WH-Operators

Linguistics 322

WH-operators are the set of WH-phrases which include the class of words that tend to begin with the letters 'WH' and seek information: who, what, where, when, why, which, whether, and how (the initial 'w' was lost somewhere in antiquity). The set also includes the complementizer 'if' which partially overlaps in meaning with whether.. WH-operators trigger movement of WH-phrases (phrases which begin with a WH-word).

WH-operators fall into two basic types: relative operators and non-relative operators. Non-relative operators include two types: interrogative WH-operators and statement WH-operators. Each of these two types are both divided into two more subtypes. Let us start with interrogative operators. In the first type the speaker is asking an information seeking question--the main verb is in the interrogative mood:

  1. Who did Bill see?
  2. What did Mary buy?
  3. Which book was burned in the fire?
  4. Where did all the students go?
  5. Why are you so late?
  6. When is dinner?
  7. How are we going to solve this problem?

In the second set of interrogatives, it isn't the speaker who is seeking information but someone else:

  1. Bill asked Mary which book the prof assigned for class.
  2. Lottie wonders who she lent her notes to.
  3. ?Bill inquired what Sally gave to Henry.

The two non-interrogative non-relative operators do not appear to be semantically related. In the first class certain verbs permit the speaker to indicate that he knows the identity of a certain person or object, but he does not reveal the identity:

  1. John knows who hates syntax.
  2. Betty said what Helen likes the most.
  3. Henrietta heard what she got in syntax.
  4. Lottie saw what Bob was up to.

Here, John is aware of the identity of the person who hates syntax, but he is not divulging it in the first sentence. In the second sentence Betty knows what it is that she likes the most but she is not telling the listener. Similar interpretations hod for sentences (3) and (4). Compare the first two sentences with the following:

  1. John knows somebody hates syntax.
  2. Betty said that Helen likes something the most.

Here, the listener does not know if John is aware of the identity of the person who hates syntax. And the listener does not know whether Betty knows what it is that Helen likes. In the first sentence all the listener can interpret is that it is a person who hates syntax and an object (concrete or abstract) that Helen likes the most.

The second non-interrogative non-relative operators mark emphasis. There is no unknown information here:

  1. What a nice day it is!
  2. What a bright shirt John is wearing!
  3. What a hard test he assigned!

This is a special case, but note that WH-fronting is obligatory:

  1. *It is what a nice day!
  2. John is wearing what a bright shirt!
  3. He assigned what a hard test!

The WH-phrases in relative clauses are often called relative operators. They have the same syntactic properties as WH-operators. Relative clauses contain relative operators. A relative clause modifies a NP and rarely a VP:

  1. John bought a book which he found interesting.
  2. Mary, who is broke, sold her Mercedes Benz.

In the first sentence the relative clause is which he found interesting. The relative clause is modifying a book. The relative clause in the second sentence is who is broke; it is modifying Mary.

The second type of relative operator are the headless relative operators. Here, an object NP is null--the object NP is modified by a relative clause:

  1. John will eat what Mary cooks for him.
  2. Maggie drinks what she is served.

In the first sentence John will eat the food that Mary cooks for him. The direct object of eat is null--it refers to the food that Mary cooks for him. In the second sentence Maggie drinks whatever beverages that is served to her.

Complementizers may contain the WH-feature as well. There are two such complementizers: whether and if:

  1. I don't know whether if it will rain tonight or not.
  2. If it rains we won't go on the picnic.

In the second sentence if marks the conditional mood.

WH-movement refers to the process of moving WH-phrases. The parameters of WH-movement varies from language to language. Languages like English and Russian permit only one WH-word per clause to be fronted. Traditionally the landing site for a WH-phrase is Spec-C. However, in view of our views on X-bar theory, we consider the landing site to be adjoined to CP. This is the landing site for the first type of WH-operators--where the speaker is eliciting information. This type of WH-operator always cooccurs with a C marked for [+Q]. Here, the interrogative WH-operator must move to the matrix CP as does T:

The basic proposition here is:

  1. John saw something.

The speaker knows this much and he want to find out what the object is he saw. Ignoring tense still, we could represent the question as the following incorporating the basic proposition:

  1. What [ John saw something ]?
  2. John saw something. What is it? (a rough paraphrase of (1)).
  3. What is the object that John saw? (another rough paraphrase).

The syntax puts what in the place of something, and what has to move to the logical position of the WH-word as indicated in (1) immediately above.

  1. John [+Past] see what.

If the subject is a WH-NP the questions arises whether the subject stays in situ or whether it moves to CP. Chomsky for years took the first position, but he may now be taking the second position which we take here:

  1. Who likes syntax?

There is one unexplainable phenomenon here. T which contains [+Q] lowers and adjoins to V. Even though there is no explanation for this at the moment, if another operator occurs contained by T, lowering is blocked. The interrogative WH-operator must move and adjoin to CP:

  1. Who does like syntax? (emphatic)
  2. Who doesn't like syntax? (negation)

If two interrogative type WH-phrases of the first type occur in the same clause, only one of them is permitted to move. The second one may remain in situ:

  1. What did John give [trace] to who?
  2. Who did John give what to [trace]?

The logical structure for either sentence is:

  1. John give something to somebody.

The speaker may seek information identifying both objects. He may focus on one of the objects--this is the one that moves.

Under normal circumstances if one of the WH-phrases is the subject of the clause, it moves and is adjoined to CP taking superiority over the complement WH-phrase:

  1. Who gave what to Mary?
  2. Who gave a book to whom?
  3. ??What did who give to Mary? (non echo)
  4. ??Who did who give a book to?

