- Dutch
- Frisian
- Saterfrisian
- Afrikaans
-
- Phonology
- Segment inventory
- Phonotactics
- Phonological processes
- Phonology-morphology interface
- Word stress
- Primary stress in simplex words
- Monomorphemic words
- Diachronic aspects
- Generalizations on stress placement
- Default penultimate stress
- Lexical stress
- The closed penult restriction
- Final closed syllables
- The diphthong restriction
- Superheavy syllables (SHS)
- The three-syllable window
- Segmental restrictions
- Phonetic correlates
- Stress shifts in loanwords
- Quantity-sensitivity
- Secondary stress
- Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables
- Stress in complex words
- Primary stress in simplex words
- Accent & intonation
- Clitics
- Spelling
- Morphology
- Word formation
- Compounding
- Nominal compounds
- Verbal compounds
- Adjectival compounds
- Affixoids
- Coordinative compounds
- Synthetic compounds
- Reduplicative compounds
- Phrase-based compounds
- Elative compounds
- Exocentric compounds
- Linking elements
- Separable complex verbs (SCVs)
- Gapping of complex words
- Particle verbs
- Copulative compounds
- Derivation
- Numerals
- Derivation: inputs and input restrictions
- The meaning of affixes
- Non-native morphology
- Cohering and non-cohering affixes
- Prefixation
- Suffixation
- Nominal suffixation: person nouns
- Conversion
- Pseudo-participles
- Bound forms
- Nouns
- Nominal prefixes
- Nominal suffixes
- -aal and -eel
- -aar
- -aard
- -aat
- -air
- -aris
- -ast
- Diminutives
- -dom
- -een
- -ees
- -el (nominal)
- -elaar
- -enis
- -er (nominal)
- -erd
- -erik
- -es
- -eur
- -euse
- ge...te
- -heid
- -iaan, -aan
- -ief
- -iek
- -ier
- -ier (French)
- -ière
- -iet
- -igheid
- -ij and allomorphs
- -ijn
- -in
- -ing
- -isme
- -ist
- -iteit
- -ling
- -oir
- -oot
- -rice
- -schap
- -schap (de)
- -schap (het)
- -sel
- -st
- -ster
- -t
- -tal
- -te
- -voud
- Verbs
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Univerbation
- Neo-classical word formation
- Construction-dependent morphology
- Morphological productivity
- Compounding
- Inflection
- Inflection and derivation
- Allomorphy
- The interface between phonology and morphology
- Word formation
- Syntax
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
- 1 Characterization and classification
- 2 Projection of verb phrases I:Argument structure
- 3 Projection of verb phrases II:Verb frame alternations
- Introduction
- 3.1. Main types
- 3.2. Alternations involving the external argument
- 3.3. Alternations of noun phrases and PPs
- 3.3.1. Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
- 3.3.1.1. Dative alternation with aan-phrases (recipients)
- 3.3.1.2. Dative alternation with naar-phrases (goals)
- 3.3.1.3. Dative alternation with van-phrases (sources)
- 3.3.1.4. Dative alternation with bij-phrases (possessors)
- 3.3.1.5. Dative alternation with voor-phrases (benefactives)
- 3.3.1.6. Conclusion
- 3.3.1.7. Bibliographical notes
- 3.3.2. Accusative/PP alternations
- 3.3.3. Nominative/PP alternations
- 3.3.1. Dative/PP alternations (dative shift)
- 3.4. Some apparent cases of verb frame alternation
- 3.5. Bibliographical notes
- 4 Projection of verb phrases IIIa:Selection of clauses/verb phrases
- 5 Projection of verb phrases IIIb:Argument and complementive clauses
- Introduction
- 5.1. Finite argument clauses
- 5.2. Infinitival argument clauses
- 5.3. Complementive clauses
- 6 Projection of verb phrases IIIc:Complements of non-main verbs
- 7 Projection of verb phrases IIId:Verb clusters
- 8 Projection of verb phrases IV: Adverbial modification
- 9 Word order in the clause I:General introduction
- 10 Word order in the clause II:Position of the finite verb (verb-first/second)
- 11 Word order in the clause III:Clause-initial position (wh-movement)
- Introduction
- 11.1. The formation of V1- and V2-clauses
- 11.2. Clause-initial position remains (phonetically) empty
- 11.3. Clause-initial position is filled
- 12 Word order in the clause IV:Postverbal field (extraposition)
- 13 Word order in the clause V: Middle field (scrambling)
- 14 Main-clause external elements
- Nouns and Noun Phrases
- 1 Characterization and classification
- 2 Projection of noun phrases I: complementation
- Introduction
- 2.1. General observations
- 2.2. Prepositional and nominal complements
- 2.3. Clausal complements
- 2.4. Bibliographical notes
- 3 Projection of noun phrases II: modification
- Introduction
- 3.1. Restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers
- 3.2. Premodification
- 3.3. Postmodification
- 3.3.1. Adpositional phrases
- 3.3.2. Relative clauses
- 3.3.3. Infinitival clauses
- 3.3.4. A special case: clauses referring to a proposition
- 3.3.5. Adjectival phrases
- 3.3.6. Adverbial postmodification
- 3.4. Bibliographical notes
- 4 Projection of noun phrases III: binominal constructions
- Introduction
