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Trouble on the left periphery1
Richard Hudson
University College London
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
1 This paper has been a long time gestating. It developed out of Hudson 1998b, and has
benefitted from the help provided by a wide range of colleagues (mostly anonymous) during
the intervening years.
1
Trouble on the left periphery
Abstract
Adjuncts may occur (by ‘adjunct preposing’) before a wh-interrogative
clause which is a main clause, but not before one which is subordinate; for
example:
(i) Tomorrow what shall we do?
(ii) I told you (*tomorrow) what we shall do.
Why should the possibility of adjunct preposing vary between main and
subordinate clauses? The pre-theoretical answer is obvious: the wh-word
has the extra function in a subordinate clause of signalling the start of a
subordinate clause, so like any other subordinator it must be the first
element in its clause. Less obvious is how to capture this insight in a
formal grammar, and the paper will show that this challenge favours
flexible word-based grammars over the more familiar kind which assign a
uniform clause structure. The paper considers and rejects a number of
examples of the latter approach, especially that of Rizzi 1997. The
proposed solution is based on enriched dependency structure (Word
Grammar) which makes head-hood ambiguous in certain constructions. In
particular, the head of a wh-interrogative may be its finite verb when it is
a main clause but must be the wh-element when it is subordinate.
Key words: Word Grammar, adjunct-preposing, wh-interrogative, head,
2
dependency grammar, English, left periphery, functional category
3
1. Overview of the problem and the solution
Why is adjunct preposing2 possible in an English main-clause wh-question,
but not in an embedded one? For example, tomorrow and in Scotland may
be preposed3 to the position before the wh-element in examples (1) and
2 I prefer the term adjunct preposing to the widely used adverb preposing because the
phenomenon concerned is not, in fact, restricted to adverbs. An even more accurate name
would be adjunct extraction (Hukari and Levine 1995, Pollard and Sag 1996:384), but the
mechanics of extraction are irrelevant to this paper, though we shall touch on them at one
point.
3 It is crucial to establish that adjunct preposing is indeed possible with wh-
interrogatives. Some people find such examples uncomfortable, and indeed Quirk et al
(1985:817) imply that they are ungrammatical when they say:
As a rule, .. the wh-element .. comes first in the sentence (apart from some conjuncts,
such as on the other hand).
Here are some attested examples from spoken corpora; no doubt similar examples
could also be found in writing. The preposed adjuncts are highlighted.
a In most developing countries, which would you expect to be bigger, GNP or
GDP? (Lecture)
b But on the way where do those people get the incomes from to purchase?
(Lecture)
c Oh well, if you inherit a university from bureaucrats what do you expect?
(LL12)
d but if you're typing it up now why can't [inaudible]? (LL21)
e Well therefore {?} OK in which case why couldn't the British have carried out
their commitment that the border was a temporary measure? (LL28A)
4
(2) but not in the corresponding embedded examples (3) and (4).
(1) a What shall we do tomorrow?
b Tomorrow what shall we do?
(2) a What do they eat in Scotland?
b In Scotland what do they eat?
(3) a I told you what we shall do tomorrow.
b *I told you tomorrow what we shall do.
(4) a You know what they eat in Scotland.
b *You know in Scotland what they eat.
This pattern is easy to explain informally, as we shall see in the next
paragraph, but the informal explanation is not theory-neutral. It is much
harder to express in terms of some theories of English clause structure
than in others.
The explanation involves the restrictions on the 'landing site' for
preposed adjuncts. One restriction applies when it cooccurs with a wh-
f Well, now that you can stand back and look at Ireland, Kevin, what do you
think of the mess over there? (LL28A)
g I mean all these war games they play, for instance whereby they they sort of
postulate the so-and-so's attacking the so-and-so's and then what would
you do? and this sort of thing. (LL23)
h Well now being in Wisconsin over a period of weeks, what's
your impression of of popular feeling about McCarthy? (LL21B)
i I asked him why since this if this was official medical
treatment you know why didn't he have a district nurse in? (LL2X2)
The lecture transcripts were supplied by Philip King; the remaining
examples are from the London Lund corpus (Svartvik and Quirk 1980).5
element (WH), in which case the preposed adjunct (PA) is just before WH.
This pattern is illustrated in the (b) examples above, and the impossibility
of the reverse order is illustrated by the following:
(5) a *What tomorrow shall we do?
b *I told you what tomorrow we shall do.
c *What in Scotland do they eat?
d *You know what in Scotland they eat.
As these examples show, the order WH<PA is just as bad in subordinate
clauses as in main clauses, so we can formulate the first restriction as
follows:
The PA<WH constraint
A preposed adjunct may precede WH, but must not follow it.
This is not entirely true as it stands, as can be seen from the following
examples:
(6) a In Scotland why do they eat haggis?
b ?Why in Scotland do they eat haggis?
(7) a Tomorrow how shall we arrange things?
b ?How tomorrow shall we arrange things?
(8) a In Scotland at what time of year do they eat haggis?
b ?At what time of year in Scotland do they eat haggis?
These examples suggest that when the WH phrase itself is an adjunct
either order may be possible, which in turn raises the possibility that the
PA<WH constraint may be a consequence of a different constraint which
affects the ordering of adjuncts and arguments. However we need not
explore this question as it is orthogonal to the main focus of the present
paper.
6
The other restriction also applies to non-WH subordinate clauses,
where we find that the landing site for PA must follow the complementizer:
(9) a He said that tomorrow it will rain.
b *He said tomorrow that it will rain.
(10) a I gather that in Scotland they eat haggis.
b *I gather in Scotland that they eat haggis.
(11) a I wonder whether in Scotland they eat haggis.
b *I wonder in Scotland whether they eat haggis.
However it is not just the traditional complementizers that show this
pattern. More generally the preposed adjunct has to follow any word which
marks the subordinate clause as subordinate, including the prepositions
that introduce adverbial clauses:
(12) a I'm cross because tomorrow it's going to rain.
b *I'm cross tomorrow because it's going to rain.
(13) a Most Brits eat cornflakes although in Scotland they eat haggis.
b *Most Brits eat cornflakes in Scotland although they eat
haggis.
(14) a I had scarcely got into the taxi when suddenly the driver
started the engine. (Quirk et al 1985:491)
b *I had scarcely got into the taxi suddenly when the driver
started the engine.
I shall use the term subordinator (Sub) to refer to all such words. These
observations lead to another informal principle:
The Sub-first Constraint
A clause's subordinator must precede everything else in the clause.
We now have an almost complete explanation for our problem data.
7
A Preposed Adjunct must not follow the WH, and must not precede the
Subordinator. The only missing link is the connection between WH and
Subordinator. Suppose a wh-interrogative clause is subordinate. What is
its subordinator? Clearly, the wh-phrase itself, because this is what is
selected by a higher verb; any context which allows a mere interrogative
complementizer such as whether or if will also allow a wh-phrase such as
what or which student, so these all qualify equally as subordinators. A
clause like what happened is therefore compatible with a different range
of higher verbs from one like that it happened, so the difference must be
due to the presence of what in one case and that in the other. So long as
we recognise an informal category of subordinators, it is hard to escape
the conclusion that WH phrases belong to it. However (and this is the
crucial point) this is only true so long as the clause concerned is
subordinate. A main clause has no subordinator, so a fortiori its WH
element is not its subordinator and Sub-first does not apply. In short, in a
subordinate clause a Preposed Adjunct cannot precede the WH because
this is also the Subordinator.
Here, then, is the informal explanation for the differences between
main and subordinate wh-interrogatives. In both cases PA<WH prevents
the preposed adjunct from following the WH phrase but in the subordinate
case the reverse order is also blocked by Sub-first. This is why adjunct
preposing is permitted in main clauses but not in subordinate clauses. The
crucial, and most interesting, element in this explanation is the claim that
the status of WH is different in subordinate and main clauses. We
expressed this claim above in terms of the traditional notion
`subordinator', but it can be put in more modern terms too: WH is the
8
head of the subordinate clause, but not of the main clause. In a main
clause the presence of a WH element has no effect on the possibility of a
preposed adjunct, with or without long-distance extraction (though their
relative order is controlled by PA<WH):
(15) a Tomorrow I lecture on syntax.
b Tomorrow I know you're going to lecture on syntax.
(16) a Tomorrow are you lecturing on syntax?
b Tomorrow do you think I ought to lecture on syntax?
(17) a Tomorrow what should I lecture on?
b Tomorrow what do you think I ought to lecture on?
