There has been a great deal of work examining the structures of yes/no and wh-constructions that has led to many important developments in linguistic theory. In this dissertation, I extend this work by developing a theory that explains how the behavior of Qu-morphemes (question morphemes) and wh-phrases in interrogative constructions in several different languages is influenced by `interrogative features.' The interrogative features are 1) a Qu-feature, which is responsible for typing a clause as an interrogative, 2) a wh-feature, which is responsible for giving a wh-phrase scope, and 3) a Focus-feature, which is responsible for focusing certain relevant phrases. The main focus of this work is on explaining the influence of these interrogative features on the positions of question morphemes and wh-phrases. In the first part of this work, I examine the behavior of Qu-morphemes. I account for why a Qu-morpheme must appear in the clause periphery in certain languages, such as Japanese, whereas it can appear in a non-clause-peripheral position in other languages, such as Sinhala. I explain how a Qu-feature associated with a Qu-morpheme types a clause and why there is variation in the positions of Qu-morphemes. The second part of this work focuses on the behavior of wh-phrases. I account for why wh-constructions can be formed with an in-situ wh-phrase (for example, in Japanese), with movement of a wh-phrase to a scope position (for example, in English), or with movement of a wh-phrase to a non-scopal position (for example, in some dialects of German). I also examine other phenomena involving wh-phrases. I show how wh-feature movement can influence well-formedness of a wh-construction. I explain why, in certain cases, what would normally be an ill-formed construction can be repaired via the addition of a wh-phrase. I examine why some languages, but not others, allow multiple wh-constructions. Lastly, I investigate the odd behavior of the wh-phrase 'why,' which behaves differently from other wh-phrases. This work is novel in that it provides a unified analysis of cross-linguistic and language internal variation in the structures of yes/no and wh-constructions.

abstract: Wh-questions have been widely discussed in different languages such as English, Mandarin Chinese, Italian, and Russian, but little attention has been paid to the structure of wh-questions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Thus, this dissertation attempts to analyze the structure of wh-questions using the current frameworks: Minimalism and Cartography. In the late 1990s, Chomsky established the Minimalist Program which aims to describe the clause structure in as simple and economic mechanism as possible, and he advanced his famous research program to include phase theory, which aims to restrict the syntactic operations. On the other side, Rizzi (1997, 2001) proposed the Cartographic approach. In this approach, Rizzi attempted to analyze the left periphery domain in detail, and suggested the split CP hypothesis. Following those two approaches, Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015) unified them into one approach and suggested that ForceP, TopicP, and IntP are phasal domain while FocusP, FinP, and WhP are not. An overview of the Chomskyan model and Rizzi’s approach has been provided in Chapter 2. Also, this dissertation discussed the unified approach by Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015). In addition to the overview of the general frameworks, this dissertation discussed the clause structure such as the word order, left periphery domain (i.e., CP), and resumption in MSA. Furthermore, Chapter 2 presented the earlier studies on the wh-questions in MSA and highlighted the major gap which this dissertation attempts to fill. In these studies the structure of wh-questions in MSA were mis-analyzed because the surface structure of the nine wh-questions might look the same, but, in fact, they are not. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to (re)study the structure of wh-questions with taking into consideration the resumption and [definiteness]. In Chapter 3, the methodology and corpus analysis, which is used in collecting the wh-questions in MSA, are discussed. Finally, Chapter 4 analyzed the corpus findings based on the unified approach by Ginsburg (2009) and Totsuka (2015) and showed some evidence that man ‘who’ and ayy ‘which’ questions in MSA are in phasal phrase (i.e., IntP) while the rest of wh-questions are not. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

