who spoke how 

d.*how did who speak? 


The MLC clearly picks (19a,c) rather than (19b,d), and correctly so in the 

light of (20). (19a,c) are blocked by some requirement (see, e.g., Haider, this


volume, Reinhart 1995, Hornstein 1995, among many others) that excludes 

the adjuncts how and why in any position but Spec,CP. 

(20) a. who spoke when? 

b. who spoke in what way? 

Again, the question arises as to why the MLC cannot be overriden in this 

context – yielding (19b,d), which do not violate the strong constraint against 

how and why appearing in situ. Note that (21) is ungrammatical: only one out 

of some twenty linguists with English as a native language who I consulted 

accepted the sentence with a downstairs interpretation of how. Unlike what 

we saw in the preceding section in the context of (18), the ungrammaticality 

of (19b,d) can not be explained in terms of an additional constraint filtering 

out wh-phrases in the subject position of non-subjunctive clauses. 

(21) *how does the police demand that who be treated _ 

We will propose two accounts of (19) that allow us to maintain that the 

MLC is ignored when a certain LF cannot be constructed otherwise. 

As Haider (this volume) has pointed out, adjunct effects of the sort exemplified 

in (19) are absent in OV languages, as (22) illustrates. This observation 

excludes the idea that (19a,c) are ungrammatical on simple semantic grounds. 

(22) Missing Adjunct Effects in OV-languages 

a. wie het hoe gedaan heeft (Dutch complement question) 

b. wer es wie gemacht hat (German complement question) 

who it how done has 

Haider suggests that higher-order wh-operators such as how and why must 

c-command the head of the phrase they are applied to. Higher order adverbs 

range over events, so how and why should c-command the element that situates 

the proposition in time, i.e., how and why must c-command the (finite) 

verb. This condition is fulfilled in (22a,b), but not in (19a,c). Movement of 

the finite verb to Comp does not render wh-adjuncts in situ ungrammatical 

in Dutch or German. This is in line with the general observation that verb 

second movement is invisible at the level of Logical Form, either because it 

is reconstructed, or because it applies in the phonological component of 

grammar.

(22) Missing Adjunct Effects in OV-languages 


c. wie heeft het hoe gedaan (Dutch matrix question) 

d. wer hat es wie gemacht (German matrix question) 

who has it how done 

The account suggested by Haider (this volume) cannot be fully correct, 

however, because Swedish is not in line with it. All of my five informants 

accepted (23a), and three of them found (23b) grammatical, in spite of the 

VO-nature of Swedish. 

(23) Missing adjunct effects in Swedish 

a. vem skrattade varfoer 

who laughed why 

b. Det spelar ingen roll vem som skrattade varfoer 

it plays no role who that laughed why 

“it does not matter who laughed for what reason” 

Similarly, Richards (2001: 18–19) reports adjunct effects for the SOV language 

Tibetan. Therefore, a different solution is called for. Rizzi (1990: 47) 

has proposed that certain wh-adjuncts (corresponding to sentence-level 

adverbs) are based-generated in Comp. One way of translating this proposal 

into the current discussion consists of the assumption that certain wh-elements 

are required to appear at the left periphery of clauses on a language 

particular and item-specific basis. Because of (22) – (23), this idiosyncrasy of 

how and why (and French pourquoi) cannot be reduced to semantic considerations 

alone. One way of spelling this idea out lies in the assumption that the 

MLC applies cyclically (see below for details), while the constraints forcing 

how and why into Spec,CP are representational principles checking the wellformedness 

of completed Logical Forms. The MLC would therefore apply 

prior to the constraints affecting higher order wh-phrases, with the desired 

effect: the MLC picks (19a,c), and these sentence are blocked at too late a 

point in the derivation for undoing the impact of the MLC. 

The account sketched so far predicts the data as judged in (19) and (24). 

The MLC forces the subject to move to Spec,CP in a multiple question involving 

subjects and adjuncts, but the resulting structure is blocked because 

why and how cannot appear in any position but Spec,CP. On the other hand, 

when adjuncts interact with objects, the MLC will make (24b) block (24a). 

(24b) is also in line with the requirement that English wh-adjuncts appear at 

the left periphery.


(24) Adjunct-object interaction in multiple questions 

a.*what did Bill buy why 

b. why did Bill buy what 

Hornstein (1995: 147–149) reports further data such as (25) that may in fact 

lead to a simpler analysis. If his judgements are correct, why (unlike its 

Dutch, German and Swedish counterparts) cannot appear at all in multiple 

questions, quite independent of the position it appears in. 

(25) wh-adjuncts blocked in multiple questions 

a.*I wonder why Bill left when 

b.*I wonder why Bill lives where 

c.*I wonder why which person came 

d.*I wonder why you bought what 

e.*why does John expect who to win 

If Hornstein is correct, wh-adjuncts come in two varieties. German wie 

“how” and warum “why” are linked to a semantic representation that makes 

them eligible for multiple questions, whereas how and why cannot appear 

there. Under such an account, all sentences in (19) are simply gibberish, and 

we need not care about what the MLC would predict for them. Whether this 

simplification is tenable or not depends on the status of (24b). If grammatical, 

this sentence is incompatible with the idea that why cannot appear in multiple 

questions. The simplification thus presupposes that (24b) involves an “illusion 

of acceptablity” (Hornstein 1995: 148). We need not settle the issue here, 

because the idea that the MLC is an economy constraint can be maintained 

in the account discussed earlier as well. 

2.3. Nestedness 

A third domain sheds light on the question of whether the MLC is sensitive 

to LF-identity or not: nestedness effects. It has been suggested that the nestedness 

effect can be derived from the MLC, see Richards (2001) for a 

detailed proposal. If this suggestion is correct, the application of the MLC 

could not be confined to structural candidates yielding the same LF.


In English, the interaction of two wh-phrases moving to two different 

Spec,CP positions is governed by a nestedness effect (see Fodor 1978, 

Pesetsky 1982): the dependencies formed by the two wh-chains must not 

cross – one path must be embedded in the other. The nestedness condition is 

respected, even when it blocks the expression of a certain interpretation, as 

it does in (26b) and (27b). 2 

(26) Nestedness Effects 

a.?Which violinj do you wonder which sonatai to play _i on _j 

b.*Which sonataj do you wonder which violini to play _i on _j 

(27) a.?Whatj did you decide [whoi [to persuade ti [to buy tj]]] (Oka 1993: 255, (2a)) 

b.*Whoi did you decide [whatj [to persuade ti [to buy tj]]] (Oka 1993: 255, (2b)) 

The constraint responsible for nestedness is respected even though the meanings 

of (26b, 27b) are different from the one expressed by (26a, 27a). Such 

observations are relevant for the present discussion to the extent that claims 

made by Richards (2001) and others are correct that the nestedness condition 

reduces to the MLC. If it does, (26) and (27) would not be in line with the 

idea that the MLC is ignored when a certain LF could not be formulated 

otherwise. 

Under what conditions does the MLC imply nestedness effects? Consider 

an abstract representation such as (28a), with two wh-phrases that both could 

be attracted by either of Comp A and Comp B. When the derivation reaches the 

point at which Comp B attracts a wh-phrase (at which the specifier of Comp B 

must be filled by a wh-phrase), a “blind” application of the MLC implies 

that wh 1 only can move, forming (28b). At a later stage in the derivation, 

Comp A attracts (the specifier of Comp A must be filled by a wh-phrase). Let 

us confine our attention to a situation in which wh 1 has already reached its 

scope position in (28b). Therefore, it cannot undergo further movement. 

What will happen in such a situation? 

