Wh-Phenomena and the Theory of Grammar

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss some of the implications of the analyses of wh-phenomena presented in Chapter IV for a theory of grammar. In section 1 we discuss some examples which might appear at first to favour the movement analysis and show that the non-transformational treatment of Chapter IV can be extended to accommodate them. We also discuss the advantage of the non-movement treatment for parsing. In section 2 we discuss ways in which constraints associated with wh-phenomena can be accommodated. We suggest that the non-movement treatment allows an interesting way of stating these constraints that may not be available on a transformational treatment. Finally, in section 3, we discuss some of the ways wh-words and complementizers can be used in different languages.