The irrelevance of what suggests that what is not the head of the main
clause. (At this point we can leave the identity of the head open, but I
shall argue below that the head is the finite verb.) The main point is that
the distribution of preposed adjuncts is easy to explain if we allow the
head of the WH-interrogative clause to vary according to whether or not
the clause is subordinate.
The main interest of these ideas is that, for all their simplicity, it is
not obvious how they can be reconciled with some theories of sentence
structure. However before we turn to theory we should recognise that the
facts are not the same across languages. In particular, some languages do
allow a PA before the subordinator, as can be seen in the following
examples4. Consider first the following data from Italian:
(18) a *Credo, presto, che loro lo apprezzeranno molto.
I-think, soon, that they it will-appreciate much
4 The Italian data were supplied by Vieri Samek-Lodovic and the Greek data by Villi Rouchota and Eleni Gregoromichelaki.
9
‘I think that they will soon appreciate it a lot.’
b Mi domando, domani, a chi potrebbero dare il premio Nobel.
me I-ask, tomorrow, to whom they-could give the prize Nobel
‘I wonder who they could give theNobel prize to tomorrow.’
c Mi domando, in queste vigne, che vino si produca.
Me I-ask, in those vineyards, which wine one produces
‘I wonder what wine they produce in those vineyards.’
As the first example shows, Italian seems to have the same Sub-first
restriction as English, so the complementizer che, ‘that’, cannot follow an
adverbial from the clause that it introduces. However it is possible for PA
to precede a wh-phrase such as a chi and che vino in the other two
examples, whereas we have seen that similar examples are impossible in
English. Modern Greek is even more liberal:
(19) a Mu-ipe avrio (? o ianis) oti tha dhoso to vivlio sti Maria.
to-me-he-said tomorrow (John) that will I-give the book to-the
Mary
`He (John) told me that I will give the book to Mary tomorrow.'
b Mu-ipe avrio (? o ianis) se pjon tha dhoso to vivlio.
to-me-he-said tomorrow (John) to whom will I-give the book
`He (John) told me who I will give the book to tomorrow.'
In this case we see that the PA avrio, ‘tomorrow’, may precede either a
bare complementizer or a wh-phrase. Moreover, to the extent that o ianis,
‘John’, is possible in the position shown, it seems that the PA is free to
move around among the constituents of the matrix clause, which suggests
that it may be structurally raised out of the lower structure and into the
higher one.
10
It seems likely, then, that Greek lacks the Sub-first constraint
entirely and Italian restricts it to bare subordinators, in contrast with
English where it applies to all subordinators. The other constraint, PA<WH,
is no more universal, as can be seen from the following Italian examples in
which PA follows WH:
(20) a Mi domando a chi, domani, potrebbero dare il premio Nobel.
me I-ask to whom, tomorrow, they-could give the prize Nobel
‘I wonder who they could give the Nobel prize to tomorrow.’
b Mi domando che vino, in queste vigne, si produca.
me I-ask which wine, in those vineyards, one produces
‘I wonder what wine they produce in those vineyards.’
The theoretical challenge, therefore, is to explain why English has the
PA<WH and Sub-first Constraints, but why some other languages seem to
be able to escape their effects. In section 2 we shall consider, and reject, a
number of solutions which assume a standard phrase-structure analysis
with rigid clause structure. This approach will be contrasted with one
which focusses instead on the word-based patterns allowed by
dependency structure, and in particular the rich dependency structures of
Word Grammar. Section 3 outlines the relevant claims of this theory, and
section 4 introduces the notion `dependency competition', whereby
dependencies compete for a place in `surface structure'. Section 5
explains how WH-interrogatives are analysed, and how dependency
competition means that the head of a subordinate wh-interrogative is its
WH word, while that of a main wh-interrogative is its verb. Section 6
returns to the problem of Adjunct-preposing and explains how this
difference accounts for the differences between main and subordinate
11
clauses that we have reviewed in this section. It also suggests tentative
analyses of Italian and Greek which explain the differences noted above.
2. Possible phrase-structure explanations
2.1 Some preliminary remarks on phrase structure
The standard mode of explanation for syntactic patterns uses structural
templates which define fixed `positions' within the structure of some
larger unit. The building blocks for these templates are X-bar structures
which define local dominance and order relationships, so the total
template provides a rigid framework within which sentence structures
may be explored. During the last two decades a remarkable consensus
has developed about the outlines of a template for clause structure,
though (as we shall see) there is a great deal of disagreement about the
details. A structure along the lines of the one shown in Figure 1 is now
taken as an uncontroversial base-line from which innovative explorations
start. When problems of word order arise their solution is sought in the
template. The template predicts the orders which are permitted, so in an
ideal world, once the template has been perfected, it will accommodate all
the observed patterns and will help to explain at least some unobserved
ones. Meanwhile, the template is still under development so minor
tinkering is permitted, and indeed encouraged, but of course the
template's value lies precisely in its general rigidity.
Figure 1
12
These remarks may seem obvious and even trite, but later sections
will offer a very different way of thinking about sentence structure.
Meanwhile we shall explore in this section various ways in which the
template approach could be manipulated in the hope of explaining the
facts about Adjunct preposing. The basic question which divides these
analyses is the position to which preposed adjuncts are assigned.
2.2 Preposed adjuncts are adjoined to IP
Most template analyses that consider preposing in subordinate clauses
assume that preposing involves adjunction to IP within CP (Baltin 1982,
Lasnik and Saito 1992, Culicover nd). This easily explains the Sub-first
Constraint in non-wh clauses, since the subordinator is the
complementizer, which automatically precedes the IP:
(21) a [CP C .. [IP PA [IP ...]]]
b I know [CP that [IP tomorrow [IP it will rain]]]
c *I know [IP tomorrow [CP that [IP it will rain]]] *Sub-first
However it fails on wh-interrogatives. On the standard assumption that
the WH-phrase is moved into spec of C the predicted order is WH < PA, as
in (b) below. According to this analysis the sentence should be good, but
in fact it conflicts with the PA<WH Constraint and is just as bad as the (c)
example.
(22) a [CP [WH] C .. [IP PA [IP ...]]]
b *I know [CP [what] C [IP tomorrow [IP we shall do]]] *PA<WH
c *I know [IP tomorrow [CP [what] C [IP we shall do]]] *
It can be seen that the problem with this analysis is quite
fundamental. There is no way to fine-tune it so that the relative positions
13
of WH phrases, complementizers and preposed adjuncts can be
reconciled. In main clauses PA < WH; by assumption WH < C; and in
subordinate clauses C < PA. The `precedes' relation (<) is transitive, so
the three orders PA < WH, WH < C, and C < PA simply cannot be
reconciled.
There is an interesting variant of this approach which is more
successful. Pesetsky (1989) suggests that matrix clauses are bare IP’s, in
contrast with subordinate clauses, which are CP’s. In this view, what is
spec of I in a matrix clause, but spec of C in a subordinate clause; so if
tomorrow is adjunct of IP in both cases, it follows that it may precede what
in a matrix clause but not in a subordinate clause:
(23) a [IP Tomorrow [IP what [I shall [we do?]]]]
b I know [CP what [IP we [I shall [do]]]
c *I know [IP tomorrow [CP what [IP we [I shall [do]]]]
As Pesetsky notes, this analysis predicts that the order of a preposed
element5 and WH in a matrix clause should be reversed in a subordinate
clause because WH moves across the preposed element into the spec of
the new C node. Pesetsky believes that this prediction is correct, citing
examples like the following:
(24) a ?[IP A book like this, [IP why should I buy?]]
b *[IP Why [? a book like this [? should I buy?]]]
c ?I wonder [CP why [IP a book like this [IP I should buy]]]
d *I wonder [CP a book like this [CP why I should buy]]
These examples do indeed confirm Pesetsky’s analysis, because the two
5 Pesetsky’s discussion is actually limited to topics, and his examples are specifically
topicalized objects, but it seems to generalise to all front-shifted elements.
14
best examples (a, c) show the reverse order of a book like this and why in
the main and subordinate clause.
However the results are different when we change to preposed
adjuncts:
(25) a [IP On a nice day like this, [IP why are we worrying so much]]?
b [IP Why [? on a nice day like this [I are we worrying so much?]]]
c Tomorrow I won’t be able to remember[CP why [IP on a nice day
like this [IP we are worrying so much]]].
d *Tomorrow I won’t be able to remember [CP on a nice day like
this [CP why we are worrying so much]].