(28) a.[CompA … [CompB [ .. wh1 .. [ wh2 … ]]]] 

b.[CompA … wh1 [CompB [ .. wh1 .. [ wh2 … ]]]] 

c.[wh2 CompA … wh1 [CompB [ .. wh1 .. [ wh2 … ]]]]


If the MLC applies blindly irrespective of whether the LF it generates is wellformed 

or not, then only wh 1 can move to Comp A (wh 2 cannot move because 

of intervening wh 1), which implies that the derivation breaks down, because 

a wh-phrase is required to move that must not do so. In this way, aspects of 

the wh-island condition might be derived, see Chomsky (1995). This would 

constitute a case in which the MLC rules out a meaning that cannot be 

expressed otherwise. It is not advisable, however, to derive the wh-island 

effect from the MLC. In spite of the fact that it respects the superiority condition, 

English is sometimes quite liberal with respect to wh-islands, as the 

status of e.g. what do you wonder how to fix suggests. German respects the 

wh-island condition, but fails to show superiority effects. The two phenomena 

simply are not correlated with each other. 

If wh 1 is frozen in its position in (28b), i.e., if it cannot move further, and 

if that is taken into account in the computation of MLC effects, then wh 1 

does not constitute a b is the sense of (1) repeated below that could go to 

Comp A 

(1) Minimal Link Condition (MLC) 

α cannot move to γ if there is a β that can also move to γ and is closer 

to γ than α 

Therefore, wh 2 can move to Comp A (as in (28c)). The derivation leading to 

(28c) is well-formed, yielding a nested structure, because the lower of two 

Comps (which attracts first) only attracts the higher of two wh-phrases if 

movement respects the MLC. In this way, the nestedness condition is derivable 

from the MLC. 

Obviously, this reduction of the nestedness condition to the MLC presupposes 

that the applicability of the MLC does not depend on the existence 

of a different way of constructing the intended Logical Form. The LF (28d) 

is different from (28c), so that the fact that (28c) cannot be arrived at in a 

derivation respecting the MLC is irrelevant for the wellformedness of (28d). 

(28) d.[wh 1 Comp A … wh 2 [Comp B [ .. wh 1 .. [ wh 2 … ]]]] 

If one wants to stick to the idea that the MLC triggers nestedness effects, 

one has to offer alternative accounts of the data presented sections 1 and 2.1 

that suggest an interpretation-sensitivity of the MLC. There are, however, 

good reasons for not endorsing such an MLC-based account of nestedness. 

Superiority and nestedness do not go hand in hand, as one would expect if 

the two phenomena were due to the same principle of UG.

For example, Swedish respects the nestedness condition (see Maling and 

Zaenen 1982: 238f) although it fails to show superiority effects, see (29) 

and (ii) in endnote 3. Thus, at least in Swedish, nestedness cannot be 

reduced to the MLC. 

(29) Absence of superiority effects in Swedish 

Vad koepte vem 

what bought who 


At least certain varieties of Spanish (see (30)) and Catalan exemplify what 

appears to be an anti-nestedness effect for extractions from wh-clauses: the 

wh-phrase that is merged in the higher position must also be the one moved 

to the higher of the two Spec,CP slots. Thus, wh-subjects and wh-indirect 

objects may cross wh-objects, but not vice versa. 

(30) Anti-nestedness in Spanish 

a.*qué libros no sabes quién ha leido 

which books not you know who has read 

b. quién no sabes qué libros ha leido 

who not you know which books has read 

c. a quién no sabes qué libros ha devuelto Celia 

to who not you know which books has returned Celia 

d.*qué libros no sabes a quíen ha devuelto Celia 

Likewise, Richards (2001: 27) claims that there is an anti-nestedness effect 

in Bulgarian. Again, the constraint seems uncorrelated with superiority, 

since simple superiority effects are observed in Bulgarian only, and not in 

Spanish. 

(31) Anti-nestedness in Bulgarian 

a. Koj1 se opitvat da razberat kogo2 t1 e ubil t2 Who self try to find out whom is killed 

b.*Kogo 1 se opitvat da razberat koj 2 t 2 e ubil t 2 

In any event, it is hard to draw firm theoretical conclusions from such contrasts, 

since there is considerable individual variation among speakers of


Bulgarian (see Richards 2001: 28) and of Spanish (at least among the 

speakers we consulted). This variation suggests that processing factors contribute 

to generating (anti-)nestedness effects (see also Fodor 1978). 

Furthermore, nestedness effects have properties are different from those of 

superiority. Norwegian shows nestedness effects, but only if three (or more) 

dependencies are involved (Maling & Zaenen 1982). This is unexpected from 

an MLC perspective: the addition of a third wh-phrase eliminates superiority 

effects in English. Likewise, at least in English, there is no discourse-linking 

influence on nestedness: (26b) is bad although both wh-phrases are d-linked 

in the sense of Pesetsky (1987). Superiority effects fail to show up, however, 

when the wh-phrases are d-linked. To sum up, there is a number of reasons 

for not deriving (anti-)nestedness from the MLC. 

2.4. Cyclic application of the MLC 

Our discussion corroborated the view that the MLC is an economy constraint: 

it does not apply when the relevant LF cannot be generated without violating 

it. The MLC is, however, insensitive to the issue of whether other components 

of grammar (such as PF) might prevent the structure selected by it from surfacing. 

The target LFs that the MLC compares must be very similar to each other. 

Otherwise, we could not understand the data discussed in section 1: the availability 

of a wh-scope-marking constructions was shown to be irrelevant for 

the applicability of the MLC in a structure involving long wh-movement. 

From a conceptual point of view, the MLC should be a derivational principle 

that applies when a phrase moves, or when a phase is completed. A 

cyclic application of the MLC may be called for on empirical grounds as 

well: if the principles that block in situ wh-subjects in English non-subjunctive 

clauses, and wh-adjuncts in non-left peripheral positions do not apply 

to PF, but rather at LF, then we must guarantee that the application of the 

MLC is not affected by them. This would hold if the MLC is applied cyclically, 

while the two constraints are representational restrictions on completed 

LFs. 

The simplest (but insufficient) way of applying the MLC cyclically and 

capturing interpretation effects at the same time works with the assumption 

that attracting Comps come with some index that must be shared by the whphrase 

to be attracted. The index indicates the target scope of the wh-phrases. 

Comp can attract a wh-phrase only if the indices borne by the two elements 

are identical. Therefore, under a strict interpretation of (1), a wh-phrase can


skip another wh-phrase if they have different indices. See, e.g., Sternefeld 

(1997) for a discussion. What 3 can move across the wh-subject in (32a), 

since who bears the scope index A of the matrix Comp. 

(32) a. whoA CompA wonders whatB CompB whoA bought _ 

b. whoA CompA wonders whoB CompB bought whatA c. whoA CompA wonders whoB CompB bought what 

d.*who CompA wonders whatB CompB whoB bought 

In such a model, the MLC can be hard-wired into the definition of movement 

(as proposed by Chomsky 1995): the attracting Comp always triggers the 

movement of the closest wh-phrase with the same index. Exceptions to the 

MLC such as (32a) are more apparent than real: who A cannot be attracted by 

Comp B at all. 

While being attractive from a conceptual point of view, this model does 

not account for a number of data we have considered. In (33), the wh-phrases 

must bear the same index, because they take scope over the same proposition 

(viz., the whole sentence). Therefore, if Comp attracts the closest wh-phrase 

with the same index, the sentences in (33) cannot be generated at all – contrary 

to what is necessary. 

(33) a.?what do they require that who buy? 

b. wen hat wer gehofft, dass Irina einlädt 

who.acc has who.nom hoped that Irina invites 

For (33a), it might suffice to assume that the that-trace effect is hard-wired 

into the definition of movement as well, so that who is invisible to the 

attracting matrix Comp in (33a). Such a solution cannot be applied for (33b), 

however, since matrix subjects easily reach Spec,CP in German questions. 

(33b) and (to a lesser extent) (33a) thus show that a local version of comparing 

different derivations cannot be avoided in a successful theory of the 

MLC. This can be made precise as follows. 

