QR, Interface Economy and Pied-Piping in English

Abstract

The possibility of pied-piping in English differs depending on the types of clauses where pied-piping takes place and this has made it difficult to come up with a unitary analysis of pied-piping. The goal of this paper is to provide a unified analysis of pied-piping in English without excluding any of them from the general pied-piping mechanism. Based on cross-linguistic data, I claim that pied-piping is the result of feature percolation and that feature percolation is possible only from certain structural positions. An interesting prediction of this analysis combined with an assumption that covert movement can precede overt movement (Chomsky, 1998, etc.) is that an XP can be pied-piped by a wh-element which is not in its initial position on the surface. I claim that this is what underlies pied-piping by non-phrase-initial wh-elements in English. In addition, I propose that the covert movement of the wh-phrase involved in certain cases of pied-piping by non-phrase-initial wh-phrases in English is QR and that various properties manifested by this kind of pied-piping can be explained in terms of the unique properties of QR distinct from those of other A'-movements. Specifically, I show how adopting the view of QR as an operation motivated by Interface Economy, as proposed by Reinhart (1995) and Fox (1995, 2000), can shed light on why pied-piping by non-phrase-initial wh-elements yields less-than-perfect results except in appositive relative clauses and why clausal pied-piping is restricted in English unlike in other languages like Basque.