In the discussion of the PA<WH constraint, we noted that if WH is itself an
adjunct, either order is possible in main clauses, a possibility illustrated by
the first two of these examples. Pesetsky’s analysis is confirmed by the
goodness of examples (a) and (c), where the order of on a nice day like
this and why is reversed, and by the badness of (d), but (b) is problematic
because the PA seems to be adjoined to I, not IP. The problems increase
when we change to an object WH:
(26) a [IP On a nice day like this, [IP what are you worrying about?]]
b ??[IP What [? on a nice day like this [I are you worrying
about?]]
c ??Tomorrow I won’t be able to remember [CP what [IP on a nice
day like this [IP I was worrying about]]]
d *Tomorrow I won’t be able to remember [CP on a nice day like
this [CP what [IP I was worrying about]]]
If why on a nice day like this ... is permitted in (25b), why is what on a nice
day like this so much worse? In formal terms, if adjunction to I is possible
15
in (25 b), it should be equally good in (26b); and if it is possible to move
WH across an adjunct in (25c), the same should be possible in (26c). The
correct generalisation seems to be that the order WH<PA is possible in a
subordinate clause only if it is also possible in the corresponding main
clause; but Pesetsky’s analysis excludes a generalisation such as this by
giving main and subordinate clauses radically different structures.
It is important to ask whether there is any fundamental reason why
this analysis fails. One possible answer is that it is because dominance is
expressed as precedence. The function ‘subordinator’ is identified by a
position in the X-bar schema which defines not only its dominance over
the rest of the clause, but also its position in relation to the rest of the
clause. Consequently the only way in which WH can assume the role of
subordinator is to change linear position in the schema, but this changes
its linear relationship to PA rather than simply blocking PA.
2.3 Preposed adjuncts are adjoined to CP
Suppose instead that preposed adjuncts are adjoined toCP. The pros and
cons of this analysis are by and large simply the reverse of those of the
previous analysis. Main wh-interrogatives with a preposed adjunct are no
problem, since adjunction to CP automatically puts PA before WH.
(27) a [CP PA [CP WH C [IP ...]]]
b [CP Tomorrow [CP what shallC [IP we do t?]]]
c *[CP What [CP tomorrow shallC [IP we do t?]]]
d *[CP What shallC [CP tomorrow [IP we do t?]]]
It could even be argued that the analysis predicts the impossibility of
adjunct preposing in embedded wh-interrogatives, on the grounds that it
16
is excluded by Chomsky's (1986:6) ban on all adjunction to a complement.
Consider the next example.
(28) *He predicted tomorrow what we would do.
It would be reasonable to assume, first, that the subordinate clause is the
complement of predicted, and, secondly, that tomorrow is adjoined to the
CP what we would do. Given these two assumptions, Chomsky's principle
would certainly explain why this example is so bad.
The trouble with this explanation is that the principle focuses on the
wrong characteristic of the example (Hudson 1995:52)6. If the badness is
due to the subordinate clause's function as complement, it should
disappear if we use the same clause in other positions in the sentence -
but it does not:
(29) a *Tomorrow what we would need was unclear.
b *It was unclear tomorrow what we would need.
c *We were considering the question tomorrow what we would
need.
d *We needed no money today tomorrow whatever we might
need.
The WH clause is not complement (of anything) in any of these examples,
and yet the same ban on PA<WH applies throughout. Every single position
which is available for a subordinate interrogative clause gives the same
6 One reader suggests that Chomsky's principle could be revised so
that it bans adjunction not only to complements but to all theta-marked
positions. It is true that this revision explains the badness of (29a,b), but it
does not help with (29c,d). In neither of these two examples is there any
reason to believe that the wh-clause is theta-marked.17
result, so the grammatical function cannot be relevant. Chomsky's ban on
adjunction to a complement does not explain the interaction of
subordination with adjunct preposing and wh-movement. It seems, then,
that we cannot after all invoke this ban to explain why adjunct-preposing
is impossible in embedded wh-interrogatives.
The analysis of PA as adjunct of CP faces another fundamental
problem. It correctly forbids the order WH < PA, as in (5a) and (27c)
(*What tomorrow ...), but it also rules out the grammatical order C < PA as
in (9a) and (21b) (... that tomorrow ...), which was the main motivation for
the previous analysis in which PA was adjunct of IP. The contradiction is
even more fundamental than in the previous analysis, because we have a
direct conflict between PA < C and C < PA. The order PA < C is required if
PA is adjunct of CP, but the reverse order is needed to explain ... that
tomorrow .... In this case the conflict is independent of the assumption
that WH is in the specifier of C, and it is hard to imagine any way to solve
it.
The reason why this analysis fails is the same as for the first
analysis: the rigid link in X-bar theory between dominance and
precedence. Once again the similarity between WH and that in a
subordinate clause is expressed as a position both at the top and at the
left-hand edge of the schema, but PA requires conflicting positions for WH
and for that (before WH and after that).
2.4 Preposed adjuncts are adjoined toTopic-P
The most serious discussion of preposing is to be found in Rizzi (1997)
18
which suggests a new analysis of `the complementizer system' - the area
of sentence structure before (and above) the IP - though there is
unfortunately no discussion of preposed adjuncts as such. This is a major
revision of the standard X-bar sentence template. Instead of the single
functional category C, Rizzi argues for four distinct categories:
(30) a Force: the category which is sensitive to the sentence's
sentential or pragmatic environment as a declarative, interrogative etc.
b Finiteness: the category which is sensitive to the finiteness of
IP.
c Topic: this provides a position (in its specifier) for phrases
carrying old information.
d Focus: like Topic, except that the phrases concerned carry new
information.
These categories occur in a fixed order, in which Topic appears twice so as
to allow multiple topics in Italian (ibid:297):
(31) [.. Force [.. Topic [.. Focus [.. Topic [.. Finiteness [IP ...
We shall see that this analysis seems to work well for Italian, and in
particular that it allows a reasonable explanation for the possible orders of
PA and WH in main and subordinate clauses, but that it faces problems
when transferred to English.
In this system, PA is adjoined to a TopicP (ibid:300) and a plain
complementizer such as che is Force, so it is easy to explain why PA can
follow che but not vice versa.
(32) a Credo [cheForce [Top domani [IP daranno il premio a Gianni]]].
I-think that tomorrow they-will-give the prize to John
`I think that tomorrow they will give John the prize.’
19
b *Credo [Top domani [cheForce [IP daranno il premio a Gianni]]].
The analysis also predicts correctly that a focussed element can be
sandwiched between two topics, as in the following (Rizzi’s (46)):
(33) [Top Domani, [Foc QUESTO [Top a Gianni [IP gli dovreste dire]]]].
tomorrow THIS to John to-him you-should say
‘This is what you should say to John tomorrow.’
We should notice in this example that the topic a Gianni intervenes
between the focus and its source IP, which shows that an intervening topic
does not prevent movement; this will be important in the later discussion.
However it is also directly relevant to WH interrogatives because Rizzi
argues that in a main interrogative clause WH is spec of Focus (ibid:298).
This explains not only why it cannot combine with any other focussed
element, but also why it may follow a PA; again the examples are Rizzi’s.
(34) a *[Foc IL PREMIO NOBEL [Foc a chi dovrebbero dare]]?
the prize Nobel to whom they-should give
‘Who should they give THE NOBEL PRIZE to?’
b [Top Domani, [Foc che cosa gli dovremmo dire]]?
tomorrow, what thing to-him we-should say
‘What should we tell him tomorrow?’
The analysis even predicts correctly that it should be possible for WH to
be followed by AP, as in the following:
(35) [Foc Che vino,[Top in queste vigne, si produce]]?
what wine, in these vineyards, one produces
‘What wine do they produce in these vineyards?’
Once again we should notice that an intervening topic does not prevent
WH from raising into the Focus phrase.
20
All these examples of WH interrogatives involve main clauses, but
the analysis can perhaps be extended to embedded interrogatives. The
main challenge, of course, is the non-English pattern which was illustrated
in (18b, c) repeated below, in which PA stands before WH:
(36) a Mi domando, [Top domani, [Foc a chi potrebbero dare il premio
Nobel]].
me I-ask, tomorrow, to whom they-could give the prize Nobel
‘I wonder who they could give theNobel prize to tomorrow.’
b Mi domando, [Top in queste vigne, [Foc che vino si produca]].
Me I-ask, in those vineyards, which wine one produces
‘I wonder what wine they produce in those vineyards.’
How can domandare select a subordinate clause like this if its highest
head is a Topic-P, when what it is looking for is a CP with an interrogative
feature, such as could be projected from either WH or si, ‘if, whether’?