Let us assume that wh-phrases in situ receive their scope by being bound 

(as was first suggested by Baker (1970), see Dayal (2003) for an overview 

of non-movement theories of wh-phrases in situ), and that the binding 

process is itself cyclic. When the syntactic object (34a) has been constructed, 

a wh-phrase must move to the specifier of Comp A if Comp A has a 

feature attracting a wh-phrase. There are four derivations to be considered,


then: either wh 1 or wh 2 moves to the specifier of Comp A , and the wh-phrase 

remaining in situ may or may not be scope-bound by Comp or the other whphrase. 

(34) a.[Comp A - - - [wh 1 - - - [ wh 2 - - - ]]]] 

Suppose that the in-situ wh-phrase is not scope bound after movement 

within (34a). Then we arrive at the representations (34b,c), which are different 

from each other. Therefore, the MLC-respecting structure (34b) cannot 

block (34c), if an application of the MLC presupposes that the relevant LF 

can be generated otherwise. 

(34) b.[wh1 [CompA - - - [wh1 - - - [ wh2 - - - ]]]]] 

c.[wh 2 [CompA - - - [wh1 - - - [ wh2 - - - ]]]]] 

Wh-phrases that are not scope-bound at all are illegal at LF. Consequently, 

the two partial derivations in (34b,c) will end up as grammatical only if the 

wh-phrase left unbound so far is later bound by a higher Comp, or by a 

higher wh-phrase. This is exactly what happens in (32a,b). These examples 

show that neither of (34b,c) should be able to block the other. If the derivation 

proceeds beyond (34b,c), the cyclic nature of wh-binding implies that the 

scope of the in situ wh-phrase must not be confined to the domain of Comp A . 

Suppose now that the in situ wh-phrase is scope bound after movement. 

This yields the representations (34d,e): 

(34) d.[wh1 [ Σ CompA - - - [wh A 

1 - - - [ wh2 A - - - ]]]]] 

e.[wh 2 [ Σ CompA - - - [wh A 

1 - - - [ wh2 A - - - ]]]]] 

The two syntactic objects in (34d,e) are certainly not identical, but they differ 

in a specific way only. The presence or absence of a phonetic matrix should 

be irrelevant for the constitution of a Logical Form. If we abstract away from 

the distribution of phonetic features in a syntactic object (and call the result a 

“partial Logical Form”), then the categories Σ are fully identical in (34d,e). 

Consequently, the MLC is applicable if it sensitive to the identity of the partial 

Logical Forms under construction, and if it selects the most economical 

one of the legal derivations. Normally, the MLC will pick (34d) and block 

(34e) because the closest phrase must be attracted. However, if there is a 

factor that applies cyclically and renders (34d) illegal, the MLC will let (34e) 

pass, since there is no better competing structure left. The that-trace filter

(33a) and the locality requirements for binding (33b) are examples of factors 

that imply a vacuous application of the MLC. 

3. Pragmatic effects 


In the majority of languages, there are no simple superiority effects for 

clausemate wh-phrases. The purpose of this section is to integrate the 

description of these languages into our interpretation of the MLC. Section 

3.1 presents the core facts, discusses potential processing influences, and 

contains further remarks on argument-adjunct asymmetries. Section 3.2. 

refutes the idea that the absence of simple superiority effects is due to a 

relaxed definition of closeness, while section 3.3 argues that we also cannot 

be content with the proposal that the superiority violations are absent 

because scrambling may precede wh-movement. The economy account 

envisaged here is discussed in section 3.4. 

3.1. The absence of simple superiority effects: some general remarks 

In a surprisingly large number of languages, intervention effects of the kind 

exemplified in (3) do not show up in single clauses. Consider, e.g., the 

examples given in (35), all illustrating (apparent) violations of (1). Other 

languages belonging to this group are Mohawk, Kashmiri, Malayalam, and 

the Slavic languages except Bulgarian. 

(35) Apparent violations of the MLC for clausemate arguments 

a. Vad koepte vem (Swedish) 


b. hva# keypti hver (Icelandic) 


c. qué dijo quién (Spanish) 

what said who 

d. co kto robił (Polish) 

what who did 

e. nani-o dare-ga tabeta no (Japanese) 

what who ate 

f. was hat wer gesagt (German) 

what has what said


Two remarks are in order before we can discuss possible analyses for (35). 

First, it is often hard to determine whether a language tolerates superiority 

violations or not. When I asked 22 Dutch linguists via the internet to rate 

(36), five accepted it and seven found it questionable, while ten speakers 

rejected the sentence. It not very plausible that this judgment pattern lends 

support to the claim that there is a categorial difference between, say, Dutch 

and German with respect to superiority. Likewise, it is not obvious what the 

marginality of (37) implies for the status of superiority in French. 

(36) Dutch superiority 

#ik weet niet wat wie gekocht heeft 

I know not what who bought has 

“I do not know who has bought what” 

(37) French superiority 

?Je me demande à qui a parlé qui 

I me wonder to whom has talked who 

“I wonder who has talked to whom” 

Instead of forcing (36) and (37) into one or the other category, the graded 

nature of such MLC violations should figure in the analysis of the construction. 

3 This is particularly true in the light of experimental findings concerning 

judgements by linguistically naive informants. We compared structures such 

as (38a) and (38b) in a questionnaire study and found a highly significant 

difference between multiple questions that respect the MLC and those that 

do not. Structures violating the MLC were rated worse than those respecting 

it (4.8 vs. 2.34) on a 1-6 scale (1: perfect, 6: completely ungrammatical) by 

linguistically naive informants. 

(38) a. Wer besucht wen in der Villa? 2.34 

who visited whom in the villa 

b. wen besucht wer in der Villa? 4.80 

Given that the syntax literature states more or less unanimously that German 

lacks simple superiority effects, such findings are a bit surprising at first 

glance, but they are in line with those obtained by Featherston (2002a,b), 

and they reappeared in a very similar shape in our questionnaire studies 

concerning Polish and Russian.

The key to an understanding of this difference between the syntacticians’ 

wisdom and empirical findings lies in the observation that acceptability 

judgements are influenced by a variety of factors, among them being processing 

difficulty. Object initial structures are harder to process than their 

subject-initial counterparts (as was already shown by Krems 1984 and Frazier 

and Flores d’Arcais 1989, see also Hemforth 1993, among many others), 

and it seems to be for exactly this reason that object-initial structures are in 

general rated worse than subject initial ones in German, irrespective of 

whether a potential superiority violation is involved or not (see Featherston 

2002b). The rating difference between (38a) and (38b) is thus not a proof 

that there is some underlying MLC-based superiority effect in German, but 

if this line of reasoning is correct, it is hard to see on what basis one would 

have to assume a grammatical rather than a processing account for the rating 

profile for Dutch (36). 

The second remark concerns the reappearance of argument-adjunct 

asymmetries in structures violating superiority. Wh-Objects may cross whsubjects 

in Swedish (35a), but wh-adjuncts do not have such a freedom: my 

five informants unanimously rejected (39b), and accepted (39a) only. 

(39) Swedish adjunct superiority 

a. Vem skrattade varfoer 


b.*Varfoer skrattade vem 


German, on the other hand, imposes no real restrictions on multiple questions 

involving warum, ‘why’. We asked 17 non-linguist native speakers of 

German to rate the grammaticality of (40). 15 of these accepted (40a), and 

10 found (40b) grammatical as well. 

(40) Absence of superiority effects for German adjuncts 

a. wer lachte warum 


b. warum lachte wer 

Presumably, this contrast is related to a further difference between Swedish 

and German. Multiple questions involving two adjuncts were unanimously 

rejected by the Swedish informants. German shows something reminiscent 

of a superiority effect in such multiple questions : (42a) was accepted by 9


of 17 informants, while (42b) was judged as grammatical by three informants 

only. To my ears, (42a) allows a pair-list reading, while (42b) is restricted to 

a single pair/echo interpretation. See Haider (this volume) for an analysis of 

languages (not necessarily true for German) in which multiple questions 

must not involve two adjuncts. Below, we will comment on the apparent 

superiority effect in (42). 

