Deriving idiolectal variation: English wh-raising

Lieven Danckaert (1) , Tijs d'Hulster (1) , Liliane Haegeman (1)

1 GIST - Generative Initiatives in Syntactic Theory

The focus of this paper is on apparent cases of subject-to-subject raising out of finite clauses in English, which are accepted as (fully) grammatical by a minority of native speakers. The basic pattern involves a bi-clausal structure in which a displaced subject triggers agreement in both the embedded and the matrix clause. Crucially, this ‘double agreement’ pattern is only acceptable when a subject is wh-moved. Our analysis builds on the criterial approach to subject extraction developed in Rizzi (2006) and Rizzi & Shlonsky (2006, 2007). We propose that the main ingredient of the wh-raising pattern is incorporation of a functional head in the embedded left periphery into the matrix V.

Mots clés: Incorporation; Idiolectal variation; Subject Criterion; Wh-movement; Raising; Criterial Freezing

Domaines: Linguistique

Lieven Danckaert, Tijs d'Hulster, Liliane Haegeman. Deriving idiolectal variation: English wh-raising. Bidese, Ermenegildo; Cognola, Federica; Moroni, Manuela Caterina. Theoretical Approaches to Linguistic Variation, 234, John Benjamins, pp.145-176, 2016, Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 9789027257178. ⟨10.1075/la.234.06dan⟩. ⟨halshs-01535146⟩