- 4.1. Binominal constructions without a preposition
- 4.2. Binominal constructions with a preposition
- 4.3. Bibliographical notes
- 5 Determiners: articles and pronouns
- Introduction
- 5.1. Articles
- 5.2. Pronouns
- 5.3. Bibliographical notes
- 6 Numerals and quantifiers
- 7 Pre-determiners
- Introduction
- 7.1. The universal quantifier al 'all' and its alternants
- 7.2. The pre-determiner heel 'all/whole'
- 7.3. A note on focus particles
- 7.4. Bibliographical notes
- 8 Syntactic uses of noun phrases
- Adjectives and Adjective Phrases
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- 2 Projection of adjective phrases I: Complementation
- 3 Projection of adjective phrases II: Modification
- 4 Projection of adjective phrases III: Comparison
- 5 Attributive use of the adjective phrase
- 6 Predicative use of the adjective phrase
- 7 The partitive genitive construction
- 8 Adverbial use of the adjective phrase
- 9 Participles and infinitives: their adjectival use
- 10 Special constructions
- Adpositions and adpositional phrases
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- Introduction
- 1.1. Characterization of the category adposition
- 1.2. A formal classification of adpositional phrases
- 1.3. A semantic classification of adpositional phrases
- 1.3.1. Spatial adpositions
- 1.3.2. Temporal adpositions
- 1.3.3. Non-spatial/temporal prepositions
- 1.4. Borderline cases
- 1.5. Bibliographical notes
- 2 Projection of adpositional phrases: Complementation
- 3 Projection of adpositional phrases: Modification
- 4 Syntactic uses of the adpositional phrase
- 5 R-pronominalization and R-words
- 1 Characteristics and classification
- Phonology
-
- General
- Phonology
- Segment inventory
- Phonotactics
- Phonological Processes
- Assimilation
- Vowel nasalization
- Syllabic sonorants
- Final devoicing
- Fake geminates
- Vowel hiatus resolution
- Vowel reduction introduction
- Schwa deletion
- Schwa insertion
- /r/-deletion
- d-insertion
- {s/z}-insertion
- t-deletion
- Intrusive stop formation
- Breaking
- Vowel shortening
- h-deletion
- Replacement of the glide w
- Word stress
- Clitics
- Allomorphy
- Orthography of Frisian
- Morphology
- Inflection
- Word formation
- Derivation
- Prefixation
- Infixation
- Suffixation
- Nominal suffixes
- Verbal suffixes
- Adjectival suffixes
- Adverbial suffixes
- Numeral suffixes
- Interjectional suffixes
- Onomastic suffixes
- Conversion
- Compositions
- Derivation
- Syntax
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
- Characteristics and classification
- Unergative and unaccusative subjects
- Evidentiality
- To-infinitival clauses
- Predication and noun incorporation
- Ellipsis
- Imperativus-pro-Infinitivo
- Expression of irrealis
- Embedded Verb Second
- Agreement
- Negation
- Nouns & Noun Phrases
- Classification
- Complementation
- Modification
- Partitive noun constructions
- Referential partitive constructions
- Partitive measure nouns
- Numeral partitive constructions
- Partitive question constructions
- Nominalised quantifiers
- Kind partitives
- Partitive predication with prepositions
- Bare nominal attributions
- Articles and names
- Pronouns
- Quantifiers and (pre)determiners
- Interrogative pronouns
- R-pronouns
- Syntactic uses
- Adjective Phrases
- Characteristics and classification
- Complementation
- Modification and degree quantification
- Comparison by degree
- Comparative
- Superlative
- Equative
- Attribution
- Agreement
- Attributive adjectives vs. prenominal elements
- Complex adjectives
- Noun ellipsis
- Co-occurring adjectives
- Predication
- Partitive adjective constructions
- Adverbial use
- Participles and infinitives
- Adposition Phrases
- Characteristics and classification
- Complementation
- Modification
- Intransitive adpositions
- Predication
- Preposition stranding
- Verbs and Verb Phrases
-
- General
- Morphology
- Morphology
- 1 Word formation
- 1.1 Compounding
- 1.1.1 Compounds and their heads
- 1.1.2 Special types of compounds
- 1.1.2.1 Affixoids
- 1.1.2.2 Coordinative compounds
- 1.1.2.3 Synthetic compounds and complex pseudo-participles
- 1.1.2.4 Reduplicative compounds
- 1.1.2.5 Phrase-based compounds
- 1.1.2.6 Elative compounds
- 1.1.2.7 Exocentric compounds
- 1.1.2.8 Linking elements
- 1.1.2.9 Separable Complex Verbs and Particle Verbs
- 1.1.2.10 Noun Incorporation Verbs
- 1.1.2.11 Gapping
- 1.2 Derivation
- 1.3 Minor patterns of word formation
- 1.1 Compounding
- 2 Inflection
- 1 Word formation
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Adjectives and adjective phrases (APs)
- 0 Introduction to the AP
- 1 Characteristics and classification of APs
- 2 Complementation of APs
- 3 Modification and degree quantification of APs
- 4 Comparison by comparative, superlative and equative
- 5 Attribution of APs
- 6 Predication of APs
- 7 The partitive adjective construction