(41) Swedish multiple questions involving two adjuncts 

a.*Varfoer bettedde sig barnen hur 

why behaved refl the children how 

b. *Hur betedde sig barnen varfoer 

(42) German multiple questions involving two adjuncts 

a. Warum benahmen sich die Kinder wie? 

why behaved refl the children how? 

b.*Wie benahmen sich die Kinder warum? 

3.2. The absence of simple superiority effects: caused by low subject 

positions? 

At least two types of formal accounts for the absence of superiority effects in 

(35) can be found in the literature, and we will discuss them in turn before 

we consider a pragmatic explanation. First, the definition of “closeness” 

central to the MLC might be modified, so that two phrases can be “equidistant” 

from a target position even if one of them asymmetrically c-commands 

the other. Second, additional movement operations might reverse the ccommand 

relations between wh-phrases before wh-movement. 

Whether a wh-phrase α may cross another wh-phrase β c-commanding 

α depends on the definition of closeness in (1): If the MLC is defined as in 

(43), crossing is excluded in general, but if closeness is made precise in a 

more liberal way, as in (44), the MLC does not restrict the movement of 

phrases within the same maximal projection. 

(43) MLC: Strict Version 

α cannot move to γ if there is a β that can also move to γ and that 

c-commands α

(44) MLC: Liberal Version 

α cannot move to γ if there is a β that can also move to γ and that 

asymmetrically m-commands α 

Suppose, then, that MLC effects are computed relative to (44). Whether a whobject 

may be moved across a wh-subject then depends on the hierarchical 

position of the subject. Subjects are base-generated in the VP. If the subject 

moves to Spec,IP as in (45a), it asymmetrically m-commands the object. 

Therefore, an object cannot pass it on its way up to Spec, CP. If the subject 

stays in VP, as in (45b), the condition for the application of (44) is not met, 

so that the presence of a wh-subject does not interfere with the preposing of 

a wh-object. 

(45) a.[ IP subject [ verb phrase [V object]] 

b.[ IP [ verb phrase subject [V object]] 

(44) thus links the presence or absence of simple superiority effects to an 

independent parameter, viz., the location of the subject. Indeed, subjects 

need not move to Spec, IP in many of the languages (among them Spanish 

or German) that disrespect superiority. The “free inversion” of subjects and 

verbs in Spanish has always been taken as evidence that Spec,TP can be 

filled by an empty pleonastic pro, which allows the subject to stay in the 

verbal projection. 

(46) Free Inversion in Spanish 

le regalaron los estudiantes un libro 

her gave the students a book 

“the students gave her a book as a present” 

The view that thematic subjects need not leave the VP in German either is 

corroborated by constructions in which the VP precedes the second position 

auxiliary, as was noted by Haider (1986, 1990, 1993): The subject can be 

part of such VPs (47b,c), a fact suggesting that it need not move to Spec, IP 

in overt syntax. 

(47) a.[Mädchen geküsst] hat er noch nie 

girls kissed has he not yet 

“he has not yet kissed any girls” 

The MLC and derivational economy 97


b.[Häuser gebrannt] haben hier noch nie 

houses burnt have here yet never 

“houses have never burnt here” 

c.[Mädchen geküsst] haben ihn noch nie 

girls kissed have him yet never 

“girls have not kissed him yet” 

Thus, there is independent evidence that (45b) is a legal constellation of 

German and Spanish. An MLC formulated as in (44) will not prevent the 

object from moving across the subject in (45b). In contrast, subjects must go 

to Spec,IP in English. Here, (45a) is the only constellation that can underlie 

multiple questions such as (3). Even in its liberal version (44), the MLC 

prevents an object from crossing a subject. The choice between (44a) and 

(44b) is thus a good candidate for an explanation of crosslinguistic variation 

concerning simple superiority effects (see, e.g., Haider, this volume). 

While such an approach successfully captures basic superiority facts, 

more complex data are not readily explained along these lines. Consider 

Icelandic first. One may want to relate the absence of superiority effects in 

this language to (44), since the existence of so-called transitive expletive 

constructions in Icelandic suggests that thematic subjects may be placed 

into lower positions than in English (see, e.g., Bobaljik and Jonas (1996)). 

Haider (2000, this volume) observes that movement to Spec,IP is an option 

for thematic subjects in Icelandic, German, and Spanish, and notes that an 

explanation of the absence of superiority effects in terms of a low subject 

position predicts that one should observe English-type asymmetries whenever 

the position of adverbial material makes it clear that the thematic subject 

occupies a high position. Haider cites contrasts such as (48) (which he 

attributes to Ottósson (1989), and H. Sigurdsson, p.c.) as evidence for the 

claim that this prediction is borne out: 

(48) Superiority effects in Icelandic and different subject positions 

a. Hva# hefur hver gefi# börnunum? 

what has who given the-children? 

b.*Hva# hefur hver oft gefi# börnunum? 

what has who often given the-children? 

“who has often given what to the children?” 

The availability of a low position for the subject hver in the verbal projection 

explains the grammaticality of (48a). In (48b), however, the subject precedes

oft ‘often’, i.e., it precedes an element adjoined to VP, and occupies a high 

position in the clause. The ungrammaticality of (48b) suggests, then, that 

the position of the thematic subject is the crucial factor governing superiority 

effects, as Haider argues. The argument presupposes, however, that 

(48b) becomes perfect when the order of the subject and the adverb is 

reversed. According to my informant (-orsteinn Hjaltason), this expectation 

is not fulfilled. Rather, we get the following array of relative judgements: 

(49) Superiority effects in Icelandic and different subject positions 

a. Hva# hefur hver gefi# börnunum? 

what has who given the children 

b.?Hva# hefur hver oft gefi# börnunum? 

what has who often given the children 

c.?Hva# hefur hver oft gefi# hverjum? 

what has who often given whom? 

d.*Hva# hefur oft hver gefi# börnunum? 

e. Hva# hefur hva#a fa#ir oft gefi# börnunum? 

what has which father often given the children 

f.*Hva# hefur oft hva#a fa#ir gefi# börnunum? 


(49a) is grammatical because Icelandic shows no superiority effects. (49b) 

is less acceptable, but this effect is not eliminated by the addition of a third 

wh-phrase (49c), as it should be if the phenomenon is related to the MLC. 

Most importantly, the structure becomes fully ungrammatical when the 

order of the subject and the adverb is reversed. The status of (49d) is quite 

unexpected, because the order of subject and adverb seems to imply a low 

position for the former. The ungrammaticality of (49d) is matched by the 

one of (49f), which involves a d-linked wh-phrase. Whatever may be 

responsible for the contrasts in (48) and (49) – the MLC is not likely to 

come into play. 

Similarly, the grammaticality of (50a) might be related to the low position 

occupied by the unaccusative subject in this example. 4 However, the structure 

does not degrade dramatically when the subject is placed into the slot preceding 

the object pronoun (that is, when it presumably moves to Spec,IP): 

five out of a total of eight Dutch linguists I consulted found (50b) completely 

unobjectionable.


(50) Different subject positions and Dutch superiority 

a. wanneer is hem wat overkomen 

when is him what happened 

b.wanneer is wat hem overkomen 

The position of the subject is also not completely irrelevant for the wellformedness 

of multiple questions in German. Consider the contrasts in 

(51) 5 , in which a non-subject has been placed in front of a wh-subject. Such 

constructions fail to be fully grammatical (to different degrees) when the 

subject precedes a clitic object pronoun (51b,d), an unstressed object pronoun 

(51f), or one of the particles like denn which have been claimed to 

mark the VP boundary in German (51h) (see Diesing 1992, Meinunger 

1995, for a discussion of VP boundaries). 

