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

(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
what bought who
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
The MLC and derivational economy 111
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).