- 8 Adverbial use of APs
- 9 Participles and infinitives as APs
- Nouns and Noun Phrases (NPs)
- 0 Introduction to the NP
- 1 Characteristics and Classification of NPs
- 2 Complementation of NPs
- 3 Modification of NPs
- 3.1 Modification of NP by Determiners and APs
- 3.2 Modification of NP by PP
- 3.3 Modification of NP by adverbial clauses
- 3.4 Modification of NP by possessors
- 3.5 Modification of NP by relative clauses
- 3.6 Modification of NP in a cleft construction
- 3.7 Free relative clauses and selected interrogative clauses
- 4 Partitive noun constructions and constructions related to them
- 4.1 The referential partitive construction
- 4.2 The partitive construction of abstract quantity
- 4.3 The numerical partitive construction
- 4.4 The partitive interrogative construction
- 4.5 Adjectival, nominal and nominalised partitive quantifiers
- 4.6 Kind partitives
- 4.7 Partitive predication with a preposition
- 4.8 Bare nominal attribution
- 5 Articles and names
- 6 Pronouns
- 7 Quantifiers, determiners and predeterminers
- 8 Interrogative pronouns
- 9 R-pronouns and the indefinite expletive
- 10 Syntactic functions of Noun Phrases
- Adpositions and Adpositional Phrases (PPs)
- 0 Introduction to the PP
- 1 Characteristics and classification of PPs
- 2 Complementation of PPs
- 3 Modification of PPs
- 4 Bare (intransitive) adpositions
- 5 Predication of PPs
- 6 Form and distribution of adpositions with respect to staticity and construction type
- 7 Adpositional complements and adverbials
- Verbs and Verb Phrases (VPs)
- 0 Introduction to the VP in Saterland Frisian
- 1 Characteristics and classification of verbs
- 2 Unergative and unaccusative subjects and the auxiliary of the perfect
- 3 Evidentiality in relation to perception and epistemicity
- 4 Types of to-infinitival constituents
- 5 Predication
- 5.1 The auxiliary of being and its selection restrictions
- 5.2 The auxiliary of going and its selection restrictions
- 5.3 The auxiliary of continuation and its selection restrictions
- 5.4 The auxiliary of coming and its selection restrictions
- 5.5 Modal auxiliaries and their selection restrictions
- 5.6 Auxiliaries of body posture and aspect and their selection restrictions
- 5.7 Transitive verbs of predication
- 5.8 The auxiliary of doing used as a semantically empty finite auxiliary
- 5.9 Supplementive predication
- 6 The verbal paradigm, irregularity and suppletion
- 7 Verb Second and the word order in main and embedded clauses
- 8 Various aspects of clause structure
- Adjectives and adjective phrases (APs)
-
- General
- Phonology
- Afrikaans phonology
- Segment inventory
- Overview of Afrikaans vowels
- The diphthongised long vowels /e/, /ø/ and /o/
- The unrounded mid-front vowel /ɛ/
- The unrounded low-central vowel /ɑ/
- The unrounded low-central vowel /a/
- The rounded mid-high back vowel /ɔ/
- The rounded high back vowel /u/
- The rounded and unrounded high front vowels /i/ and /y/
- The unrounded and rounded central vowels /ə/ and /œ/
- The diphthongs /əi/, /œy/ and /œu/
- Overview of Afrikaans consonants
- The bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/
- The alveolar plosives /t/ and /d/
- The velar plosives /k/ and /g/
- The bilabial nasal /m/
- The alveolar nasal /n/
- The velar nasal /ŋ/
- The trill /r/
- The lateral liquid /l/
- The alveolar fricative /s/
- The velar fricative /x/
- The labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/
- The approximants /ɦ/, /j/ and /ʋ/
- Overview of Afrikaans vowels
- Word stress
- The phonetic properties of stress
- Primary stress on monomorphemic words in Afrikaans
- Background to primary stress in monomorphemes in Afrikaans
- Overview of the Main Stress Rule of Afrikaans
- The short vowels of Afrikaans
- Long vowels in monomorphemes
- Primary stress on diphthongs in monomorphemes
- Exceptions
- Stress shifts in place names
- Stress shift towards word-final position
- Stress pattern of reduplications
- Phonological processes
- Vowel related processes
- Consonant related processes
- Homorganic glide insertion
- Phonology-morphology interface
- Phonotactics
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Afrikaans syntax
- Nouns and noun phrases
- Characteristics of the NP
- Classification of nouns
- Complementation of NPs
- Modification of NPs
- Binominal and partitive constructions
- Referential partitive constructions
- Partitive measure nouns
- Numeral partitive constructions
- Partitive question constructions
- Partitive constructions with nominalised quantifiers
- Partitive predication with prepositions
- Binominal name constructions
- Binominal genitive constructions
- Bare nominal attribution
- Articles and names
- Pronouns
- Quantifiers, determiners and predeterminers
- Syntactic uses of the noun phrase
- Adjectives and adjective phrases
- Characteristics and classification of the AP