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Premièrement, ce travail de recherche a pour objet d’esquisser une étude syntaxique des wh-questions, et d’analyser les aspects de la formation des wh-questions dans deux langues différentes : l’anglais et l’arabe , dans le cadre de la Grammaire Générative et de l’Approche Minimaliste. Il sera démontré et allégué que dans les deux langues respectives, le wh-mot qui se trouve au début de la phrase interrogative est déplacé vers le [Spec, CP] et que le wh-movement est visible.Deuxièmement, cette thèse tente d’examiner et d’analyser la traduction des wh-questions de l’anglais vers l’arabe par trois systèmes de traduction automatique, employant différentes méthodes de traduction selon trois méthodes d’évaluation. Nous décrirons les problèmes liés aux différences linguistiques entre les deux langues. Ces problèmes ont une grande influence sur la qualité et l’acceptabilité de l’output. L’évaluation de l’output nous permettra de présenter les informations concernant les aspects positifs à conserver et les aspects négatifs à faire évoluer des systèmes. En se basant sur l’étude syntaxique préalable des wh-questions, nous fournirons une étude comparative qui déterminera le meilleur système quant à la qualité de la traduction et à la performance de ce système. A travers l’analyse des résultats de l’évaluation, nous spécifierons les raisons pour lesquelles le système produit des traductions de mauvaise qualité. Enfin, nous proposerons quelques recommandations qui pourraient être nécessaires aux concepteurs et aux développeurs de systèmes de traduction afin de résoudre les problèmes linguistiques et opérationnels susceptibles d’entraver le processus de traduction. / Firstly, this research aims to outline a syntactic study of the wh-questions, and analyse aspects of wh-question formation in typologically two different languages: Arabic and English within the framework of Generative Grammar and Minimalist Approach. It will be shown and argued that in both languages, the wh-phrase, which is in initial position, is moved to [Spec, CP] and that wh-movement applies overtly.Secondly, the thesis attempts to discuss and analyse the translation of English wh-questions into Arabic by three machine translation systems using different methods of translation through different methods of evaluation. We describe a set of important problems related to linguistic differences between the two languages. These problems have great influence not only on the quality of the output but also on its acceptability. The evaluation of the output will help us to present a diagnostic information about where a given system succeeds or needs improvement, relative to its intended users and use based on the syntactic study of wh-questions, to provide a comparative information which allows identifying the best system with respect to the translation quality and performance, to specify through the analysis of the results of evaluation the sources of problems that are responsible for producing ill-formed translations and inadequate systems’ performance and finally to outline some recommendations that are useful for system’s designers and developers to overcome various linguistic and operational problems that might impede the translation process.

Lietuvių kalbotyroje atlikta nemažai kalbos įsisavinimo tyrimų, tačiau nedaug dėmesio skirta klausimų vartojimui ir įsisavinimui. Klausimų struktūros sudėtingumą lemia daug lingvistinių veiksnių: sintaksės, semantikos, pragmatikos taisyklės, todėl juos suvokti ir vartoti ankstyvajame amžiuje vaikams yra sunku. Šiame darbe analizuojamas specialiųjų klausimų įsisavinimas. Tai klausimai, kuriais prašoma įvardinti konkretų dalyką: veiksmo atlikėją, veiksmą, veikiamąją vietą, laiką, daikto požymį, priežastį ir kt. Analizuojant specialiųjų klausimų įsisavinimą, aptariamas ir šių klausimų vartojimas tėvų kalboje, skirtoje vaikams. Tad šio tyrimo rezultatai taip pat atskleidžia vaikų ir tėvų kalbos ryšį bei poveikį specialiųjų klausimų įsisavinimo raidai. / Many studies on language acquisition have been done in Lithuanian linguistics but little attention was paid to the use and acquisition of wh-questions, which is determined by a number of linguistic factors: the syntax, semantics, pragmatics rules. Therefore comprehension and production of these questions difficult for young children to comprehend and produce questions, especially at an early age. The acquisition of wh-questions is the main aim of this study. These are questions which are asked to name a specific thing: the performer of the action, the action, the place, the time, the features of the object, reason and others. Alongside with the acquisition of wh-questions, the use of wh-questions in the input speech is discussed, so the results of this study also show the correlation between input and output, in our case, the influence on the development of wh- questions.

