French wh in-situ

This paper investigates the acceptability of wh in-situ expressions in embedded contexts in French. We report on two experiments that tested the acceptability of wh in-situ and ex-situ in embedded clauses of biclausal direct wh-questions and in indirect questions, and how their acceptability is modu...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Baunaz, Lena|||0000-0003-4935-6369, Bocci, Giuliano|||0000-0002-3800-8249, Shlonsky, Ur|||0000-0002-7147-4794
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:304769
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/304769
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.421
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:French
Wh in-situ
Intervention
Experimental syntax
D-linking
Descripción
Sumario:This paper investigates the acceptability of wh in-situ expressions in embedded contexts in French. We report on two experiments that tested the acceptability of wh in-situ and ex-situ in embedded clauses of biclausal direct wh-questions and in indirect questions, and how their acceptability is modulated by the presence of the negation in the embedded clause. In Experiment 1, the contexts favored a D-linked interpretation of the wh-element (in the sense of Pesetsky 1987), while the contexts in Experiment 2 disfavored it. Our results show that the in-situ strategy is generally more acceptable (or at least equally acceptable) than the ex-situ strategy in direct questions with long construal, regardless of D-linking and negation. By contrast, the in-situ strategy is significantly less acceptable than the ex-situ one in indirect questions, regardless of D-linking and negation. Our findings indicate that in long construal direct wh-questions, negation fails to selectively block wh in-situ. In this respect, French differs from many other languages (see e.g., Beck & Kim 1997, a.o.). We show that D-linking is not a necessary condition for in-situ in French. We discuss how our findings relate to the current debate between alternative formal analyses of wh in-situ in French.