- Complementation of APs
- Modification and Degree Quantification of APs
- Comparison by comparative, superlative and equative degree
- Attribution of APs
- Predication of APs
- The partitive adjective construction
- Adverbial use of APs
- Participles and infinitives as adjectives
- Verbs and verb phrases
- Characterisation and classification
- Argument structure
- Verb frame alternations
- Complements of non-main verbs
- Verb clusters
- Complement clauses
- Adverbial modification
- Word order in the clause: Introduction
- Word order in the clause: position of the finite Verb
- Word order in the clause: Clause-initial position
- Word order in the clause: Extraposition and right-dislocation in the postverbal field
- Word order in the middle field
- Emphatic constructions
- Adpositions and adposition phrases
Section 11.3.1.1 has shown that wh-movement is a near-obligatory operation in the formation of wh-questions, as it is needed to create operator-variable chains. From a semantic point of view the formation of such chains requires preposing of the wh-element only, but if some syntactic restriction blocks extraction of this element, wh-movement may also pied-pipe a larger phrase. If such a restriction does not apply, stranding normally is the preferred option. Section 11.3.1.2 has further shown that embedded clauses cannot be pied-piped by wh-movement; consequently, if long wh-movement is impossible for some reason, certain semantically plausible questions simply cannot be formed.
The seminal work of Ross (1967) has made it clear that there is a wide range of constructions that resist the formation of semantically plausible wh-questions. We will refer to such cases as islands for question formation, thus taking the notion of island in a slightly stricter sense than is normally done by not only excluding wh-extraction (stranding) but also pied piping; the reason is purely practical given that stranding and pied piping were already discussed in Section 11.3.1.1. As this section will focus on the empirical data from Standard Dutch, we refer the reader to Szabolsci (2006), Müller (2011) and Boeckx (2012) for recent theoretical approaches to island phenomena.
Section 11.3.1.2, sub IV, has shown that long wh-movement is normally excluded from factive clauses. This is illustrated again in example (214b): while long wh-movement is fully acceptable with the non-factive matrix verb denken'to think', it gives rise to a degraded result with the factive matrix verb weten'to know'. It must be noted, however, that some speakers do allow long wh-movement if the wh-phrase is D-linked such as welk boek'which book' in (214b'). Recall that we do not include the intermediate trace in the initial position of the embedded clause if this is not immediately relevant for our discussion.
a. | Jan dacht/wist | [dat | Marie | zijn boek | gekocht | had]. | |
Jan thought/knew | that | Marie | his book | bought | had | ||
'Jan thought/knew that Marie had bought his book.' |
b. | Wati | dacht/*wist | Jan | [dat | Marie ti | gekocht | had]? | |
what | thought/knew | Jan | that | Marie | bought | had |
b'. | Welk boeki | dacht/%wist | Jan | [dat | Marie ti | gekocht | had]? | |
which book | thought/knew | Jan | that | Marie | bought | had |
The percentage sign in (214b') indicates that judgments differ from speaker to speaker and from case to case; the (b)-examples in (214) improve for many speakers if we substitute the factive verb betreuren'to regret' for weten'to know', as in (215).
a. | ?? | Wati | betreurde | Jan | [dat | Marie ti | gekocht | had]? |
what | regretted | Jan | that | Marie | bought | had |
b. | ? | Welk boeki | betreurde | Jan | [dat | Marie ti | gekocht | had]? |
which book | regretted | Jan | that | Marie | bought | had |
That there is a great deal of speaker variation is clear from the fact that the judgments on examples such as (215a) found in the linguistic literature also vary considerably: some researchers reject examples of this type as fully ungrammatical (e.g. Hoeksema 2006:147), while others accept them as fully acceptable (e.g. Bennis 1986:104) or suggest some intermediate status (Barbiers 1998). The diacritics here should not be considered as the expression of absolute but of relative judgments: the use of a double question mark in (215a) instead of an asterisk at least does justice to the fact that this example deteriorates enormously when the anticipatory pronoun het'it' is added (cf. *Wati betreurde Jan het [dat Marie ti gekocht had]?) and that it is less felicitous than examples such as (215b), which involve extraction of a D-linked wh-phrase. Examples such as (215b) are sometimes given as fully acceptable in the literature (e.g. Zwart 2011:209) but since at least some speakers feel uncomfortable with them, we have added a question mark.