Este trabalho descreve diversos aspectos da formação de perguntas complexas, orações subordinadas e ordem de palavras no Karitiana, uma língua Tupi da família Arikém. Primeiramente, descrevemos a formação de perguntas bi-oracionais como perguntas indiretas e perguntas de longa-distância. No primeiro caso, argumentamos que perguntas indiretas strictu sensu não existem em Karitiana, pois pronomes interrogativos não são em geral permitidos dentro de orações subordinadas. Já perguntas de longa-distância são possíveis na língua, mas sua formação inclui uma estratégia conhecida como pied-piping de larga-escala, na qual a oração subordinada inteira contendo o pronome interrogativo é movida para a posição inicial da sentença. Argumentamos que estes dois fatos podem ser capturados se assumirmos uma estrutura para orações subordinadas (1) que não contém certos núcleos oracionais, como C; e (2) que é a projeção de um núcleo nominalizador n. Essas propriedades seriam capazes de explicar o comportamento ambíguo destas construções, que ora se comportam como orações, ora como sintagmas nominais. Além disso, essa proposta também explica outros fenômenos aparentemente não relacionadas, como a ausência de tough-constructions, a extração com verbos factivos, a cliticização em subordinadas e a presença de relativas de núcleo interno. Propomos ainda que este núcleo n de caráter nominal teria como uma possível realização fonética um sufixo -a, que pode ser detectado em diversos ambientes nominais da língua e que possivelmente teria conexões históricas com o nominalizador -a presente em outras línguas Tupi. Na segunda parte deste trabalho, discutimos ainda construções com o morfema de voz inversa ti-, reanalisadas aqui como configurações de redobro de clítico. Essa proposta é capaz de explicar diversas propriedades deste morfema, como sua emergência em diferentes construções, o padrão de concordância excêntrica disparado por ele, a distribuição complementar com a passiva e a leitura pressuposicional do tema nestes ambientes. Por fim, discutimos ainda dois fenômenos prosódicos - o sufixo -o e a intonação de relativas de objeto com ti- - que poderiam constituir argumentos adicionais para as análises desenvolvidas neste trabalho. / This dissertation investigates aspects of question formation, embedded clauses, and word order in Karitiana, a Tupi-Arikém language spoken in Brazil. Firstly, the formation of bi-clausal questions such as indirect questions and long-distance questions is described. Regarding indirect questions, our claim is that there are no indirect questions in Karitiana, as interrogative pronouns are usually disallowed inside embedded clauses. On the other hand, the language has long-distance questions, but they obligatorily involve a strategy known as clausal/large-scale pied-piping - i.e., fronting of the whole embedded clause containing the interrogative pronoun. These two facts can be explained if one assumes a structure for embedded clauses that does not contain certain clausal projections, such as CP, and that includes a nominalizing head n. These properties also account for the mixed behavior of these constructions, which exhibit a clausal template while manifesting several nominal features. Moreover, the proposed analysis also explains other apparently non-related properties of the language, such as the lack of tough-constructions, extraction with factive verbs, obligatory cliticization, and internally-headed relative clauses. Additionally, we claim that this nominal head has a phonetic realization as a suffix -a, detected in several nominal phrases and which is possibly linked to a Tupian nominalizer of the same form. In part II, we discuss constructions with the inverse voice morpheme ti-, claiming that these can be reanalyzed as cases of clitic-doubling. This analysis accounts for several properties of this preffix, such as its presence in cases of WHmovement, the eccentric pattern of agreement that it triggers, the complementary distribution with the passive, and the pressupositional reading of the theme in these constructions. Finally, two prosodic phenomena - the suffix -o and the intonational pattern of object relative clauses with ti- - are describedin detail and it will be shown how these provide additional evidence for the analyses developed in this dissertation.