One solution is obvious: a zero complementizer (which we can call Q)
whose function is to carry the interrogative feature. Provided it is
technically possible to generate the structure7, all is well. Under this
7 7 It is not immediately obvious how a structure containing the empty complementizer
Q could be generated, given that it can only occur when followed by WH, which may be
separated from it by the Topic-phrase. This link between Q and WH cannot be selection
because selection is blocked by an intervening Topic-phrase; Rizzi invokes this restriction
explicitly in explaining the badness of English examples like (i).
*I think [Top tomorrow T [Force that it will rain.]]
As Rizzi says, there is a simple explanation for this restriction: `The higher verb
selects the specification of Force, not the TopP: verbs select for declaratives or questions, not
for clauses with or without topic (or focus)' (ibid:301). A more natural explanation for the
21
analysis, then, each of the subordinate clauses would have the following
structure:
(37) [CP Q [Top AP [Focus WH ...]]]
Since WH remains in the Focus-phrase, it is in the same position as in a
main clause and can follow AP.
However successful this analysis may be when applied to Italian, it
does not apply easily to English because it overgenerates. The fact is that,
as we saw in section 1, English is stricter than Italian: AP cannot follow a
non-adjunct WH, and cannot precede WH in subordinate clauses. Both the
following examples are ungrammatical, but Rizzi’s analysis accommodates
them easily:
(38) a *I wonder [Force Q [Focus what [Top tomorrow [IP we can do]]]]
b *I wonder [Force Q [Top tomorrow [Focus what [IP we can do]]]]
It is easy to imagine how to rule out the first of these patterns, with AP
after WH, because the same restriction applies in main clauses:
(39) *What tomorrow shall we do?
The solution lies in eliminating the post-focus Topic-phrase altogether by
means of whatever mechanism it is that generates these functional
categories in the first place8.
link between Q and WH would be an analysis in which the interrogative feature moves from
WH to Q, but this would raise the further question of why the whole WH phrase cannot move
into spec of Q, as it (presumably) does in English. It remains an open question whether or not
this problem can be solved.
8 8 As in the previous note, I do not know how, or even whether, it is possible to restrict
the order of functional categories in a system like Rizzi’s which recognises a long chain of
22
The second pattern in (38) is more problematic because it involves
the restriction around which this whole paper revolves: how to prevent
adjunct preposing in subordinate clauses while allowing it in main clauses.
One solution would be to demonstrate that in English (unlike Italian) WH
has to raise to Force in a subordinate clause. This would immediately
explain why WH cannot follow AP as a consequence of the obligatory order
of Force and Topic:
(40) *I wonder [Top tomorrow [Force what Q [Focus [IP we can do]]]]
However, the question would then arise why this movement did not
simply reverse the order of WH and AP, giving the ungrammatical order
WH < AP:
(41) *I wonder [Force what Q [Top tomorrow [Focus [IP we can do]]]]
It is tempting to invoke the blocking effect of the intervening Topic, but we
have already seen that an intervening Topic does not in fact block
movement in Rizzi’s analysis. We saw this in the analyses of (33) and (35),
repeated here:
(42) a [Top Domani, [Foc QUESTO [Top a Gianni [IP gli dovreste dire]]]].
tomorrow THIS to John to-him you-should say
‘This is what you should say to John tomorrow.’
b [Foc Che vino,[Top in queste vigne, si produce]]?
mutually dependent categories C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 . The problem is that restrictive links are
between non-adjacent categories: C1 , C2 and C5, Force, Focus and Finiteness. Force and
Finiteness are restricted by overt subordinators such as that or whether, and Focus and
Finiteness by WH phrases. The intervening Topic elements block selection restrictions for the
reasons given in note 7, but it is possible that the restrictions concerned can be expressed in
terms of feature raising.
23
what wine, in these vineyards, one produces
‘What wine do they produce in these vineyards?’
Rizzi’s analysis may in fact allow more viable explanations than these9, but
it is at least clear that the analysis as presented does not in itself explain
the facts of English.
As with the first two analyses, the failure stems from the link
between dominance and precedence. PA is positioned before WH in main
clauses by receiving a fixed position above it in the X-bar schema, but
when WH is in turn promoted to the subordinator position (ForceP) in
subordinate clauses, this should automatically changes its linear
relationship to WH. But this is not in fact how English works: the change is
not in their linear relationship, but in whether PA can occur at all.
2.5 Summary of template-based analyses
9 A reader suggests that the difference between English and Italian
might be parameterized so that verbs would select indirect questions in
different ways. In English, a verb such as wonder would select for
whatever feature triggers wh-movement (say [+WH]), regardless of where
this was found, whereas Italian verbs like domandare select for a Force
node carrying the feature Q. In other words, an indirect question is a
ForceP in Italian but in English it is either a FocusP (for WH phrases) or a
ForceP (for if and whether). This is a promising suggestion, but it
undermines the main point of Rizzi's analysis, which is the strong link
between semantic and syntactic categories. Force is the syntactic node
designated for carrying semantic 'force', of which 'interrogative' is a prime
example. 24
I have considered various ways in which our problem data might be
accommodated in terms of a template of X-bar `positions' in `sentence
structure'. The data do not appear to be compatible with a conservative
template which contains just C and I above the VP, but the problems are
not solved by fragmenting C. None of the analyses considered works. One
possible conclusion is that we just haven't tried hard enough: one more
tweak, and we may be there. For example, we might explore the
possibilities offered by the rich system of functional categories for
adverbials in Cinque (1989). Another is that there is something
fundamentally wrong with the view of sentence structure that underlies all
these analyses.
The crucial characteristic of the X-bar approach to sentence
structure is that it ties headedness to word order. In most cases this is
harmless, indeed exactly right; for example, the head of a subordinate
structure such as a subordinate clause is typically its first element (in a
head-initial language), and in general a phrase’s head is the word from
which the rest of the phrase takes its position. What is controversial is the
assumption that word order and head-hood are inseparable; for example,
the assumption that front-shifting must change dominance, and in
particular the assumption that a front-shifted element must depend (as
specifier) on some kind of abstract complementizer, which means
recognising a new head for each fronted item. Making the minimum of
assumptions in this system, the following sentences all have different
heads because of their different word orders:
(43) a The topic is phonology tomorrow. head: is
25
b What Comp1 is the topic tomorrow? head: Comp1
c Tomorrow Comp2 what Comp1 is the topic? head: Comp2
It is not self-evidently true that word-order should be tied to headedness
in this way - especially since it requires a further assumption about null
heads whose reality can legitimately be questioned (Hudson 1995).
The interaction of adjunct preposing, wh-movement and
subordination is important precisely because it challenges this
assumption, which predicts that both wh-movement and adjunct
preposing affect head-hood in both main and subordinate clauses. Wh-
movement does involve both movement and head-hood as predicted, but
only in subordinate clauses where WH acts as subordinator. In main
clauses there is no evidence that wh-movement has any effect on head-
hood, and in fact it seems likely that is has none because the possibilities
of adjunct preposing are the same in main wh-interrogatives as in any
other kind of main clause. And neither main nor subordinate clauses
provide any evidence that adjunct preposing affects head-hood. In short,
there is good evidence (to be reviewed below) that what is the head of
what happened in the first example below, but that it is not the head in
the second example.
(44) a I wonder what happened then. head: what
b After the party what happened? head: happened
Given the richness of X-bar schemas it ought to be easy for heads to
change by movement, but as we have just seen, movement upwards also
means movement sideways, with implications for word order which can be
tested.
The analysis which follows shares the basic X-bar assumption that
26
head-hood is crucial, but there are two critical assumptions which
distinguish the underlying theory from X-bar theory. Firstly, head-hood is
primitive, not defined structurally, so it can be separated from word order.
And secondly, head-hood is defined in terms of relations between pairs of
words, rather than in terms of position in a larger structure, which means
that mutual dependency is a possibility. This will turn out to be crucial in
the analysis of AP and WH in subordinate and main clauses.
3. A Word Grammar analysis
3.1 Simple structures in Word Grammar
Word Grammar (WG - see Hudson 1984, 1990, 1994a, 1998a, 1999, 2000)
is a version of dependency grammar, which means that the basic unit of
syntactic analysis is not the phrase, but the word. With the exception of
coordination, a sentence's internal structure is exhausted by the
dependencies between its individual words. Any facts which phrase-
structure analyses treat as facts about phrases are translated into facts
about single words. For example, the fact that the phrase people in
Scotland eat haggis is a clause translates into the fact that eat is a verb
plus the fact that people and haggis depend on it. As in phrase-structure
analysis, phrases such as people in Scotland are recognised, but they are
merely implicit in the dependency analysis (for each word W we can
recognise a phrase consisting of W plus the phrase of every word that
depends on W), and play no part in the grammar.