The crucial thing for our present discussion is that the acceptability contrast between long wh-movement of non-D-linked and D-linked wh-phrases from factive complements is beyond doubt. This contrast shows that certain islands are not strong (absolute), but weak(selective) in that they block wh-extraction of certain elements but not others. It is often claimed that weak-island violations are sensitive to the referential properties of the wh-phrase in the sense that extraction is only possible if the descriptive part of the wh-phrase denotes a certain pre-established set of entities in the domain of discourse; see Szabolsci (2006; section 5) and the references cited there. D-linked wh-phrases such as welk boek'which book' satisfy this criterion, while non-D-linked pronouns wie'who' and wat'what' normally do not and at best presuppose the existence of some entity that satisfies the description of the predicative part of the question. Example (216b) shows that weak islands normally also block long wh-movement of non-arguments like adverbial adjuncts (but see Szabolsci 2006 for some exceptional cases).
a. | Jan dacht/wist | [dat | Marie | zijn boek | bij Amazon | gekocht | had]. | |
Jan thought/knew | that | Marie | his book | at Amazon | bought | had | ||
'Jan thought/knew that Marie had bought his book at Amazon.' |
b. | Waari | dacht/*wist | Jan | [dat | Marie zijn boek ti | gekocht | had]? | |
where | thought/knew | Jan | that | Marie his book | bought | had |
Wh-extraction is not possible from embedded interrogative clauses: this holds for polar yes/no-questions as well as for wh-questions. That yes/no-questions are islands for question formation is illustrated in (217b); the fact that the wh-phrase welk boek'which book' is D-linked shows that such islands are strong.
a. | Jan vroeg | [of | Marie | het boek | gekocht | had]. | |
Jan asked | if | Marie | the book | bought | had | ||
'Jan asked whether Marie had bought the book.' |
b. | * | Welk boeki | vroeg | Jan | [of | Marie ti | gekocht | had]? |
which book | asked | Jan | whether | Marie | bought | had |
Although examples such as (217b) are not often explicitly discussed, its degraded status can readily be accounted for by assuming that the clause-initial position of the embedded clause is not accessible for the wh-phrase due to the presence of a phonetically empty polar question operator. This assumption may be needed anyway in order to exclude wh-movement in polar main clauses like (218a); wh-movement is possible only if the position preceding the finite verb is radically empty, which accounts for the fact that (218b) is a pure wh-question that does not leave room for a polar interpretation. For completeness' sake, we added example (218c) to show that the wh-element cannot remain in situ either.
a. | OP[+Q] | Koopt | Peter | het boek? | |
OP[+Q] | buys | Peter | the book | ||
'Does Peter buy the book?' |
b. | Welk boeki | koopt | Peter ti ? | |
which book | buys | Peter | ||
'Which book does Peter buy?' |
c. | * | OP[+Q] | Koopt | Peter welk boek? |
* | *OP[+Q] | buys | Peter which book |
If the clause-initial position of embedded polar questions is indeed occupied by a phonetically empty question operator, the unacceptability of long wh-movement of (217b) follows from the standard analysis in generative grammar that wh-extraction cannot apply in a single movement step, but must proceed via the clause-initial position of the object clause. This analysis can be straightforwardly extended to account for the unacceptability of cases like (219), in which long wh-movement takes place from embedded wh-questions. Observe that (219c) is fully acceptable if the adverbial phrase modifies the matrix clause, but this is of course not the reading intended here (as is indicated by the tracetj).
a. | * | Watj | vroeg | je | [wieititj | gekocht | heeft]? | non-D-linked |
what | asked | you | who | bought | has | |||
'What did you ask who has bought?' |
b. | * | Welk boekj | vroeg | je | [wieititj | gekocht | heeft]? | D-linked |
which book | asked | you | who | bought | has | |||
'Which book did you ask who has bought?' |
c. | * | Wanneerj | vroeg | je | [wieititj | vertrokken | was]? | adverbial adjunct |
when | asked | you | who | left | had | |||
'When did you ask who had left?' |
Wh-islands have been reported to be weak in many languages, including English. This does not seem to be the case in Dutch, as most speakers seem to consider all examples in (219) to be (equally) bad; see, e.g., Koster (1987:192ff.) and Zwart (2011:208). However, Koster (1987:22) claimed that long movement is more acceptable if the wh-phrase in the clause-initial position of the embedded clause is not a subject, as in the examples in (220), to which Koster assigns a mere question mark. It should further be noted that Koopman & Sportiche (1985) have claimed that long wh-movement of PPs in examples such as (220a') is more acceptable than long wh-movement of objects in examples such as (220b'), although Koster (1987) does not seem to agree with this. To our knowledge, wh-island violations of this sort have not been discussed elsewhere and since their precise status is not clear to us, we simply mark them with a percentage sign.