Este trabalho descreve diversos aspectos da formação de perguntas complexas, orações subordinadas e ordem de palavras no Karitiana, uma língua Tupi da família Arikém. Primeiramente, descrevemos a formação de perguntas bi-oracionais como perguntas indiretas e perguntas de longa-distância. No primeiro caso, argumentamos que perguntas indiretas strictu sensu não existem em Karitiana, pois pronomes interrogativos não são em geral permitidos dentro de orações subordinadas. Já perguntas de longa-distância são possíveis na língua, mas sua formação inclui uma estratégia conhecida como pied-piping de larga-escala, na qual a oração subordinada inteira contendo o pronome interrogativo é movida para a posição inicial da sentença. Argumentamos que estes dois fatos podem ser capturados se assumirmos uma estrutura para orações subordinadas (1) que não contém certos núcleos oracionais, como C; e (2) que é a projeção de um núcleo nominalizador n. Essas propriedades seriam capazes de explicar o comportamento ambíguo destas construções, que ora se comportam como orações, ora como sintagmas nominais. Além disso, essa proposta também explica outros fenômenos aparentemente não relacionadas, como a ausência de tough-constructions, a extração com verbos factivos, a cliticização em subordinadas e a presença de relativas de núcleo interno. Propomos ainda que este núcleo n de caráter nominal teria como uma possível realização fonética um sufixo -a, que pode ser detectado em diversos ambientes nominais da língua e que possivelmente teria conexões históricas com o nominalizador -a presente em outras línguas Tupi. Na segunda parte deste trabalho, discutimos ainda construções com o morfema de voz inversa ti-, reanalisadas aqui como configurações de redobro de clítico. Essa proposta é capaz de explicar diversas propriedades deste morfema, como sua emergência em diferentes construções, o padrão de concordância excêntrica disparado por ele, a distribuição complementar com a passiva e a leitura pressuposicional do tema nestes ambientes. Por fim, discutimos ainda dois fenômenos prosódicos - o sufixo -o e a intonação de relativas de objeto com ti- - que poderiam constituir argumentos adicionais para as análises desenvolvidas neste trabalho. / This dissertation investigates aspects of question formation, embedded clauses, and word order in Karitiana, a Tupi-Arikém language spoken in Brazil. Firstly, the formation of bi-clausal questions such as indirect questions and long-distance questions is described. Regarding indirect questions, our claim is that there are no indirect questions in Karitiana, as interrogative pronouns are usually disallowed inside embedded clauses. On the other hand, the language has long-distance questions, but they obligatorily involve a strategy known as clausal/large-scale pied-piping - i.e., fronting of the whole embedded clause containing the interrogative pronoun. These two facts can be explained if one assumes a structure for embedded clauses that does not contain certain clausal projections, such as CP, and that includes a nominalizing head n. These properties also account for the mixed behavior of these constructions, which exhibit a clausal template while manifesting several nominal features. Moreover, the proposed analysis also explains other apparently non-related properties of the language, such as the lack of tough-constructions, extraction with factive verbs, obligatory cliticization, and internally-headed relative clauses. Additionally, we claim that this nominal head has a phonetic realization as a suffix -a, detected in several nominal phrases and which is possibly linked to a Tupian nominalizer of the same form. In part II, we discuss constructions with the inverse voice morpheme ti-, claiming that these can be reanalyzed as cases of clitic-doubling. This analysis accounts for several properties of this preffix, such as its presence in cases of WHmovement, the eccentric pattern of agreement that it triggers, the complementary distribution with the passive, and the pressupositional reading of the theme in these constructions. Finally, two prosodic phenomena - the suffix -o and the intonational pattern of object relative clauses with ti- - are describedin detail and it will be shown how these provide additional evidence for the analyses developed in this dissertation.

This dissertation consists of two studies, which respectively investigate L2 Chinese learners' acquisition of simple wh-questions of different grammatical functions longitudinally over their first-year learning and their acquisition of indirect questions and wh-questions in complements at the end of their first year. The participants consisted of 21 first-year English-speaking learners of Chinese. Both grammaticality judgment (GJ) and oral production (OP) tests were used. Study 1 reports that only attributive wh-questions posed more difficulty to the participants than object wh-questions in OP test at the beginning stage, and adverbial wh-questions and object wh-questions were not found to be significantly different to the participants as reported in some L1 and L2 studies. This author attributed this to the different syntactic mechanism that L2 learners of movement language and learners of in-situ language go through. The initial stage of participants' grammar did not display a clear presence of [+wh] feature strength, and the development of the [-wh] feature strength in learners' L2 grammar was not linear, but U-shaped. Study 2 reveals that learners' performance on indirect questions and wh-questions in object complements was not as good as their performance on simple wh-questions at the end of first year learning. For indirect questions, the initial stage of participants' L2 grammar showed an obvious L1 influence, the embedded [+wh]. For wh-questions in complements, it did not show an L1 influence, the matrix [+wh], but an embedded [+wh], which is non-target like but resembles wide-scope wh-questions with an embedded [+wh] in Malay and Madurese. Learners' performance on simple wh-questions patterned together with that in matrix clauses of wh-questions in complements, which was better than their performance on embedded clauses of the two types of complex wh-questions. Evidence for connection between their performance on simple wh-questions and matrix clauses of wh-questions in complements regarding the grammatical feature that wh-words are not allowed in clause initial position was revealed, but there was no strong evidence for connection between their performance on embedded clauses of the two types of complex wh-questions. It suggests that learners might be using different strategies for acquisition of structures of different natures.

