does wh-in-situ license parasitic gaps?

Does Wh-in-Situ License Parasitic Gaps?Author(s): Jonah LinSource: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 298-302Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4179323 .

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298 SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION

Muller, Gereon. 1998. Incomplete category fronting. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Poletto, Cecilia, and Jean-Yves Pollock. To appear. On wh-clitics and wh-doubling in French and some North Eastern Italian dialects. Probus 17.1.

Rizzi, Luigi. 2001. Relativized Minimality effects. In The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory, ed. by Mark Baltin and Chris Collins, 89-110. Oxford: Blackwell.

Sakai, Hiromu. 1994. Derivational economy in long distance scram- bling. In Formal Approaches to Japanese Linguistics (FAJL) 1, ed. by Masatoshi Koizumi and Hiroyuki Ura, 295-314. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 24. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MITWPL.

Sportiche, Dominique. 1988. A theory of floating quantifiers and its corollaries for constituent structure. Linguistic Inquiry 19: 425-449.

Starke, Michal. 2001. Merge dissolves into Merge. Doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva.

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DOES WH-IN-SITU LICENSE 1 Introduction PARASITIC GAPS? It has been assumed that wh-in-situ does not license parasitic gaps

Jonah Lin (PGs) (Engdahl 1983). Compare the following examples: National Tsing Hua University

(1) a. Which documenti did John file ei [without reading pgj]? b. *Who filed which documenti [without reading pgi]?

Some researchers, such as Nissenbaum (1999) and Kim (2001), argue against this hypothesis and propose that wh-in-situ is potentially capa- ble of licensing PGs. Kim specifically predicts that the wh-phrases in wh-in-situ languages can license PGs. But Kim also mentions that this prediction is empirically difficult to test, since those languages known to lack syntactic wh-movement, such as Chinese and Japanese, permit "empty resumptive pronouns" in argument positions, and it is thus difficult to determine whether an empty category in an argument position is a PG or an empty pronominal (Kim 2001:103). In this squib, I argue that Kim's prediction does not hold. In particular, I will show that (a) wh-in-situ in Chinese does not license PGs, and (b) PGs are

I would like to thank Joseph Emonds, Chris Hsieh, Taisuke Nishigauchi, and Iris Wu for discussion on the material presented in this squib. I also thank an anonymous reviewer of LI for comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are mine.



SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION 299

indeed attested in Chinese, and they must be licensed by syntactic wh- movement.

2 Wh-in-Situ in Chinese and Parasitic Gaps

First let us examine wh-in-situ in Chinese. Emonds (2001) points out that PGs fall out nicely on Chomsky's (1982) analysis as a consequence of the general theory of operator binding. That is, a c-commanding wh-operator binds the PG as a by-product of binding the wh-trace. But a question comes to mind when we look at Chinese. Tsai (1994) argues that wh-arguments in Chinese are in fact variables unselectively bound by the question operator Q in Spec,CP. If the PG is a by-product of wh-binding, then it should be licensed by the question operator Q as a by-product of the binding of the wh-phrase. This prediction, however, is not borne out.'

(2) a. *Laowang [zai huijian pgi zhiqian] jiu Laowang at meet before already kaichu-le sheii? fire-PERF who 'Who did Laowang fire before meeting?'

b. *Laowang [zai du-guo pgi zhihou] jiu diudiao-le Laowang at read-ExP after then throw-PERF

sheme wenjiani? what document 'Which document did Laowang throw away right after reading?'

The ungrammaticality of (2a-b) is unexpected on Emonds's (2001) construal. (2a-b) thus indicate that wh-in-situ in Chinese does not license PGs. The licensing of PGs involves more than A-binding.

3 Syntactic Wh-Movement and Parasitic Gaps

Are there PGs in Chinese? The answer is yes. What is more, PGs in Chinese must be licensed by syntactic wh-movement. To support this claim, let us turn to topicalization in Chinese.

Some researchers notice that topicalization (and relativization) in Chinese may not always involve syntactic wh-movement (see, e.g., Li 2002). An example is given in (3b), where the object weiyu 'tuna' is topicalized out of the relative clause in the object position. Since the relative clause constitutes a syntactic island, the topic weiyu 'tuna' cannot have moved to the initial position of the sentence through syntactic movement.

1 The abbreviations used in this squib are EXP = experiential aspectual marker, MOD = modification marker, PERF = perfective aspectual marker.




(3) a. Weiyu, Laowang xihuan. tuna Laowang like 'Tuna, Laowang likes.'

b. Weiyui, Laowang yu-guo [ej xihuan ei de] renj. tuna Laowang meet-ExP like MOD person 'Tuna, Laowang has met persons who like [it].'

A surprising fact, however, is that topicalization of wh-elements in Chinese always involves syntactic wh-movement, as island effects typically show up. Consider the following examples:2

(4) a. Sheme yu, Laowang xihuan? what fish Laowang like 'What fish does Laowang like?'

b. *Sheme yui, Laowang yu-guo [ej xihuan ei de] renj? what fish Laowang meet-ExP like MOD person 'What fish is it such that Laowang met persons who like it?'

Moreover, if the wh-phrases in (2a) and (2b) are topicalized, both sentences become grammatical. The PGs are licensed therein.

(5) a. Sheii Laowang [zai huijian pgi zhiqian] jiu who Laowang at meet before already kaichu-le ei? fire-PERF

'Which person is it who Laowang fired before meeting?' b. Sheme wenjiani Laowang [zai du-guo pgi zhihou]

what document Laowang at read-ExP after jiu diudiao-le ei? then throw-PERF 'Which document is it which Laowang threw away right after reading?'