a. | Jan wil | weten | [welk boeki | jij ti | aan Marie | gegeven | hebt]. | |
Jan wants | know | which book | you | to Marie | given | have | ||
'Jan wants to know which book you have given to Marie.' |
a'. | % | Aan wiej | wil | Jan weten | [welk boeki | jij titj | gegeven | hebt]? |
to whom | wants | Jan know | which book | you | given | have |
b. | Jan wil | weten | [aan wiej | jij | dit boek tj | gegeven | hebt]. | |
Jan wants | know | to whom | you | this book | given | have | ||
'Jan wants to know to whom you have given this book.' |
b'. | % | Welk boekj | wil | Jan weten | [aan wiej | jij titj | gegeven | hebt]? |
to whom | wants | Jan know | to whom | you | given | have |
Long wh-movement typically involves extraction from direct object clauses. It is sometimes claimed that long wh-movement from subject clauses is excluded; cf. Huang (1982). Examples supplied to illustrate this normally involve subject clauses in non-extraposed position or subject clauses introduced by the anticipatory pronoun het'it'; see, e.g., Zwart (2011:202ff.). Section 11.3.1.2, sub III, has already shown, however, that there are subject clauses in extraposed position that allow long wh-movement if the anticipatory pronoun het is not present. We illustrate this again in (221b) by means of the passive counterpart of the construction in (221a) with an object clause. The fact that the extracted phrase is the non-D-linked pronoun wat'what' in fact shows that subject clauses are not even weak islands.
a. | Wati | had | de directeur | verwacht | [dat | hij | zou ti | krijgen]? | direct object | |
what | had | the manager | expected | that | he | would | receive | |||
'What had the manager expected that he would receive?' |
b. | Wati | werd | er | verwacht | [dat | hij | zou ti | krijgen]? | subject | |
what | was | there | expected | that | he | would | receive |
The fact that long wh-movement from subject clauses is nevertheless rare is due to the fact that such clauses are normally preceded by the anticipatory pronoun het if they occur in extraposed position; see Section 11.3.1.2, sub III, for more details.
Adverbial clauses differ from argument clauses in that they always constitute islands for wh-formation; cf. Huang (1982). This is illustrated in (222) for adverbial clauses indicating time and reason. The fact that the primed examples involve the D-linked phrase Welke foto's'which pictures' shows that adjunct clauses are strong islands for wh-movement.
a. | Marie vertrok | [toen | Jan zijn vakantiefoto's | wou | laten | zien]. | |
Marie left | when | Jan his holiday.pictures | wanted | let | see | ||
'Marie left when Jan wanted to show his holiday pictures.' |
a'. | * | Welke foto's | vertrok | Marie | [toen | Jan ti | wou | laten | zien]? |
which pictures | left | Marie | when | Jan | wanted | let | see |
b. | Marie vertrok | [omdat | Jan zijn vakantiefotos | wou | laten | zien]. | |
Marie left | because | Jan his holiday.pictures | wanted | let | see | ||
'Marie left because Jan wanted to show his holiday pictures.' |
b'. | * | Welke foto's | vertrok | Marie | [omdat | Jan ti | wou | laten | zien]? |
which pictures | left | Marie | because | Jan | wanted | let | see |
Section 11.3.1.1, sub VB has shown that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, there are reasons for assuming that noun phrases are islands for postnominal wh-phrases. This was argued on the basis of examples such as (223), which show that both the stranding and the pied piping option are excluded.
a. | Els zal | morgen | [haar klacht | [tegen Peter]] | intrekken. | |
Els will | tomorrow | her complaint | against Peter | withdraw | ||
'Els will withdraw her complaint against Peter tomorrow.' |
b. | * | [Tegen wie]i | zal | Els | [haar klacht ti] | morgen | intrekken? |
against who | will | Els | her complaint | tomorrow | withdraw |
c. | * | [Haar klacht | [tegen wie]]i | zal | Els morgen ti | intrekken? |
her complaint | against who | will | Els tomorrow | withdraw |
The islandhood of noun phrases for wh-phrases embedded in postnominal clauses is uncontroversial. This holds regardless of the syntactic status of the postnominal clause: the (a)-examples show this for a clausal complement and the (b)-examples for a relative clause. The fact that the primed examples involve D-linked noun phrases shows that complex noun phrases are strong islands for wh-movement. For completeness' sake, it should be mentioned that extraposition of the relative clause does not improve the result.