This study examines the representation of syntactic variation in Multicultural French in a corpus of 38 “banlieue films”. Many studies have been carried out so far on the lexis and phonology of the “français des banlieues” (termed here Multicultural French) but not on the syntax. According to some linguists (Conein et Gadet, 2000 ; Liogier 2002), this could be due to the fact that “français des banlieues” is not different from traditional “Popular French” in terms of its grammar and syntax. The variationist and pragmatic approaches are used to examine three variables : the use of comment as an exclamative marker instead of more traditional markers (chapter 4), the variation in the use of WH-questions (chapters 5, 6, 7) and the use of qu’est-ce que “what” instead of pourquoi “why” in some types of rhetorical questions used to express a challenge or a criticism (chapters 8, 9). The main results of the study are that: the structure [QkSV] has declined since the 1990s, the [SVQ] structure can be used for rhetorical questions, the qu’est-ce que rhetorical question expresses a strong face threatening act and is more direct than a rhetorical question in pourquoi which can be ambiguous. The representation of Multicultural French spoken in these films shows an increase in the use of some syntactic features compared to traditional Popular French. However, this observation cannot allow us to claim that they are two distinct varieties in terms of their syntax.

Der W-Fragen-Erwerb stellt einen Teilbereich der kindlichen Syntaxentwicklung dar, die sich maßgeblich innerhalb der ersten drei Lebensjahre eines Kindes vollzieht. Eine wesentliche Rolle spielen dabei zwei Bewegungsoperationen, die sich auf die Position des Interrogativpronomens an die erste Stelle der W-Frage sowie die Position des Verbs an die zweite Stelle beziehen. In drei Studien wurde einerseits untersucht, ob deutschsprachige Kinder, die noch keine W-Fragen produzieren können, in der Lage sind, grammatische von ungrammatischen W-Fragen zu unterscheiden und andererseits, welche Leistungen sprachunauffällige und sprachauffällige deutschsprachige Kinder beim Verstehen und Korrigieren unterschiedlich komplexer W-Fragen (positive und negative W-Fragen) zeigen. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf ein frühes syntaktisches Wissen über W-Fragen im Spracherwerb hin und stützen damit die Annahme einer Kontinuität der kindlichen Grammatik zur Standardsprache. Auch scheinen sprachauffällige Kinder sich beim Erwerb von W-Fragen nicht qualitativ von sprachgesunden Kindern zu unterscheiden, sondern W-Fragen lediglich später korrekt umzusetzen. In beiden Populationen konnte ein syntaktischer Ökonomieeffekt beobachtet werden, der für eine spätere Umsetzung der Verbbewegung im Vergleich zur Bewegung des W-Elementes spricht. / Wh-questions represent one important step in the acquisition of children's syntax which generally takes place within the first three years. Two syntactic operations which are related to the position of the pronoun and the position of the verb play an essential role in this process. In three studies it was examined if children acquiring German could distinguish grammatical and non-grammatical wh-questions before being able to produce wh-questions themselves. Furthermore children with typical and atypical language acquisition were compared in their ability to comprehend and correct wh-questions of different complexity (positive and negative wh-questions). The results indicate an early syntactic knowledge about wh-questions in language acquisition and support the hypothesis of continuity between children's and adults speech. Children with typical and atypical language acquisition do not show any qualitative differences in their way to acquire wh-questions. Much rather the time point of acquisition is delayed. An effect of syntactic economy was found in both populations. Children seem to realize syntactic violations against the movement of the wh-element earlier than those against the movement of the verb.