(51) Different subject positions in German multiple questions 

a. wann hat’s wer gesehen 

when has it who seen 

b.?*wann hat wer’s gesehen 

“who saw it when?” 

c. wem hat`s wer gegeben 

who.dat has it who given 

d.?*wem hat wer’s gegeben 

e. wem hat es wer gegeben 

f.?*wem hat wer es gegeben 

“who gave it to whom” 

g. was hat denn wer gesagt 

what has ptc.who said 

h.?*was hat wer denn gesagt 

“who said what” 

Multiple questions are less grammatical when a wh-phrase crosses a whsubject 

that has moved to Spec,IP. It is tempting to explain such contrasts in 

terms of the assumption that the wh-subject asymmetrically c-commands 

the trace of the wh-object in the ungrammatical examples, so that the MLC 

(44) would block the bad structures.

Such an analysis is not convincing, however. It does not take into account 

the fact that the same or similar contrasts show up in constructions for 

which the MLC cannot be relevant. German wh-words are ambiguous 

between an interrogative and an indefinite interpretation. The restrictions on 

the placement of interrogative wh-subjects exemplified in (51) are exactly 

mirrored by comparable restrictions on the placement of indefinite wh-subject 

pronouns, as (52) shows. The indefinite subjects in (52) share the distribution 

of wh-phrases, but they do not interact with any other element in the 

clause in terms of the MLC. Therefore, the MLC cannot explain (52), and it 

would be strange if it accounted for the same distribution of data in (51). 

(51) and (52) show that German syntax imposes restrictions on the placement 

of subjects that are not definite. The MLC is not responsible for these. 

(52) Effects of the subject position for indefinite pronouns 

a. dann hat’s wer gesehen 

then has it someone seen 

“then, someone saw it” 

b.??dann hat wer’s gesehen 

c. dem hat`s wer gegeben 

him.dat has it someone given 

“someone gave it to him” 

d.?*dem hat wer’s gegeben 

e. dem hat es wer gegeben 

f.?*dem hat wer es gegeben 

g. hat denn wer angerufen 

has ptc.someone called 

“did someone call?” 

h.?*hat wer denn angerufen? 


A central prediction of an account of (absent) superiority effects that exploits 

differences in the placement of subjects is not borne out: in a number 

of languages that fail to show superiority effects (German, Icelandic, and 

perhaps Dutch), the actual position of the subject does not influence the 

grammaticality of multiple question in the expected way.


3.3. The absence of simple superiority effects: caused by scrambling? 

A second attempt of capturing (35) assumes that the object in fact c-commands 

the subject at the point of derivation when movement to Spec, CP is 

carried out. Under this circumstance, the MLC does not have to be relaxed 

in order to explain (35): Given that the order object > subject is in principle 

always grammatical in a German (53a,b), the question arises whether (53c) 

really is not in line with even the strictest version of the MLC. After all, 

(53c) might be derived from (53d) rather than (53e). In the former case, the 

highest wh-phrase is moved to Spec,CP in (53c), as predicted by the MLC. 

(53) Object-subject order in German and the MLC 

a. dass fast jeden jemand angerufen hatte 

that nearly everyone.acc someone.nom called had 

“that someone had called nearly everyone” 

b. dass fast jeden wer angerufen hatte 

that nearly everone.acc someone.nom called had 

“that someone had called nearly everyone” 

c. wen hat wer eingeladen 

who.acc has who.nom invited 

“who has invited whom?” 

d. hat [wen [wer eingeladen]] 

e. hat [wer [wen eingeladen]] 

In other words, (53c) might be grammatical because additional movement 

operations (scrambling) can change the c-command relations established by 

Merge. 6 If the object can in general be placed in front of the subject, structures 

such as (53d) can be derived in which the wh-object c-commands the 

wh-subject. Even in its strictest version, the MLC cannot block the subsequent 

movement of the wh-object to Spec, CP. See, e.g., Fanselow (1998, 

2001), Haider (1986), Wiltschko (1998), among others, for different versions 

of this account. 

According to Fanselow (1998), the contrasts in (54) corroborate the view 

that apparent violations of superiority are licensed by scrambling. Certain 

wh-phrases such as wen von den Studenten (54a) or was für Frauen (54d) 

can either move to Spec,CP as a whole, or be split up in simple and multiple 

questions (54b,e). In the latter case, only the wh-part of the phrase under-


goes fronting, whereas the remaining part is stranded. The stranded material 

indicates the position from which the phrase has been attracted to Spec, CP. 

The ungrammaticality of (54c,f) suggests, then, that a wh-phrase cannot 

cross another one in German, either. Objects may undergo overt wh-movement 

in multiple questions, but only if movement starts in a position c-commanding 

a wh-subject. 

(54) Superiority and Splitting 

a. wen von den Studenten hat heute wer eingeladen? 

who.acc of the students has today who.nom invited 

b. wen hat [von den Studenten] heute wer heute eingeladen? 

c.*wen hat heute wer abends von den Studenten 

eingeladen 

who has today who in the evening of the students 

invited 

“who has invited which of the students today (in the evening)s” 

d. was für Frauen hat wer heute eingeladen 

what for women has who.nom today invited 

e. 

“who has invited which kind of women today” 

was hat für Frauen wer heute eingeladen 

f.??was hat wer für Frauen heute eingeladen 

Pesetsky (2000) points out that contrasts such as the ones in (54) find an 

explanation in terms of the intervention effects analysed by Beck (1996), see 

also Mathieu (2002). (55) shows that the parts of a discontinuous wh-phrase 

must not be separated by any kind of operator in German. An intervention 

account can explain (54) and (55) at the same time, while the MLC-based 

explanation for (54) cannot be easily extended to (55). 

(55) Intervention effects and Split noun phrases 

a. was hat er für Frauen nicht getroffen 

what has he for women not met 

“what kind of woman did he not meet?” 

b.*was hat er nicht für Frauen getroffen 

Pesetsky’s observation certainly establishes that data such as (54) cannot be 

used to show that object wh-movement cannot originate below a wh-subject


in a multiple question. Notice, however, that (54b,e) still show that whextraction 

of an object may start in a position c-commanding a wh-subject. 

Reference to (53b), i.e., to the grammaticality of structures in which the 

object occupies a higher position than the subject, thus seems to be in general 

a sufficient 7 (though not a necessary) condition for the absence of simple 

superiority effects in a language. 

Unfortunately, the scrambling solution for (35) cannot be applied in all 

languages in which superiority effects are absent, because quite a number of 

them (Swedish, Icelandic, French, Dutch) do not have free constituent order 

generated by scrambling! 8 

3.4. Pragmatics 

In spite of its shortcomings, the scrambling account has an attractive feature: 

it implies that the choice between the object- and the subject-initial versions 

of a multiple question is never arbitrary in the languages that tolerate (35). 

Scrambling can place an object in front of a subject only if the latter is more 

focal than the former. Therefore, the scrambling account of missing superiority 

predicts that apparent superiority violations are acceptable under certain 

pragmatic circumstances (those that would license scrambling) only. This 

prediction is borne out. The pragmatic conditions of use of (56a) and (56b) 

are different. They require different “sorting keys” (Comorovski 1996). 

Answers to (56b) are well-formed if the object of the clause represents a 

contrastive topic. There are no comparable restrictions on the wellformedness 

of (56a). 

(56) Absence of superiority in German 

a. wer hat wen gesehen 

who.nom has who.acc seen 

b. wen hat wer gesehen 

“who has seen whom?” 

This pragmatic dependency becomes evident when one considers the minitexts 

in (57). The a.- and b. examples introduce the referents of the subject 

and the object, respectively, as known to the speaker. These referents constitute 

the “sorting keys” for the multiple questions a’ and b’, they are discourselinked 

(see Pesetsky 1987). (57a) can only be continued by (57a’), and 

(57b) only by (57b’).