Various notations are used to show dependency structures, but in
WG I have opted for labelled arrows which point at the dependent named
27
by the label; for example, an arrow labelled `s' points at the subject.
These labelled arrows thus combine information about head-hood
(dependency) with information about grammatical functions. Figure 2
illustrates a very simple example using, first, WG arrows and secondly, the
more traditional `stemma' notation of Tesnière (1959/1966). The vertical
arrow will be explained shortly. One of the reasons for preferring arrows to
the more traditional `stemma' notation is that it allows dependency
analyses to be richer, with more than one dependency per word. As we
shall see below, we can even allow mutual dependency, with two words
depending on each other; this will turn out to be crucial in our explanation
for the facts about adjunct preposing. The labels beneath the words
indicate word-classes and inflections, so V:r means `full verb, present
tense', and n and N mean `pronoun' and `common noun'. Fuller accounts
of the analyses and notations can be found in Hudson (2001).
Figure 2
As in other modern theories, any structure presupposes a grammar
which generates (licenses) it. Explicit rules and principles define the
possible dependencies, so a sentence is grammatical provided that all its
individual dependencies are permitted by the grammar. All aspects of
dependencies are controlled in this way - the word classes of the two
words concerned, the classification of the dependency itself (as subject,
object, and so on), the order of the words and the semantic structures
onto which they are mapped.
Various notations may also be used for expressing the rules,
including a network notation of just the same kind as is used for
28
expressing the sentence structures themselves. The grammar may be
thought of as a network of word-specifications, each of which is a mini-
network for the word concerned. Each of these mini-networks generates
(permits) a word which has the characteristics concerned, and a sentence
is grammatical if all its mini-networks can be combined into a single
sentence-network. Figure 3 is a greatly simplified network which
generates the sentence They eat haggis. The small triangle indicates an
‘isa’ relation. The diagram shows, for example, that they is a token of the
word THEY, which is a pronoun and a noun; so (by default inheritance)
they isa pronoun and noun as well. The vertical arrow above THEY is a
potential dependency, showing that this word depends on some other
word; and the left and right arrows based on EAT show that it needs a
subject and an object. Since each of these ‘isa’ noun, and they and haggis
are both nouns, these words can provide the dependents of EAT, which in
return can provide the word that they each need to depend on. Thus each
of the dependencies in They eat haggis is compatible with the grammar,
and the sentence is permitted.
Figure 3
An alternative way to formalise the grammar and analysis is by
means of plain unambiguous prose. For example, the following is
equivalent to the network in Figure 3. First, we have some rules which
classify the words:
(45) a They isa pronoun.
b Eat isa verb
c Haggis isa common noun.
29
d A pronoun isa noun.
e A common noun isa noun.
These rules generate the entire class-description of the words, including
the super-class Noun which will be mentioned in later rules. The isa
relationship allows default inheritance of characteristics. The remaining
rules generate the dependencies:
(46) a EAT has a subject.
b EAT has an object.
c The subject of EAT isa noun.
d The object of EAT isa noun.
e The subject of EAT precedes it.
f The object of EAT follows it.
Thus each of the dependencies is fully licensed and the sentence is
generated. (Needless to say, most of the rules in this tiny example are
pitched at the wrong level of generality; a proper grammar would inherit
most of them from much more general rules.)
The notion of 'dependency' deserves some explanation because of
its central role in this approach to syntax, but it is already available in all
but name in X-bar syntax because of the importance this gives to head-
hood. All the parts of a phrase 'depend' on its head. Thus a phrase's
complement, specifier and adjuncts are all dependents of its head word.
The only peculiarity of WG, from the point of view of X-bar syntax, is its
rejection of non-terminal nodes, so the head of one phrase is connected
directly (by dependency) to the heads of other phrases. For example, in
the phrase people in Scotland, the words Scotland, in and people are
connected directly rather than via phrasal nodes such as PP and NP. As in
30
X-bar syntax, dependencies can carry a range of relations between the
dependent and its 'parent' (the head of the larger phrase):
¬ meaning (e.g. the parent may theta-mark the dependent)
¬ selection (e.g. the parent may govern a particular case on the
dependent)
¬ word order (e.g. the parent and dependent may be required to occur
in a particular order)
¬ status (e.g. the parent may determine whether the dependent is
obligatory, optional or impossible)
Moreover, as in X-bar theory, some dependencies combine all these kinds
of relations, while others carry just one or two. For example,
¬ the object dependency between eat and haggis (in They eat haggis)
combines:
¬ meaning (the haggis is the patient)
¬ selection (the object must be a noun)
¬ word order (the object follows the verb)
¬ status (the object is optional)
¬ the subject dependency between it and rains (in It rains) carries no
meaning, just as in X-bar syntax, but it does carry other relations:
¬ selection (rains selects it)
¬ word order (it precedes rains)
¬ status (it is obligatory)
In short any non-head position in an X-bar template corresponds to a
31
dependency in WG, and the range of information implied by WG
dependencies are similar to the range implied by an X-bar position.
The two theories are thus very similar in terms of the theory of
dependency. Where they differ is in the kinds of node that they recognise.
Specifically, WG recognises only concrete words. It does not recognise
non-phrasal nodes, nor does it recognise abstract functional categories, so
there is no equivalent in WG to the abstract structural templates reviewed
above.
3.2 Ensuring continuity in surface structure
As in any other theory, the rules of a grammar are interpreted in the light
of a small number of very general principles. Of particular relevance here
is the principle which requires phrases to be continuous. In the tradition of
dependency grammar this is generally called `projectivity' (Heringer et al
1980:182, Fraser 1994), and requires each word in a stemma to be able to
`project' up to its node by a straight vertical line which does not intersect
any other lines, as in Figure 2. If every word's projective line is straight
and vertical, they cannot tangle with each other. In WG, however, the
richer structures require a somewhat more sophisticated principle which
was once the `Adjacency Principle' of Hudson (1990:114-20), but currently
(since Hudson 1994b and Rosta 1994) it is the No-tangling Principle:
The No-tangling Principle
Dependency arrows must not tangle.
This is accompanied by the `No-dangling' Principle, which requires every
word to have a `parent' - some other word, or potential word, on which it
depends.
32
The No-dangling Principle
Every word must have one parent, which may be virtual.
The `virtual word' alternative applies to the root word which has no actual
parent, but (generally) could have one; this possibility is shown by the
vertical arrow in Figure 2. The two principles interact to reject any
sentence which has ungrammatical tangling such as the (b) examples in
the following pairs whose structures are shown in Figure 4. (This diagram
and subsequent ones omit word-class and grammatical-function labels
when they are irrelevant.)
(47) a He lives on green peas.
b *He lives green on peas.
(48) a Drink red wine!
b *Red drink wine!
These two principles embody the same strong claim as phrase-structure
grammar: that in every language phrases must be continuous, subject to
a limited number of exceptions10.
Figure 4
10 For example, in many languages prepositional phrases may be discontinuous because the preposition follows the first word of its complement phrase, as in Latin magnā cum laude, ‘great with praise’, i.e. ‘with great praise’. However this kind of discontinuity is very easy to accommodate without abandoning the general ban on discontinuity, because it clearly involves cliticization: Latin prepositions such as cum can be enclitics 'leaning' on the first word of the complement phrase. Similarly, non-configurational languages can generally be analysed in such a way as to avoid discontinuous phrases by allowing quite free raising from noun-phrase to clause structure. For discussion see Hudson (1990:115, 325).
33
One of the main reasons why sentence structure is complicated is
that words often have more complicated dependency relationships than
we have illustrated so far. One possibility is multiple dependency, in
which one word has more than one parent. For example, all the usual
arguments show that a raised subject depends on both the verbs
involved, so in It was raining the pronoun it is the subject of was but is
also the subject of raining. Multiple dependencies are a challenge for any
theory because they define conflicting phrases: in our example, the
phrase rooted in was is It was raining, while the one rooted in raining is
it ... raining. The question, then, is how to show that it belongs to the
phrase headed by raining as well as to the one headed by was.
