Multiple interrogatives and edge features

• Grant number: 17/22560-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: January 01, 2018
• End date: June 30, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Jairo Morais Nunes
• Grantee: Jairo Morais Nunes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Multiple interrogatives have always posed challenging questions to syntactic theory. On the one hand, they exhibit complexities that do not follow from a simple incremental computation of more than one simple interrogative. On the other hand, they display a much wider spectrum of diversity when compared to simple interrogatives. Thus, one may find languages that simply do not allow for multiple interrogatives, languages that require that the topmost wh-constituent be fronted, and languages where all wh-constituents must be fronted, the latter being further subdivided into the ones that display rigid other among the fronted wh-constituents and the ones that don't (see e.g. Dayal 2006 for a general overview). In this project I intend to reanalyze the syntax of multiple questions based on some recent research that I have been conducting on edge features features that trigger successive cyclic movement (Nunes 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017). The hypothesis to be explored is that the complex array of properties associated with multiple interrogatives follow from the combination of two basic properties, independently motivated to account for successive cyclic movement: (i) whether in a given language, an edge feature is lexically encoded on phase heads (in the sense of Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2008) and (ii) whether or the edge feature is intrinsically valued. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

NUNES, JAIRO. On the locus and licensing of edge features. GLOSSA-A JOURNAL OF GENERAL LINGUISTICS, v. 6, n. 1, APR 7 2021. (17/22560-9)