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

104 Gisbert Fanselow
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’).