There appear to be only two strategies for solving this problem. One
is to recognise an abstract trace which is coindexed to it, but this is
theoretically objectionable in the absence of independent evidence for
traces (Sag and Fodor 1994). The other is to recognise structure
sharing, whereby it is shared by both structures (Pollard and Sag 1994:2,
Bresnan 1982:374). In this case the theoretical objection is the
discontinuity of the lower phrase. After all, we have just seen that some
phrases are ungrammatical because of discontinuity, so how can we reject
some discontinuities while allowing others? The question, then, is how to
make a principled distinction between legal and illegal discontinuity. This
can be done surprisingly easily by pointing out that legal structure sharing
always involves at least one phrase which is continuous. In short,
discontinuous phrases are always parasitic on continuous phrases.
In WG terms, this means that instead of banning all tangling, we can
allow some dependencies to tangle just so long as there are some that
34
don't. To make this more precise, we can require each sentence to have a
substructure of dependencies that is tangle-free as well as complete
(`dangle-free'). We can call this substructure the sentence's `surface
structure', controlled by the Surface-structure Principle:
The Surface-structure Principle
A sentence's total dependencies (its `surface structure') must
include a sub-set which jointly satisfy word-order constraints
(including the No-tangling Principle) and the No-dangling principle;
dependencies not included in the surface structure need not satisfy
these constraints.
We can modify our diagrams to pick out the surface dependencies
by drawing these, and only these, on the `surface' of the words (i.e. above
them), with any additional dependencies drawn below. The result is an
analysis in which the arrows above the words are tangle-free and
equivalent to a single bracketing, but in which extra arrows may be added
below the words to show further dependencies. The analysis of It was
raining is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5
As in other theories, every individual dependency must be permitted
by the grammar. A bad sentence such as *He lives green on peas cannot
be saved simply by giving the offending word an extra dependency,
because there is nothing in the grammar to license such a dependency. In
contrast, the grammar sanctions all the individual dependencies in It was
raining, so the discontinuity is allowed. In general, therefore, discontinuity
35
always involves a word which depends on several other words at the same
time; one of these dependencies is in the surface structure and defines a
continuous phrase, but the others may define discontinuous phrases.
Discontinuity is therefore closely linked to multiple dependency, and is
handled quite easily by supplying additional dependencies such as the
extra subject dependency between it and was which permits it ... raining
to be discontinuous.
Similarly for front-shifting, alias extraction, where we recognise an
‘extractee’ (labelled ‘x<‘) dependency between the extracted item and
the first verb, whereby the former exceptionally precedes the latter.
(49) This wine I think I like.
The challenge here is to explain why this wine ... I like can be
discontinuous, and the solution is the extractee dependency between this
(the head of this wine) and think. The extractee dependency provides the
'landing site' (interpreted metaphorically in the absence of movement) for
the extracted item, and as in other analyses, the same relation is passed
recursively down the intervening structure to the 'extraction site'. In (49),
therefore, this (the head of this wine) is the extactee of the first finite verb
think and also of the latter's dependent like, which is the extraction site by
virtue of the non-extraction dependency 'object'. Further details of the WG
treatment of extraction are in Hudson (1990:chapter 13). The result is the
structure shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6
The complexity which can be generated in this way is as high as in
other theories of grammar, but it is all packed into a single structure with
36
just one node per word; Figure 711 illustrates the complex dependencies
which result from recursive subject raising and extraction, but the
complexity lies entirely in the dependency arrows.
Figure 7
We can again contrast this word-based approach to grammatical
analysis with the standard template approach based on sentences. What
the grammar generates is not sentences, but words; sentences are just an
epiphenomenon (word-strings with internal dependencies but no external
ones). A word is well-formed if it has all the characteristics that the
grammar requires it to have, but since some of these characteristics are
syntactic, it follows that sentence structure is generated as a by-product
of generating individual words. The syntactic characteristics of a word
include all the facts about its relationships to other words which are
controlled by the grammar - whether it needs complements and a parent
word, and whatever restrictions the grammar imposes on the
complements and parent. Thus most of the syntax is concerned strictly
with the local relationships between a word and the words to which it is
directly related by a dependency. The only `global' parts of sytax are the
very general principles such as No-tangling. If there is a relationship
between two elements, it must, by definition, be carried by a dependency,
and must, by definition, be local.
One particularly important syntactic question about a word is which
other word it depends on in the surface structure. If it has only one parent,
11 In this diagram dotted and solid lines have the same theoretical status; the only reason for distinguishing them is to improve readability.
37
there is no choice, but as we have just seen multiple dependency means
that it may have more than one. In such cases a choice must be made,
but the choice may vary from one syntactic context to another. This
variation is the basis for my proposed solution to the problem of adjunct
preposing in subordinate wh-interrogatives.
3.3 Adjunct preposing
With this background in mind, we can now explain the WG treatment of
our problem data, starting with adjunct preposing itself. Consider the
following examples:
(50) a We need help now.
b Now we need help.
c We now need help.
It is probably obvious that the adverb depends on the verb whether it is in
its normal post-verbal position or preposed; indeed in a dependency
analysis there is no alternative12. In example (b) there are good reasons for
labelling it `x<, >a', meaning "an adjunct which would normally be to the
12 10. ‘Sentence adverbs’ may appear to be a problem for a pure dependency-based
analysis, since there is no ‘sentence’ node to which they can be attached; for instance, in (i)
obviously must depend on the verb missed in just the same way as narrowly does.
(i) He obviously narrowly missed the bus.
The problem is illusory, however, because the relevant differences are semantic, not
syntactic, and can easily be shown in the semantic structure by means of ‘semantic phrasing’
(Hudson 1990:146); i.e. the scope of obviously is the whole of ‘He narrowly missed the bus’,
even though the word itself is attached directly to the verb. Such examples are much easier to
explain in terms of flat dependency analysis than in terms of phrase structure.
38
right of its parent (`>a') but which in this case is also an extractee (`x<')".
In this way we can distinguish between pre-subject adjuncts as in Now we
need, which are in the extractee position, and post-subject adjuncts as in
We now need. The latter are labelled `a<' for `pre-adjunct'. The three
possibilities are shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8
The proposed analysis for preposed adjuncts thus takes them to be
an example of extraction, so tomorrow in the next example is extracted
out of the embedded clause that he would call in:
(51) Tomorrow I think John said that he would call in.
The main point to note for present purposes is the 'surface' dependency
between the preposed adjunct and the first verb which guarantees that
the adjunct takes its place among the dependents that precede the verb.
Figure 9 shows the structures not only for sentence (51), but also for an
embedded sentence with a preposed adjunct (52).
(52) I told you that tomorrow I think John said that he would call in.
Figure 9
We now have the first part of our explanation. We have an analysis
of preposed adjuncts:
Preposed adjuncts
A preposed adjunct depends directly on the following verb.
Crucially, this analysis applies to all preposed adjuncts, including those
found in subordinate clauses. In that clauses the result is straightforwardly
the same as for main clauses (that tomorrow I think ...), but wh-
39
interrogatives block adjunct preposing for reasons that will emerge from
the following discussion.
3.4 Dependency competition
The Surface-structure Principle requires a sentence to have a surface
structure which contains some of the dependencies but not necessarily all
of them; but how do we know which dependencies belong in the surface
structure? The point of the following discussion will be to show that it is
settled by brute competition: a word can only have a single surface
parent, but in principle any dependency which follows the word-order
rules will do. In almost every case this competition yields just one
successful candidate, but the next section will show that wh-
interrogatives, exceptionally, yield two. This will give us the rest of our
explanation for the adjunct-preposing facts, but first we must establish the
principle of dependency competition.
Could competition be based on dependency labels - for example,
could we classify every grammatical function as either surface or non-
surface? This possibility can be excluded immediately just by looking at
the examples analysed so far. In our first example, It was raining, one
subject dependency was in the surface structure, and the other was not.
Moreover, the one which is not in the surface in this example - the one
between it and raining - would have been in the surface in simpler
examples such as It rained. Similarly for all the other examples, where we
find that not only subjects, but also extractees and objects, sometimes are
in the surface structure and sometimes are not. In short, whether or not a
40
grammatical relationship is part of surface structure (in the WG sense) is
determined by the sentential environment, not by its own inherent
character.
The effect of this free-for-all can easily be seen in It was raining.
There are two candidates for the surface parent of it. The link to was
produces no tangling in the surface structure, but the one to raining must
tangle with the vertical arrow above was (which must be in the surface
structure because was has no other parent link). Therefore the only way to
satisfy the Surface-structure Principle is to select the link to was. The
same kind of reasoning produces a single outcome for most other
examples which contain multiple dependencies.
In short, surface structure is a free selection from the available
dependencies, subject only to the Surface-structure Principle13. In most
cases these restrictions leave only one candidate (or no candidate at all in
the case of an ungrammatical sentence), but as mentioned earlier there
are a few constructions where the choice is genuinely free, one of which is
our wh-interrogative pattern. We now turn, therefore, to the analysis of
wh-interrogatives.
