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

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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’).
The MLC and derivational economy 105 (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
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