a. | De directeur | heeft | [het gerucht | [dat | Jan deze baan | krijgt]] | bevestigd. | |
the manager | has | the rumor | that | Jan this job | gets | confirmed | ||
'The manager has confirmed the rumor that Jan will get the job.' |
a'. | * | Welke baani | heeft | de directeur | [het gerucht | [dat | Jan ti | krijgt]] | bevestigd? |
which job | has | the manager | the rumor | that | Jan | gets | confirmed |
b. | Marie heeft | [de man | [die | haar boek | gerecenseerd | had]] | ontmoet. | |
Marie has | the man | who | her book | reviewed | had | met | ||
'Marie has met the man who had reviewed her book.' |
b'. | * | Welk boeki | heeft | Marie | [de man | [die ti | gerecenseerd | had]] | ontmoet? |
which book | has | Marie | the man | who | reviewed | had | met |
Islands for question formation are normally clausal in nature due to the fact that non-sentential clausal constituents regularly allow either stranding or pied piping; see Section 11.3.1.1, sub V and Section 11.3.1.1, sub VI. Coordinate structures are, however, notable exceptions to this. The examples in (225) first show that the full coordinate structure can be easily questioned.
a. | Jan heeft | [[een boek] | en | [een CD]] | gekocht. | |
Jan has | a book | and | a CD | bought | ||
'Jan has bought a book and a CD.' |
b. | Wati | heeft | Jan ti | gekocht? | [[Een boek] | en | [een CD]]. | |
what | has | Jan | bought | a book | and | a CD | ||
'What has Jan bought? A book and a CD.' |
It is, however, impossible to question one of the conjuncts: the (a)-examples in (226) show that wh-movement of one of the conjuncts while stranding the remainder of the coordinate structure is excluded; the (b)-examples show that pied piping of the complete coordinate structure is excluded as well.
a. | * | Wati | heeft | Jan | [[een boek] | en [ ti ]] | gekocht? |
what | has | Jan | a book | and | bought |
a'. | * | Wati | heeft | Jan [[ ti ] | en | [een CD]] | gekocht? |
what | has | Jan | and | a CD | bought |
b. | * | [[Een boek] | en | [wat]]i | heeft | Jan ti | gekocht? |
a book | and | what | has | Jan | bought |
b'. | * | [[Wat] | en | [een CD]]i | heeft | Jan ti | gekocht? |
what | and | a CD | has | Jan | bought |
Although it is not entirely clear what the correct representation of "split" coordinate structures like (227a) is, it might be interesting to note that such cases do not allow question formation either.
a. | Jan heeft | een boek | gekocht, | en | (ook) een CD. | |
Jan has | a book | bought | and | also a CD | ||
'Jan has bought a book as well as a CD.' |
b. | * | Wat | heeft | Jan ti | gekocht, | en | (ook) | een CD. |
what | has | Jan | bought | and | also | a CD |
The examples above have shown that wh-extraction from coordinated structures is not possible. A potential exception is the so-called across-the-board movement, which may extract wh-phrases from coordinated structures provided that all the conjuncts are affected in a parallel way. Note that the strikethrough in (228b) is the result of backward conjunction reduction, which need not bother us here.
a. | Welk boeki | zal | [[Jan ti | bewonderen] | maar | [Marie ti | verafschuwen]]. | |
which book | will | Jan | admire | but | Marie | loathe | ||
'Which book will Jan admire and Marie loathe?' |
b. | Aan wiei | zal | [[Jan | een boek ti | geven] | en | [Peter | een CD ti | geven]]? | |
to whom | will | Jan | a book | give | and | Peter | a CD | give | ||
'To whom will Jan give a book and Peter give a CD.' |
Observe that across-the-board movement always involves subextraction from a conjunct, that is, it must leave a remnant. This is shown by the unacceptability of examples like (229a). It is not clear, however, whether this is due to a syntactic constraint, as example (229b) shows that wh-movement of the full coordinate structure is also impossible. The use of the dollar sign indicates that we may be dealing with a simple economy effect because the answer to Wat heeft Jan gekocht? may involve a list: Een boek, een plaat, ...'A book, a record, ...'.
a. | * | Wati | heeft | Jan [[ti] | en [ ti ]] | gekocht? |
what | has | Jan | and | bought |
b. | $ | [Wat en wat] | heeft | Jan i | gekocht? |
what and what | has | Jan | bought |
Given that the wh-phrase in across-the-board movement constructions is associated with two independent gaps, it is controversial whether the examples in (228) are derived by wh-movement in a run-of-the-mill fashion. We will not digress on this theoretical issue here but refer the reader to De Vries (2014) for extensive discussion.