(57) Discourse influence on superiority violations in German 

wir haben bereits herausgefunden 

we have already found out 

a. wer jemanden gestern anrief, und wer nicht 

who.nom someone.acc yesterday called and who.nom not 

b. wen jemand gestern anrief, und wen nicht 

who .acc someone.nom yesterday called and who.acc not 

Aber wir sind nicht eher zufrieden, bis wir auch wissen 

But we are not earlier content until we also know 

a’. wer WEN angerufen hat 

who.nom who.acc called has 

b’. wen WER angerufen hat 

In other words, a wh-object can precede a wh-subject in German if the former 

is more topical than the latter. Out of the blue wh-questions allow subject > 

object order, only. This is particularly clear when the predicate is symmetric 

(such as treffen, “meet”) as in (58), so that discourse-linked differentiations 

of subjects and topics are very hard to imagine. 

(58) Superiority effects in out of the blue contexts 

Erzähl mir was über die Party. “Tell me something about the party” 

a. Wer hat wen getroffen? 

who.nom has who.acc met? 

b.??Wen hat wer getroffen 

“who met who?” 

Steinitz (1969) was the first to observe that modal or sentence level adverbs 

resist reordering in the interest of information structure. The adverbial 

“superiority” effects discussed in (42) can be accounted for in these terms. 

The languages that lack simple superiority effects do not differ in this 

respect: constituent order reflects information structure. Different types of 

operations conspire to guarantee that focal information is preceded by topical 

one: scrambling (German, Japanese, Polish), topicalization to Spec, CP 

(Swedish, Icelandic, German), or subject placement in Spec, IP or VP 

(Spanish, German). In the most parsimonious account, these operations are 

driven by a constraint C-INF that requires that topical material c-command


focal elements (but more luxurious theories of information structure would 

have the same effect). If C-INF plays a role in determining the well-formedness 

of partial LFs in multiple questions as well, then (34d) (repeated here 

for convenience) is able to block (34e) only if this does not prevent a particular 

distribution of focality/topicality among the wh-phrases from being expressed 

within the limits imposed by C-INF. If the higher degree of topicality 

of wh 2 must be expressed, (34e) can be chosen. Information structure overrides 

the MLC. 

(34) d.[wh1 [ Σ CompA A - - - [wh1 - - - [ wh2 A - - - ]]]]] 

e.[wh 2 [ Σ CompA - - - [wh A A 

1 - - - [ wh2 - - - ]]]]] 

4. The Nature of Exceptions 

While the absence of simple superiority effects in the interest of information 

structure is a widespread phenomenon, it is far from being universal, as evidenced, 

e.g., by the relevant English data. The contrast between English and 

German in the formation of multiple questions might be indicative of the 

different importance the languages attribute to C-INF: in German, its effects 

are stronger than the MLC, while it is the other way round in English. The 

interaction of the MLC and the constrains of information structure would 

thus be reminiscent of an optimality theoretic framework (for OT accounts 

of MLC-effects, see, e.g., Müller 2001, and the constributions by Hale and 

Legendre, Lee, and Vogel, this volume). We will argue, however, that such a 

conclusion is not warranted. The MLC is never stronger than C-INF. 

4.1. Bulgarian 

Roumanian and Bulgarian are languages cited frequently when one wants to 

substantiate the claim that superiority effects are not confined to English. 

(59) Simple superiority effects in Roumanian and Bulgarian 

a. cine ce cumpara 

who what buys 

b.*ce cine cumpara 

c. koj kogo vizda 

who whom sees 

d.*kogo koj vizda


The Slavic languages other than Bulgarian such as Czech, Polish or Russian 

allow superiority violations, however. The seminal study of Rudin (1988) 

initiated an impressive series of studies that try to account for this and other 

differences among the Slavic languages, cf., Błaszczak and Fischer (2002) 

for an overview. The proposal advanced by Bo‰koviç (2002) (see also 

Bo‰koviç 1997, Stepanov 1998) is the most interesting one in the context of 

the preceding section. According to him, wh-phrases move to specifier positions 

defined in terms of information structure (focus) in Polish, Russian, or 

German, while movement targets a pure [+wh] specifier in Bulgarian or 

English. This might fit into the preceding discussion in the following way: 

when phrases move to [+wh]-specifier, only the attracting feature is grammatically 

visible, so that additional features of information structure will not 

interfere with the application of the MLC. However, when XPs are attracted 

to heads defined in terms of information structure, it is the distribution of 

the pertinent features that determines how attraction is carried out. 

It is doubtful, however, that a model drawing a sharp line between 

Bulgarian and the other Slavic languages is adequate. The intuition represented 

in (59c,d) is not shared by all native speakers of Bulgarian: two of the 

five native speakers that I have consulted accept a sentence such as kakvo 

koj pravi? “what who did” provided that koj “who” is stressed. It is not 

obvious, then, that the judgement pattern for Bulgarian multiple questions is 

qualitatively different from the one for German or Dutch. 

Even if we disregard the empirical issue of whether (59d) is really ungrammatical 

in Bulgarian (and not just rejected by some speakers, similar to 

what holds for German or Polish superiority violations), the contrast between 

(59c-d) is not identical with the one we find in English. A number of differences 

to English come out clearly. In Bulgarian, strict superiority effects can 

be found for animate subjects only. When the subject is inanimate, and the 

object animate, both orders are fine, as Billings and Rudin (1996: 38) have 

observed. 

(60) Absence of superiority effects with inanimate subjects of transitive 

verbs 

a. Kogo kakvo e udarilo? 

whom.acc what.nom CL hit 

b. Kakvo kogo e udarilo? 

“What hit whom?”


No superiority effects show up with psychological predicates, as (61) illustrates. 

Sometimes, subject-initial sentences even seem worse than sentences 

beginning with the dative wh-phrase: 

(61) Absence of superiority effects with psychological predicates 

a. Koj na kogo mu xaresva? 

who.nom whom.dat CL-dat 3.sg is-pleasing 

(literally) “Who is likeable to whom?” 

b. Na kogo koj mu xaresva? 

c. ??Kakvo na kogo mu xaresva? 

what.nom to whom.das CL-dat.3.sg is-pleasing 

(literally) “what is likeable to whom?’ 

d. Na kogo kakvo mu xaresva? 

Superiority effects are therefore restricted to external arguments of transitive 

verbs, and even for them, the only defensible generalization is the one offered 

by Billings and Rudin (1996: 46) “If the wh-external argument is human 

(i.e., koj), then it must appear first in the wh-cluster.” 

That such a constraint on wh-clusters may be necessary quite independent 

of any considerations of superiority is suggested by the fact that Bulgarian 

differs from English with respect to ternary questions as well. Kayne 

(1983), Hornstein (1995), Pesetsky (2000) and others have observed that 

superiority need not be respected in ternary questions: even the lowest whphrase 

can be fronted. 

(62) Absence of superiority effects in English ternary questions 

a. what did who buy where? 

b. what did who persuade who to buy 

Cancellation effects due to the addition of a third wh-phrase exist in 

Bulgarian, too (see (63)), but the examples used in the literature and the 

intutions of my informant Penka Stateva suggest that the liberalizing effect 

never affects subject koj.

(63) Restricted liberalization of superiority in Bulgarian 

a. Koj kogo kakvo e pital? 

who whom what is asked 

“Who asked whom what?’ 

b. Koj kakvo kogo e pital? 

c. Koj kogo kak e tselunal? 

who whom how is kissed 

“Who kissed whom how?” 

d. Koj kak kogo e tselunal? 

e. Koj kogo kŭde e vidjal? 

who whom where is seen 

f. Koj kŭde kogo e vidjal? 


Recall also that the ordering restrictions of Bulgarian koj do not show the 

interpretation-sensitivity of the English superiority effect. The judgements 

for (9) – repeated for convenience – seem to correlate with the jugdements 

for simple kakvo koj kupi. If the MLC would be responsible for the ungrammaticality 

of (59d), it would be unclear why the condition is not interpretation-sensitive 

in Bulgarian, whereas it is in English and German. 