It is possible that there exists a discourse context for the latter two sentences above. Suppose someone says:

  1. You know, someone gave something very special to Mary.,

where the focus is on something very special. Then the penultimate sentence (3) above could be an appropriate response. Rather than claiming that the subject is universally superior, we will merely claim that the default is subject superiority, which can be overridden in the appropriate context.

Interrogative WH-phrases may move from an embedded clause and adjoin to CP of the main clause. Here, the speaker is still eliciting information:

  1. What did John say that he likes?
  2. Who does Mary believe that Molly gave a book to [trace]?

The logical structure is:

  1. What [ John say [ John like something ]].

One of the debates in syntax, is whether the movement of who is a long distance movement, or whether it is cyclical. In long-distance movement, a WH-phrase moves directly to the main CP (the main-clause CP) with no intervening stops:

In the cyclical analysis, a WH-phrase moves and is adjoined first to CP within its own clause, and then moves to main CP:

We adopt here the short-distance or cyclical movement hypothesis. We will produce evidence for this below.

The cyclical hypothesis means that a WH-phrase must move and adjoin to every CP until it reaches the the main CP:

  1. Who does John believe that Mary claims that Bill gave all of his CD's to [trace]?

Certain verbs subcategorize a WH-feature. In this type it is not the speaker who is eliciting information, but the subject of the question verb. These are called indirect questions. Consider the following examples:

  1. John wonders what Mary bought for him.
  2. Sally asked who Kelly saw at the beach.

The speaker may or may not know what Mary bought for him, but John is wondering what it is--this construction behaves like the next sentence syntactically. In the second sentence Sally is trying to elicit the information who the person is that Kelly saw at the beach. The speaker is not eliciting this; he is merely reporting what Sally did.

There are two basic propositions in (1):

  1. John wonder X
  2. X=Mary buy something for John.

Here it is not the speaker who is eliciting the information but John. Hence, what logically goes with the second (embedded) proposition:

  1. What [ Mary buy something for John].

We can now represent the structure of the above sentence in the following way:

  1. John wonder [ what [ Mary buy something for John ]].

Note that the WH-phrase does not move and adjoin to the main CP:

  1. *What does John wonder Mary bought for him.
  2. *Who did Sally ask Kelly saw at the beach.
  3. *What does everyone know their prof gave them for a final grade.

Let us assume that the sentence crashes (is marked ungrammatical) if the subcategorization feature of the verb is not satisfied. Therefore, the WH-phrase must move cyclically to each CP to determine whether it is subcategorized by the main verb. Note that the logical position of what corresponds with the landing of site of what in the syntax:

The green link is used here to show the agreement link between the subcategorized feature and the feature of the complement. They must agree. If the WH-phrase originates in a deeper clause that is not subcategorized for WH, the WH-phrase will move to one that is subcategorized:

  1. John wonders what Mary said that she bought [trace] for him.

The logical structure (basic propositions) of (1) is:

  1. John wonder [ what-[+Q] [ Mary say [ Mary buy something for John ]]].

The feature [+Q] indicates a question--information is being solicited.

The verb ask more directly expresses an indirect question:

  1. Bill asked Elaine what she bought for herself.

The logical structure is:

  1. Bill ask [ what-[+Q] [ Mary buy something for herself ]].

Not to be ignored is the fact that [+Q] requires the complementizer if or whether :

  1. Bill asked if/whether Mary bought something for herself.
  2. John wonders if/whether Mary said that she bought something for John.
  3. These two complementizers contains the features [+WH] and [+Q].

The unidentified WH-operator refers to an object or person that the speaker is not revealing the identity of. The speaker may or may not know the identity. However, the speaker does reveal that someone does know this information. The indefinite pronouns somebody, something, somewhere, somehow, someplace, sometime do not indicate this subtlety. The use of the unidentified WH-operator does indicate this subtlety, but only if certain verbs subcategorize WH. For example compare the following two sentences:

  1. John knows that Mary dated somebody.
  2. John knows who Mary dated.

In (1) both the speaker and John may not know who Mary dated, but in (2) John knows the identity, though the speaker may not know it. If it does, he is not giving it away.

  1. Everyone knows what their prof gave him for a final grade.

Here, the speaker may not know what everyone got. But everyone knows what his grade is. Note that him could refer to each person in the set of everyone or it could refer to some other person in the discourse. A few other verbs also subcategorize the unidentified WH-operator:

  1. John told them who the dog bit.
  2. Mary said what time it was.
  3. Bill remembers who did it.
  4. But Sally forgot how much she paid for it.
  5. Jake decided how to do syntax.
  6. Ollie decided when to leave.
  7. Letitia

The logical structure of (1) includes two basic propositions:

  1. John told us [ who-[-Q] [ the dog bite someone ].

'[-Q]' indicates that this is not a question; no information is being elicited. Note that the complementizer of a [-Q] WH construction is that, not wonder or if:

  1. John told us that the dog bit someone.
  2. *John told us if/whether the dog bit someone.

However, there is a use of whether and if that marks the uncertain mood:

  1. John told us whether the dog would bite someone (or not).
  2. But Sally forgot whether she paid for it (or not).
  3. Agnes contemplated whether syntax is intriguing or boring.

This use of the uncertainty mood (marked with would) must not be confused with definite information.

Note that if the verb does not subcategorize for WH, then a WH-phrase may not remain in the subcategorization position:

  1. *John thinks what Mary bought for him.
  2. What does John think that Mary bought for him.

(1) here fails because think only subcategorizes [-WH]. However, the speaker is entitled to elicit the information. The logical structure for this would be:

For the logical structure of WH see the pre-syntax of WH-operators.

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