13 13 There may be at least one other general principle that limits the range of options in
choosing surface structure, and which may be called the Raising Principle: words may be
‘raised’ but not ‘lowered’. More formally:
If W depends on A and B, and B is subordinate to A, then W cannot depend on
B in surface structure.
This principle is needed for various reasons; for example, without it we could have a
post-verbal subject in *Kept John talking? simply by excluding the dependency between kept
and John from the surface structure.
41
3.5 Wh-interrogatives
What is the dependency relationship between an initial interrogative
pronoun and the root verb of the interrogative clause - for example,
between who and came in Who came? The outcome of the following
discussion will be that each depends on the other. The discussion largely
follows Hudson (1990:361-82).
First we can be sure that who depends on came, because who is the
subject of came and a verb's subject is one of its dependents. The
conclusion does not, however, rest on the pronoun being the verb's
subject; it would have been the same even if it had been some kind of
front-shifted object or a long-distance extractee. To avoid the
complications of intervening auxiliary verbs consider an example like How
are you?, where how is just as clearly a dependent of are as you is. After
all, how is some kind of complement of are (like well in I am well), and
takes its position immediately in front of are. So long as subjects and
complements are dependents, interrogative pronouns are dependents
whether they are preposed or not. These dependencies are shown in
Figure 10 (where ‘r’ stands for ‘sharer’, the current WG name for this kind
of complement which in other theories are called predicatives or xcomps).
Figure 10
On the other hand, there is also evidence that the verb depends on
the pronoun. The arguments are familiar from the standard literature
because this analysis is generally accepted.
42
¬ The pronoun can occur without the verb, giving the construction
called `sluicing' (Ross 1969).
(53) a Pat: I know he's invited a friend. Jo: Oh, who [has he invited]?
b I know he's invited a friend, but I'm not sure who [he's
invited].
¬ Taking the verb as the pronoun's complement allows us to explain
this pattern as an example of the more general anaphoric
reconstruction of optional complements illustrated in the following:
(54) a I may not be able to do it, but I want to [do it].
b I wanted to see her, and I tried [to see her], but I failed [to see
her].
c This book is bigger than that [book].
d Here are two apples. Which [apple] do you prefer?
¬ The verb must depend on the pronoun in a subordinate clause
because the pronoun is what is selected by the higher verb (e.g.
wonder):
(55) a I wonder *(who) came.
b I'm not sure *(what) happened.
¬ The pronoun selects the verb's characteristics - its finiteness
(tensed, infinitive with or without to) and whether or not it is
inverted. The characteristics selected vary lexically from pronoun to
pronoun, as one would expect if the verb was the pronoun's
complement. It is interesting to contrast why with how come and
other pronouns.
(56) a Why/when are you glum?
43
b Why/*when be glum?
(57) a Why are you so glum?
b *Why you are so glum?
c *How come are you so glum?
d How come you are so glum?
(58) I'm not sure what/who/when/*why to visit.
All these well-known facts are easy to explain if the next verb is a
complement of the pronoun: this would allow the usual range of lexical
restrictions to be placed on the complement, and would allow the pronoun
itself to be selected by a superordinate word such as a reporting verb. The
dependencies to which these facts point are shown in Figure 11.
Figure 11
In template-based syntax all these facts are taken as evidence that
the wh-pronoun occupies at least two distinct positions:
¬ one showing that it depends on the verb - e.g. within VP or IP
¬ one showing that the verb depends on it - e.g. within CP
But our conclusion, as promised, is that the pronoun and the verb depend
on each other. I should make it clear that this mutual dependence involves
two distinct dependencies, and not a single dependency which goes both
ways - that would contradict the inherent asymmetry of dependency
relationships. The pronoun is subject, object or extractee of the verb,
while the verb is complement of the pronoun.
If who and came depend on each other, there are three different
ways of satisfying all the principles given so far. They are shown in Figure
44
12.
Figure 12
All the individual dependencies in Figure 12 are correctly licensed by the
following rules, supplemented by the ordinary rules for subjects:
(59) a An interrogative pronoun has an optional complement.
b The complement of an interrogative pronoun is a tensed verb
(or to).
c An interrogative pronoun is the subject (or extractee) of its
complement.
There is no reason to rule out any of the three analyses, though
admittedly (a) looks rather strange. In particular, either the pronoun is the
surface head of a main wh-interrogative (analysis b) or the finite verb is
(analysis c). In this particular dependency competition, unusually, either
dependency may win.
3.6 Adjunct preposing again
We now have all the essential ingredients for an explanation of our
original data. To recapitulate, we have established the following general
principles (which presumably express linguistic universals):
a The No-tangling Principle
Dependency arrows must not tangle.
b The No-dangling Principle
Every word must have one parent, which may be virtual.
c The Surface-structure Principle
45
A sentence's total dependencies (its `surface structure') must
include a sub-set which jointly satisfy word-order constraints
(including the No-tangling Principle) and the No-dangling principle;
dependencies not included in the surface structure need not satisfy
these constraints.
We have also established these interpretations of English syntax:
a Preposed adjuncts
A preposed adjunct depends directly on the following verb.
b Wh-interrogatives
• An interrogative pronoun and the verb following it depend on
each other (as subject/extractee and as complement respectively).
• An interrogative pronoun follows any (other) extractee of its
complement - i.e. PA < WH.
Why, then, are main and subordinate wh-interrogatives different in
relation to adjunct preposing? We start with ordinary adjunct preposing:
(60) a They eat haggis in Scotland.
b In Scotland they eat haggis.
As pointed out earlier, the most important fact is that in (Scotland)
depends on eat in both these sentences; as explained earlier, I assume it
involves extraction14. For more details see Hudson (1990:chapter 13). The
14 14 I assume that adjunct preposing is an example of extraction, which is handled in
WG by means of an extra dependency which is added to the `basic' one and whose word-
order demands override the default ones. For example, in both (i) and (ii) yesterday is post-
adjunct of rained:
(i) It rained yesterday.
(ii) Yesterday it rained.
46
structures for these two sentences are shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13
This one claim explains immediately why adjunct preposing is
possible in subordinate that clauses, and why the preposed adjunct must
follow that (as required by Sub-first):
(61) a I know that in Scotland they eat haggis.
b *I know in Scotland that they eat haggis.
Given that in depends on eat, it can occur with eat wherever the latter
occurs, whether in a main clause or in a subordinate one. Just like the
subject of eat, it can occur between that and eat without problem, but the
position before that is impossible because of the tangling shown in Figure
14.
Figure 14
We can now apply this treatment of preposed adjuncts to wh-
interrogatives, starting with main clauses:
(62) a In Scotland what do they eat?
By default, a word precedes its post-adjunct as in (i); but in (ii) yesterday is also the
extractee of rained. There is a special word order rule for extractees which requires the
reverse of the default order, hence the order in (ii). The rules concerned are as follows:
[1] A word precedes its dependent.
[2] A word follows its extractee.
[3] A word may be the extractee of a finite verb.
[4] A verb's extractee may be its post-adjunct.
47
b *What in Scotland do they eat?
As in the declaratives we must assume that the preposed adjunct depends
on the finite verb. This is possible because one of the analyses of main
wh-interrogatives that we considered above has the verb as its head, so
the adjunct is a co-dependent of what and tangling is avoided. The
addition of a preposed adjunct in (a) thus eliminates the other analysis in
which the pronoun is the head, because this analysis produces the
tangling shown in (b) in Figure 15. As for the ungrammatical example (b),
the order WH < PA is eliminated by a general stipulation which requires
adjunct extractees to precede argument extractees - i.e. whatever
stipulation distinguishes English from Italian (which, as (42) shows, lacks
this particular restriction).
Figure 15
Now for subordinate wh-interrogatives. The challenge is to explain
why the order which is good in main clauses is bad in subordinates:
(63) *I know in Scotland what they eat.
The only way to avoid tangling in the sequence in Scotland what they eat
is to make in depend on eat, as in the main clause; but what is the
clause's subordinator so it also has to depend on know. Inevitably the
dependency from in to eat tangles with the one from know to what, and
the structure fails as shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16
3.7 Other languages
The impossibility of adjunct-preposing from subordinate wh-interrogatives
48
is a by-product of a number of other processes and patterns, so it is
‘natural’ in any language which has these processes. The claim, then, is
that (in this respect) the English pattern is normal. However, it does
slightly restrict what can be said, so it would not be surprising if the
speakers of some languages had found a way round the restriction. This
seems, indeed, to be the case with both Italian and Greek, though the
solutions found are different in the two cases. In both cases the grammars
allow patterns that would not be permitted in English, so learners have
positive evidence for the extra provisions made by these grammars and
learnability is not an issue.
