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Intervention Effects and Specificity Effects in Wh-questions
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- Authors
- Issue Date
- 2017
- Citation
- Language Research, Vol.53 No.2, pp. 343-378
- Keywords
- Specificity (D-linking) ; island ; superiority ; crossover ; intervention effect
- Abstract
- Specificity effects are a widespread phenomenon, both in overt and covert syntax, across all languages. This paper focuses on the cross-linguistic specificity effects found in overt syntax1) and questions why the specificity property of a moved wh-phrase leads to immunity to syntactic constraints involved in Intervention. I contend that a tendency for a specific phrase to override intervention effects lies in the inactiveness of its copy in the original position. This argument is supported by a large amount of empirical data: anti-reconstruction effects of specific wh-words and adjunction to outer vP-domain of specific quantifiers. When a wh-phrase is specific, its inactive original copy does not form a chain of movements, which permits the specific phrase to be out of the scope of a potential intervener in a relevant phase domain. This analysis is able to derive all specificity-related sentences that are free from intervention effects, thereby reconciling apparently conflicting examples under existing feature-based analyses such as Rizzis (2013) fRM and providing more consistent explanations on specificity effects.
- ISSN
- 0254-4474
- Language
- English
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