It thus appears that (a) PGs indeed exist in Chinese, and (b) syntactic wh-movement is an essential condition for licensing of PGs.

One may hesitate to accept this conclusion and point out that the following Chinese examples are perfectly grammatical, where the topicalized elements are non-wh-elements:

2 assume that a wh-phrase in an A-position in overt syntax is construed as an operator, which needs to bind a variable; furthermore, I assume that only movement can create an operator-variable structure. I suppose that this is the driving force for the syntactic movement of the wh-phrase in sentences such as (4a-b). These assumptions, of course, leave aside some questions of high theoretical interest, such as whether resumptive pronouns count as variables, how these assumptions conform to the unselective binding of wh-phrases, and how forming an operator-variable structure is to be calculated in the Minimalist Program. I will leave these questions open.



SQUIBS AND DISCUSSION 301

(6) a. Xiaoli, Laowang [zai huijian pgi zhiqian] jiu Xiaoli Laowang at meet before already kaichu-le ei. fire-PERF

'Xiaoli, Laowang fired him before meeting.' b. Zhefen wenjiani Laowang [zai du-guo pgj zhihou]

this document Laowang at read-ExP after jiu diudiao-le ei. then throw-PERF 'This document, Laowang threw away right after reading.'

But (6a-b) can be turned into supporting evidence for the above conclusion. The crucial point is that the linking between the topic and its base-generated position in (7a-b) observes island effects.

(7) a. *Xiaolij Laowang [zai huijian pgi zhiqian] jiu Xiaoli Laowang at meet before already tingdao [Zhangsan kaichu-le ei] de xiaoxi. hear Zhangsan fire-PE"F MOD news 'Xiaoli, Laowang heard the news before meeting [him] that Zhangsan fired [him].'

b. *Zhefen wenjiani Laowang [zai du-guo pgi zhihou] this document Laowang at read-ExP after jiu tingdao [Zhangsan diudiao-le ei] de xiaoxi. then hear Zhangsan throw-PERF MOD news 'This document, Laowang heard the news right after reading [it] that Zhangsan threw [it] away.'

Notice that (7a-b) become significantly better if the adverbial clauses containing the PGs are removed (though they are still somewhat awk- ward to many Chinese speakers).

(8) a. ?Xiaolij Laowang tingdao [Zhangsan kaichu-le ei] Xiaoli Laowang hear Zhangsan fire-PERF

de xiaoxi. MOD news 'Xiaoli, Laowang heard the news that Zhangsan fired [him].'

b. ?Zhefen wenjiani Laowang tingdao [Zhangsan this document Laowang hear Zhangsan diudiao-le ei] de xiaoxi. throw-PERF MOD news 'This document, Laowang heard the news that Zhang- san threw [it] away.'

Thus, even though Chinese permits topicalization out of islands, this option is not available when PGs are present. The presence of the PG forces the topicalized element to move (as a last resort) rather than to make use of other mechanisms (such as control or empty resumptive




pronouns) to evade island effects.3 The contrast between (7) and (8), once again, argues that syntactic wh-movement is an essential condition for licensing PGs.

4 Conclusion

Data from Chinese indicate that (a) wh-in-situ does not license PGs, and (b) syntactic wh-movement is an essential condition for licensing PGs. Therefore, Kim's (2001) prediction does not hold. The discover- ies reported in this squib, though, may be compatible with theories such as Nissenbaum's (1999), which argues that wh-in-situ can license PGs, though an overt A-movement is a prerequisite.4 I leave the rele- vant questions open.

References

Chomsky, Noam. 1982. Some concepts and consequences of the theory of government and binding. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Emonds, Joseph. 2001. The lower operator position with parasitic gaps. In Features and interfaces in Romance, ed. by Julia Herschen- sohn, Enrique Mallen, and Karen Zagona, 85-106. Amster- dam: John Benjamins.

Engdahl, Elisabet. 1983. Parasitic gaps. Linguistics and Philosophy 6: 5-34.

Huang, C.-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 15:531-574.

Kim, Soowon. 2001. Chain composition and uniformity. Natural Lan- guage & Linguistic Theory 19:67-107.

Li, Yen-hui Audrey. 2002. Word order, structure and relativization. In On the formal way to Chinese languages, ed. by Sze-Wing Tang and C.-S. Luther Liu, 45-73. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI Pub- lications.

Nissenbaum, Jon. 1999. Covert movement and parasitic gaps. In NELS 30, ed. by Masako Hirotani, Andries Coetzee, Nancy Hall, and Ji-yung Kim, 541-556. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, GLSA.

Tsai, Wei-tien Dylan. 1994. On economizing the theory of A-bar de- pendency. Doctoral dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

3If we adopt the "classical" analysis of PGs (namely, the one advocated in Chomsky 1982), this triggering effect can be accounted for straightforwardly. Suppose that the PG is the trace of an empty operator that adjoins to the initial position of the adverbial clause (presumably IP; but see Emonds 2001, where it is argued that the landing site of the empty operator is Spec,IP). To be construed with the topic of the sentence, the PG, as a variable, forces the topic element to undergo syntactic movement so as to create an operator-variable structure (see footnote 2). A question remains: why can't the PG be an empty pronominal? On this I follow Huang's (1984) proposal that Chinese does not permit an empty pronominal in object position; an object empty pronominal has to be subject to Principles A and B of binding theory simultaneously, and as a result the interpretation will crash. See Huang 1984 for more details.

4 Ithank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility to me.



does wh-in-situ license parasitic gaps?

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