(9)Anti-superiority in Bulgarian 

a.#koj se chudi, kakvo koj kupi? 

who wonders what who bought 

“who wonders what who bought?” 

b.#na kogo kaza, kakvo koj kupi? 

who.dat you-tell what who bought 

The MLC is thus not a likely cause for the ordering restrictions in 

Bulgarian. A simple account can, however, be formulated in terms of the fact 

that Bulgarian is a multiple fronting language. One of the crucial insights of 

Rudin (1988) was that the peculiarities in the behavior of Bulgarian (as compared 

to other Slavic languages) can be related to the fact that Bulgarian is a 

“multiple filler” language: all wh-phrases must be preposed in a multiple 

question (unless they are discourse-linked). Suppose that sequences of whpronouns 

form a cluster, and that the morphophonological realization of this 

cluster is subject to the kind of rules that also govern the linear arrangement


of sequences of clitics and inflectional affixes. As Bonet (1991), Halle (1992) 

and Noyer (1992) show, the order of elements in such clusters cannot be 

exclusively predicted from syntax. Rather, independent principles of morphology 

are needed, a view that is well-established nowadays in the theory 

of distributed morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993,1994). 

There is independent evidence that the composition of wh-phrases in 

clusters is governed by non-syntactic principles in Bulgarian. Billings and 

Rudin (1996: 43) suggest that (64b) is ungrammatical because *na kogo 

kogo ‘to whom whom’ violates a ban against consecutive wh-homophones. 

In colloquial Bulgarian, na kogo can be replaced by na koj, in which case 

both orders of the objects are fine: 

(64) Phonological restrictions in wh-clusters in Bulgarian 

a. Koj kogo na kogo e pokazal? 

who.nom whom.acc to whom.dat CL showed 

b. *Koj na kogo kogo e pokazal? 

c. Koj kogo na koj e pokazal? 

who.nom whom.acc to who.dat CL showed 

d. Koj na koj kogo e pokazal? 

“Who pointed out whom to who?” 

It natural to assume that further templatic constraints determine the arrangement 

of wh-pronouns in the cluster, among them a requirement that koj must 

come first in a truly transitive construction. This requirement implies the 

contrast in (59). Since it is a PF constraint, considerations of expressivity 

will not play a role, as required. 

Some observations from other languages lend support to the view that 

cluster formation is crucial in establishing ordering restrictions that resemble 

(but fail to be) superiority effects. Languages in which cluster formation is 

optional are of particular relevance here. In Yiddish, multiple fronting of whphrases 

to a position preceding the verb is possible, but not mandatory. In 

wh-clusters, word order is strict (65a,b) but it is free when only one wh-phrase 

is placed into preverbal position (65c,d), see Hoge (2000) for discussion. 

Likewise, in Hebrew, superiority can be violated only if the verb is placed 

between the two wh-phrases, although inversion in wh-questions is not necessary 

as such (66):

(65) Multiple questions in Yiddish 

a. ver vemen hot kritikirt? 

who whom has criticised 

b.*vemen ver hot kritikirt? 

c. ver hot vemen kritikirt? 

who has whom criticise 

d. vemen hot ver kritikirt? 

whom has who criticised 

“who criticised whom?” 

(66) Superiority in Hebrew 

a. ma kana mi 


b.*ma mi kana 

For obvious reasons, wh-pronouns cannot form a continuous cluster when 

they are separated by a verb. The data in (65) and (66) can be captured easily 

in a model that allows for templatic ordering restrictions of wh-phrases which 

apply when syntax is spelt out. Grewendorf (1999, 2001) and Hoge (2000) 

account for superiority in Bulgarian by cluster formation as well, but in a 

fairly different way. 

4.2. English 


English superiority effects are difficult to account for in the model we propose. 

This is not necessarily a negative aspect: superiority effects in English 

are distributed in a very complex way, for which it is not clear at all how it 

could be captured in a simple MLC account. 

Intervention effects disappear in English when the wh-phrases allow a 

context-related interpretation. Pesetsky (1987) shows that (67a) is fine because 

it has a “discourse-linked” interpretation: a wh-phrase is discourselinked 

if its interpretation relates to a contextually given set of objects and 

persons, from which one tries to pick a relevant one with the wh-phrase. 

Thus, the d-linked wh-phrase in (67a) generates s contrastive topic for the 

answers, as it does in German. As Bolinger (1978) observes, proper contexts 

even license the absence of intervention effects for wh-pronouns, as in (67b).


(67) Absence of superiority effects in certain contexts in English 

a. which book did which person read 

b. I know what everyone was supposed to do. But what did who 

actually do? 

However, reference to (67) allone does not explain why (68a) sounds bad to 

the English ear, while its one-to-one translation into German (68b) is grammatical. 

(68) a.*what will who see 

b. was wird wer sehen 

The key to an understanding of this contrast lies in the observation that who 

is a topic in (68a), while wer can be focal in (68b), and bear focal stress. If 

wh-pronouns are inherently indefinite, and constitute bad topics, the different 

status of (68a,b) can be understood. A number of facts support this view. First, 

the acceptability of a crossing structure depends of the degree to which the 

subject wh-phrase can be interpreted as a referential category, as discourselinked, 

as a potential topic. 

(69) Crossing effects as a function of the potential topicality of the subject 

a. what did a friend of who say to Bill? 

b. what did whose friends say to Bill? 

c.*what did each friend of who say to Bill (Hornstein 1995: 147) 

d.*what did how many men buy? 

Second, Erteschik-Shir (1997: 190) observes that object initial questions are 

in general relatively bad in English when the subject is an indefinite, a weak 

quantifier. Obviously, the unacceptability of (70b) (with a non-generic nonspecific 

reading of a boy) cannot be explained in terms of the MLC. But if 

indefinites are bad as such in the subject position of questions, one does not 

need to additionally invoke the MLC.

(70) Non-referential subjects in wh-questions in English 

a. what did two boys find? 

b.*what did a boy find? 

c. which book did two boys find? 

d.?which book did a boy find? 


Summing up, there is reason to believe that the difference between (68a) and 

(68b) stems from the fact that a wh-subject must be topical in English when 

it is in situ, while this does not hold for German. 

Zubizarretta (1998) develops a prosodic theory for accent and focus placement 

in English which implies that the predicate will be in focus in double 

questions of English in which the subject is left in situ. Erteschik-Shir 

(1997) proposes a model of the syntax-information structure interface which 

also implies topichood for the subject when certain formal dependencies are 

built up in a clause. In the interest of space, I will not try to assess the merits 

of these approaches, but confine myself to pointing out that the connection 

between topichood and in situ wh-subjects apparently need not be stipulated 

for English. 

Explanations borrowed from Zubizarretta and Erteschik-Shir may help 

explaining the status of (68a) – but do they also fit the general model we try to 

defend here, viz. that the MLC is an interface economy constraint that blocks 

structures only if their (partial) LF can be arrived at in a more economical 

way? What is the proper way of expressing questions in which an object 

wh-pronoun is the sorting key for answers? It is worthwhile to compare the 

constellations which lead to crossing effects with wh-pronouns in English 

with those that do not: 

(71) Structural constellations leading to crossing effects: passive 

a. who bought what? 

a’.*what did who buy? 

a”. what was bought by whom? 

b. who did you give _ what 

b’.*what did you give who _ 

c. what did you give _ to whom 

c’: *who did you give what to _


The contrasts in (71) are related to the fact that English expresses information 

structure distinctions in a way different from scrambling and topicalization. 

(71) shows that English bans crossing wh-pronouns primarily in those contexts 

in which it offers an alternative way of making a lower (wh-) phrase 

more topical than the higher one. For subjects and objects, this alternative 

way is the passive construction. The conditions of information structure that 

license counterparts to (71a’) in German are therefore not inexpressible in 

English. Rather, they imply the use of a passive. 

