Nouns and Noun Phrases - University of Macau Library

Syntactic uses of noun phrases 1055
I. Wh-movement is obligatory
It is generally claimed that movement of interrogative noun phrases is obligatory;
when the movement does not apply, the interrogative meaning is normally lost. The
examples in (8), for example, are not true questions but receive an echo interpretation:
sentences like these, in which the question word is heavily stressed, are
used when the speaker did not properly hear what the addressee just said, to express
astonishment on the part of the speaker about what he has just heard, or in teacherpupil
interaction as test questions.
(8) a. Hij heeft WIE/WAT meegenomen?
he has who/what prt.-brought
b. (?) Hij heeft WELK boek gelezen?
he has which book read
‘Which book did he read?’
b′. ? Hij heeft WAT voor een boek gelezen?
he has what for a book read
c. Hij heeft WIENS boek gestolen?
he has whose book stolen
d. Hij heeft HOEVEEL boeken gelezen?
he has how.many books read
Still, we have observed from our own language behavior that strings like those
given in (8) are occasionally also used as “true” questions when given a more
interrogative intonation pattern (with a fall in pitch after the question word). Since
we do not know of any independent studies that indicate that this use is more
generally found, we leave this as an issue for future research, while stating that
using examples without wh-movement as true wh-questions is certainly the
exception rather than the rule.
II. Superiority effects in multiple questions
A clear and systematic exception to the general rule that a wh-phrase must be
moved into clause-initial position can be found in so-called multiple questions that
contain more than one wh-phrase. In this case, the requirement that a wh-phrase be
moved is overruled by the fact that only a single constituent can be placed into
clause-initial position. Generally speaking, it is the wh-phrase that is superior
(≈ closest to the target position) that is moved. The effects of this so-called
°superiority condition can be observed most clearly in embedded clauses like (9).
Example (9a) shows that, when both the subject and the direct object are
wh-phrases, it is the subject that occupies the clause-initial position; moving the
object instead, as in (9a′), gives rise to a severely degraded result. Example (9b)
shows that to a slightly lesser degree the same contrast holds for examples where
both the direct and (bare) indirect object are questioned; it is clearly preferred that
the indirect object undergoes wh-movement, not the direct object. Example (9c),
finally, shows that when the indirect object is periphrastic, it is the direct object that
preferably undergoes movement.