We have already considered the following examples from Italian:
(64) a *Credo, presto, che loro lo apprezzeranno molto.
I-think, soon, that they it will-appreciate much
‘I think that they will soon appreciate it a lot.’
b Mi domando, domani, a chi potrebbero dare il premio Nobel.
me I-ask, tomorrow, to whom they-could give the prize Nobel
‘I wonder who they could give theNobel prize to tomorrow.’
c Mi domando, in queste vigne, che vino si produca.
Me I-ask, in those vineyards, which wine one produces
The badness of (a) shows that Italian sometimes respects the Sub-first
constraint just as English does, but (b) and (c) go beyond what English
allows. What precisely is it in Italian grammar that allows such sentences?
As we saw in the review of Rizzi’s proposal, his system allows an answer in
which WH is not, in fact, the subordinator - the surface signal of a
subordinate clause - as it is in English. I shall now present a WG analysis
which develops the same idea, but without postulating an abstract
49
complementizer.
Wh-pronouns such as chi are syntactically complex because they
combine the function of a simple subordinator such as che with that of a
simple pronoun like lui. In English, the wh-pronoun combines these two
functions directly, giving the mutual dependency discussed above which
blocks adjunct preposing, but Italian allows a different strategy: the wh-
pronoun’s subordinator function is transferred onto the subordinate verb
itself, so the wh-pronoun is not a barrier to adjunct preposing. Thus in (c),
che (the head of che vino) transfers its subordinator function onto the
verb produca, thereby permitting the latter to function as complement of
domando. This transfer is permitted by a relationship called ‘verb-proxy’
which will be explained below. The structure that I envisage for (c) is
shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17
If it can be justified, this structure explains why adjunct preposing is
possible: the subordinate clause’s structure is just the same as it would
have been if it had been a main clause, so adjunct preposing is just as
possible here as in a main clause. So can it be justified? First, we must see
how the ‘verb-proxy’ relationship works. The term ‘proxy’ (due to Rosta
1997) is intended to suggest that the verb acts as a proxy for che, taking
over its function as the signal of a subordinate interrogative clause. More
formally, instead of saying that the complement of domandare may be an
interrogative pronoun, the grammar contains the following rules:
(65) a The complement of domandare is the verb-proxy of an
50
interrogative pronoun15.
b The verb-proxy of an interrogative pronoun isa tensed verb.
c An interrogative pronoun is extractee of its verb-proxy.
In short, a front-shifted interrogative pronoun defines the verb on which it
depends as its verb-proxy. This has no effect in main clauses, but in
subordinate clauses it permits the verb itself, rather than the pronoun, to
be the complement of a higher verb that takes an interrogative
complement.
Are there any precedents for the verb-proxy relationship? Yes, a very
similar relationship is needed for prepositional pied-piping (Hudson
1990:373, Rosta:1997). Consider a sentence like the following.
(66) With whom did you arrive?
Any theory needs to be able to show that the prepositional phrase with
whom acts as though it were headed by an interrogative pronoun,
although its head is really a preposition. In most theories this is done by
some form of feature-passing whereby the interrogative feature of whom
is copied up to with, but in WG the mechanism is a proxy relationship
which permits a preposition to act on behalf of its interrogative
15 The grammar can easily be generalised to include pure
complementizers like si. Suppose that interrogative pronouns and si are
classified as interrogative words. Verbs such as domandare then select the
verb-proxy of an interrogative word. The term verb-proxy of an
interrogative pronoun is the nearest finite verb, but that of si is si itself -
i.e. the relationship is reflexive. The same is found in other kinds of ‘proxy’
discussed by Rosta (1997); for example, English verbs like think select the
proxy of a tensed verb, which is either the tensed verb itself, or that. 51
complement. Wh-movement thus applies, not to interrogative pronouns as
such, but to proxies of interrogative pronouns - i.e. either to the
interrogative pronoun itself, or to a preposition on which the pronoun
depends.
The point of the comparison with prepositional pied-piping is that
this construction shows very clearly and uncontroversially that a wh-
pronoun can transfer its wh-ness onto a word on which it depends. This is
exactly what I am suggesting for Italian interrogative clauses: that the wh-
pronoun transfers its wh-ness onto the clause’s verb, thereby permitting
this to depend directly on a higher verb. Once this possibility is accepted,
the possibility of adjunct preposing follows automatically.
Modern Greek shows a different pattern of possibilities, illustrated in
the following examples quoted earlier.
(67) a Mu-ipe avrio (? o ianis) oti tha dhoso to vivlio sti Maria.
to-me-he-said tomorrow (John) that will I-give the book to-the
Mary
`He (John) told me that I will give the book to Mary tomorrow.'
b Mu-ipe avrio (? o ianis) se pjon tha dhoso to vivlio.
to-me-he-said tomorrow (John) to whom will I-give the book
`He (John) told me who he will give the book to tomorrow.'
Unlike Italian, Greek allows adjunct preposing across a pure subordinator,
oti. This possibility excludes an analysis in terms of verb-proxies because
oti is not a dependent of the subordinate verb. The only word on which it
could possibly depend is the higher verb, ipe ‘said’, so its dependency
status must be just the same as that of English complementizers such as
that. This being so, the preposed adjunct cannot depend in surface
52
structure on the lower verb, because this dependency would tangle with
the one between ipe and oti as shown by the dotted arrow in Figure 18.
Figure 18
Another difference between Greek and both English and Italian is
that it is at least marginally possible to separate the preposed adjunct
from the rest of the subordinate clause by some element of the main
clause such as its subject (o ianis in these examples). To the extent that
this is possible, it suggests that the preposed adjunct is raised out of the
lower clause entirely, like the subject of a raising verb. This is the analysis
assumed in Figure 18, where the dependency labelled ‘?’ links the
preposed adjunct avrio (tomorrow) to the higher verb, ipe (said). This is its
surface link, which determines its position in word order, in contrast with
the non-surface dependency on the lower verb dhoso (give), which
determines its semantics. I assume that the same possibility also exists
for topicalised objects like the following (Tsimpli 1990).
(68) a Mu-ipe to vivlio oti edhose sti Maria.
to-me-he-said the book that he-gave to-the Mary
`He said that he gave the book to Mary.'
b Mu-ipe to vivlio se pjon edhose.
to-me-he-said the book to whom he-gave
`He said who he gave the book to.'
This suggestion is particularly tentative and needs further work (Tzanidaki
1986 is a detailed WG analysis of related patterns), but whatever the
correct analysis for Greek may turn out to be, we can at least be sure that
it will be different from Italian as well as from English.
53
4. Conclusion
This discussion has been concerned with a minor corner of English
grammar, the intersection of three different patterns: interrogative
pronouns (WH), preposed adjuncts (PA) and subordination. The question is
why the order PA < WH is good in main clauses but bad in subordinate
clauses, and the natural explanation turns on the assumption that WH is
the head of a subordinate clause but not of a main clause. How should this
simple idea be expressed in terms of formal sentence structures? The
discussion contrasted two general theories of sentence structure.
On the one hand are theories based on X-bar templates, in which
head-hood is linked to linear position in a fixed framework of abstract
positions each of which is defined in terms of both dominance and
precedence. There are many possible positions for both PA and WH, but
we considered the three most plausible analyses in which PA is adjoined to
IP, to CP or to TopicP. Each of these analyses failed (for English) for the
same reason: because the position in the X-bar schema which identifies an
element as head of the subordinate clause also defines its linear relations
to other elements of the clause. Consequently, if PA is possible after that it
should also be possible after WH; and conversely, if PA is possible before
WH, it should be possible before that. Neither of these predictions is
correct.
The other theory considered was Word Grammar, in which sentence
structure is defined in terms of dependencies between pairs of words
rather than in terms of a general ‘sentence-structure’ template. Unlike X-
54
bar theory, dominance (dependency) and precedence are separate, so (for
example) mutual dependency is possible although mutual precedence is
not. Mutual dependency allows WH and the following verb to compete as
surface head of an interrogative clause, so one can be head in a main
clause and the other in a subordinate clause. It is this alternation of
headedness that allows PA before WH in a main clause but not in a
subordinate clause. The analysis can be extended, with small
modifications, to accommodate different possibilities found in at least
some other languages.
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