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

(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?
The MLC and derivational economy 109
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