Standard German differs from Standard Dutch in that many speakers of German do not allow long wh-movement constructions such as (230a). Such speakers may employ various alternative strategies in order to overcome this problem, one of which is using the resumptive prolepsis construction illustrated in (230b), in which a proleptic phrase (here: von welchem Maler) obligatorily binds a resumptive pronoun within the embedded clause; see Salzmann (2006) for extensive discussion.
a. | % | Weni | glaubst | du | [dass Petra ti | liebt]? | German |
who | think | you | that Petra | loves | |||
'Who do you think that Petra likes?' |
b. | Von welchem Maleri | glaubst | du | [dass | Petra | ihni | liebt]. | |
of which painter | think | you | that | Petra | him | loves | ||
'Which painter do you think that Petra likes?' |
The resumptive prolepsis construction is not unique to speakers that do not allow long wh-movement, as is clear from the fact that in Standard Dutch, the two constructions in (231) are possible side by side.
a. | Wiei | denk | je | [dat | Marie/zij ti | bewondert]? | Dutch | |
who | think | you | that | Marie/she | admires | |||
'Who do you think that Marie/she admires?' |
b. | Van welke schilderi | denk | je | [dat | Marie | hemi | bewondert]? | |
of which painter | think | you | that | Marie | him | admires |
The long wh-movement and resumptive prolepsis construction exhibit a number of similarities, to which we will return in Section 11.3.6. These may make one think that they are both derived by means of wh-movement (in which case something special should be said about the use of the preposition von/van and the insertion of the resumptive pronoun). Salzmann (2006) argues, however, that there are various reasons not to adopt this line of thinking. One of the main reasons is that the resumptive prolepsis construction is not sensitive to islands. This is illustrated in (232) for factive islands: while (232a) shows that long wh-movement gives rise to a degraded result for many speakers, (232b) shows that the corresponding resumptive prolepsis construction is fully acceptable.
a. | % | Welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [dat | Els ti | gekocht | had]? | wh-movement |
which book | knew | Jan not | that | Els | bought | had |
b. | Van welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [dat | Els | heti | gekocht | had]? | prolepsis | |
of which book | knew | Jan not | that | Els | it | bought | it | |||
'Of which book didnʼt Jan know that Els had bought?' |
Assuming that the resumptive prolepis construction is derived by wh-movement becomes even less plausible when we consider strong islands, like the embedded questions in (233). The contrast between the primeless and primed examples shows that while long wh-movement is impossible, the corresponding resumptive prolepsis constructions are again fully acceptable.
a. | * | Welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [of | Els ti | gekocht | had]? | wh-movement |
which book | knew | Jan not | if | Els | bought | had |
a'. | Van welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [of | Els | heti | gekocht | had]? | prolepsis | |
of which book | knew | Jan not | if | Els | it | bought | had | |||
'Of which book didnʼt Jan know if Els had bought it?' |
b. | * | Welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [wie ti | gekocht | had]? | wh-movement |
which book | knew | Jan not | who | bought | had |
b'. | Van welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [wie | heti | gekocht | had]? | prolepsis | |
of which book | knew | Jan not | who | it | bought | had | |||
'Of which book didnʼt Jan know who had bought it?' |
If wh-movement is not involved in the derivation of the resumptive prolepis construction, the proleptic phrase must find its origin within the matrix clause. Consequently, the (obligatory) coindexing in the examples above must be due to the normal conditions on binding of referential pronouns, which does not seem to pose any special problems as the pronoun is free in its local domain; cf. Section N5.2.1.5. An appeal to the normal mechanisms involved in binding would also immediately explain the fact illustrated in example (234) that the proleptic phrase may serve as the antecedent of two (or more) resumptive pronouns.
Van welk boeki | wist | Jan niet | [of | hij | heti | wilde | kopen] | [voordat | hij | heti | gelezen | had]? | ||
of which book | knew | Jan not | if | he | it | wanted | buy | before | he | it | read | had | ||
'Of which book didnʼt Jan know if he wanted to buy it before he had read it?' |
A wh-movement approach, on the other hand, would certainly need various additional provisos to account for this option because wh-phrases in clause-initial position are normally associated with only a single argument position: the interrogative pronoun who in (235a), for example, functions as a subject, as is clear from the fact that (235b) is a felicitous answer to (235a), but it cannot simultaneously function as a subject and an object, as is clear from the fact that (235b') is not a felicitous answer to (235a).
a. | Who will meet? |
b. | John and Mary (will meet). | appropriate answer |
b'. | John (will meet) Mary. | inappropriate answer |
That the proleptic phrase must be independently licensed within the matrix clause may also account for the fact that resumptive prolepsis is especially common with a limited number of predicates, including denken'to think', geloven'to believe', hopen'to hope', vermoeden'to suspect', vertellen'to tell', vrezen'to fear', (niet) weten'to know (not)'zeggen'to say', and zich afvragen'to wonder'. The unacceptability of example (236b) follows immediately if the predicate vertrekken'to leave' is not able to license a proleptic van-phrase. The wh-movement approach to resumptive prolepsis, on the other hand, would have to explain why adjuncts differ from embedded questions in this respect, which will be difficult in the light of the fact that they both behave as strong islands in other contexts.
a. | * | Welk berichti | vertrok | Peter | [nadat | hij ti | gelezen | had]? |
which message | left | Peter | after | he | read | had |
b. | * | Van welk berichti | vertrok | Peter | [n |