(71b-c) illustrate that one can front both the direct and the indirect object 

in a multiple question, but the options (related to information structure) are 

linked to the dative alternation. (71b) is unobjectionable because it is in line 

with the MLC. The MLC-violation in (71b’) would have to be motivated on 

grounds of information structure (who being more focal than what), but in a 

dative shift construction, the inner object (who) must be more topical than 

the outer object. Therefore, (71b’) is ill-formed on pragmatic grounds. (71c) 

is grammatical since it conforms to the MLC. The information structure 

requirements that would license the MLC-violation in (71c’) are those that 

trigger the dative shift alternation. (71c’) is illicit because the proper way to 

express its information structure is (71b). 

In an OT-framework, one may feel tempted to explain the data in (71) by 

assuming a grammatically visible competition between active and passive 

sentences, or between the constructions V NP PP and V NP NP at the point 

when the MLC is evaluated, but a more conservative solution is also at hand: 

we can assume that the information structure constellation needed to override 

the MLC in (71a’, b’, c’) cannot be linked to the construction in question in 

English (because of the structural alternatives passive and dative shift). 

Other constellations do not yield a crossing effect. English has no special 

way of expressing information structure interactions of objects and adverbs 

and adverbial PPs. There being no restrictions on the distribution of topicality, 

the information structure needed to override the MLC in either (72a) or (72a’) 

can linked easily with to the sentences, so that both ways of formulating the 

multiple question are wellformed. 

(72) Constellations without crossing effects 

a. what did you see where? 

a’. where did you see what? 

b. to whom did you give what? 

b’. what did you give to whom?

The absence of a contrast between (72b) and (72b’) forces upon us the assumption 

that the construction V NP [to NP] comes in two varieties: to may 

be a dative marker, or the head of a PP. If information structure restrictions 

favoring the dative alternation affect the former version only, the absence of 

a contrast is predicted. Alternatively, we may assume that wh-PPs may 

always cross wh-DPs. For English, the approach just sketched implies that 

the topical nature of in situ subjects in multiple questions must be the blocking 

factor for sentences with wh-pronouns in subject position. 

(73) a. who arrived when? 

b.*when did who arrive 

5. Concluding Remarks 

In the theory defended here, the MLC is a constraint that applies cyclically in 

a derivation: if more that one category can be attracted to a certain position 

P, only the one closest to P can move. However, the MLC cannot prevent a 

movement operation from applying if that movement step is inevitable in 

generating the (partial) LF-representation in question. Given that considerations 

of information structure play a role in this context, the fact that the MLC 

decides between syntactic objects with the same partial LF only renders the 

principle quite weak in the domain of operator movement. 

The predictions are quite different for head movement, if head movement 

does not have semantic effects. Consequently, the two syntactic objects in 

(74) (with A and B being heads attracted to X) do not yield different partial 

LFs, because they differ in the location of the phonetic matrix of A and B 

only. In the model advocated here, this is equivalent to saying that nothing 

will prevent the MLC from blocking (74b). 

(74) a.[[ X A ] [ … A … [… B … ]]] 

b.[[ X B ] [ … A … [… B … ]]] 


Phrasal A-movement has semantic consequences in many theories, and the 

pragmatic implications of different options of filling the subject position are 

obvious. The current proposal therefore implies that MLC-effects should be 

influenced by considerations of interpretation in the domain of A-movement 

as well, i.e., one should be able to observe apparent MLC-violations. This 

prediction is borne out. E.g., Hestvik (1986) observes that both objects can


be attracted to the subject position in the passive version of double object 

constructions in Norwegian: 

(75) Passive formation in Norwegian double object constructions 

a. det ble gitt ham en gave 

there was given him a present 

b. han ble gitt en gave 

he was given a present 

c. en gave ble gitt ham 

The standard assumption concerning English is that the direct object must 

not cross the indirect one in the passive of a double object construction, but 

this does not characterize all dialects of the language. After all, McCawley 

(1988: 79) observes that (76) sounds acceptable to speakers of British 

English. 

(76) a car was sold my brother __ for $200 by Honest Oscar 

Phrasal A-movement thus seems to have properties comparable to the one 

of operator movement with respecr to the MLC. One needs to identify the 

interpretive conditions that license (75c) or (76), and offer an account as to 

why information structure does not seem to modulate MLC-effects in certain 

languages or dialects of languages (such as American English). 

German shows that additional formal aspects comes into play that do not 

figure in operator movement: both objects may be promoted to subject status 

in a passive construction, but different auxiliaries are used for the promotion 

of direct and indirect objects: 

(77) Passive formation in German double object constructions 

a. jemand stiehlt dem Kind einen Schlüssel 

someone.nom steals the.dat child a.acc key 

b. ein Schlüssel wird dem Kind gestohlen 

a.nom key is the.dat child stolen 

c. das Kind bekam einen Schlüssel gestohlen 

the.nom child got a.acc key stolen 

“someone stole a key from the child”

Similarly, noun phrases with an oblique Case must not move to the subject 

position in many languages, and they may be skipped by A-movement to 

Spec,IP (see, e.g., Stepanov, this volume). There is no comparable array of 

facts with A-bar movement. The data show that the application of the MLC 

is not only sensitive to questions of identity of (partial) Logical Forms, but 

also constrainted by purely formal factors. A discussion of these is beyond 

the scope of the present paper. 

I have argued that the MLC must be considered an economy constraint 

that compares (partial) derivations and selects the one that fulfils checking 

requirements with the shortest movements possible. However, the set of 

candidate derivations which the MLC compares is constrained by formally 

encoded expressivity conditions: a derivational step B leading from structure 

S* to a partial LF S is blocked by the MLC only if S can also be 

reached from S* in a way that respects the MLC. 

Acknowledgments 


The research reported here was supported by grants of the Deutsche 

Forschungsgemeinschaft to the Forschergruppe Konfligierende Regeln 

(FOR 375), and to the Innovationskolleg Formale Modelle kognitiver 

Komplexität (INK 12). 

I want to thank Joanna Błaszczak, Eva Engels, Susann Fischer, Stefan 

Frisch, Hans-Martin Gärtner, Andreas Haida, Hubert Haider, Gereon Müller, 

Doug Saddy, Matthias Schlesewsky, Penka Stateva, Arthur Stepanov, Koyka 

Stoyanova, Ralf Vogel, and the two anonymous referees for helpful comments.


Notes 

1.Superiority can be violated in similar contexts in Swedish, too. (ii) was 

accepted by two of my five informants, two rejected it, one found it questionable. 

All five informants considered (i) grammatical. 

(i) Vem tror att Johan gjorde vad 

Who believes that John did what 

(ii) Vad tror vem att Johan gjorde 

2.Contrast between structures rated as “?” with others rated as “*” may not be too 

impressive, but examples involving different kinds of A-bar-movement yield 

clearer contrasts: 

(i) which violin-1 is this sonata-2 easy to play t-2 on t-1 

(ii) *which sonata is this violin easy to play on 

3.And the model proposed below does so by linking the acceptability of a crossing 

constellation to the expression of a non-standard information structure. 

4. As suggested by Hubert Haider, p.c. 

5.The relevance of such examples has been brought to my attention by Gereon 

Müller. 

6.One may wonder, why scrambling is able to create structures incompatible with 

a simple MLC. Fanselow (2001) suggests that this problem is part of an argument 

in favor of the base-generation of scrambling structures. 

7.Tibetan shows at least some of the contrasts one is familiar with from English 

(Seele p.c, Chungda Haller, p.c), in spite of the fact that it is a free constituent 

order language. I have no explanation for this. 

(i) a. su ga re nyos pa red? 

who what bought 

b.*ga re su nyos pa red 

8.One might claim that these languages nevertheless allow scrambling, but only 

as an intermediate step followed by further movements. It is difficult to assess, 

however, which data could possibly refute such an account. Its empirical force 

is thus limited, and we refrain from considering it.

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