Wh-movement
Encyclopedia
Wh-movement is a syntactic
phenomenon found in many languages around the world, in which interrogative word
s (sometimes called wh-words) or phrases show a special word order. Unlike ordinary phrases, such wh-words appear at the beginning of an interrogative clause
. The term wh-movement is used because most English interrogative words start with wh-, for example, who(m), whose, what, which, when, where, why, etc. (though how is an exception). The term wh-movement tends to be applied to similar word order permutations in languages other than English as well, even when the interrogative words of a given language do not start with wh- (though some authors use the term A'-movement to avoid confusion).
Because of variation in analyses and terminology, wh-movement constructions are sometimes referred to as long-distance dependencies or unbounded dependencies. These names are most commonly used by linguists who work with non-transformational approaches like lexical functional grammar
and head-driven phrase structure grammar
.
According to Joseph Greenberg
's linguistic universal
No.12, "If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it always puts interrogative words or phrases first in interrogative word questions; if it has dominant order SOV in declarative sentences, there is never such an invariant rule." Many SVO languages have overt wh-movement too, such as English
, but some do not, such as Chinese
. Languages with no overt wh-movement are referred to as wh-in-situ languages. In 1981, Huang argued that there must in fact be wh-movement in Chinese, though this movement is covert and unpronounced. His arguments were widely influential for theories of generative grammar.
would be:
The direct object, "bread", of the verb
, "buy", normally follows the verb; however, when the direct object is replaced with a wh-word in order to form a question, the wh-word generally appears at the beginning of the sentence:
In standard English main clause questions in which the question word is not the subject, an auxiliary verb
needs to follow a wh-word. If there is no auxiliary verb, a form of the auxiliary "do" must be used. The auxiliary verb occurs after the wh-word and before the subject:
A question word can also serve as the subject, which is normally at the beginning of a declarative main clause. The question-word subject stays at the front.
There are three circumstances in which wh-movement does not occur in English (aside from when the question word serves as the subject and so is already fronted): echo questions (to confirm what you thought you heard), quiz questions, and multiple questions, when there is already one wh-word at the front:
rather than
However, most varieties of English do not show the auxiliary do in such cases:
In most varieties of English, other auxiliaries remain in their normal position after the subject of the sentence:
rather than
Belfast English has been cited as an example of an English dialect where *I wonder what did he buy and *I wonder what should he buy are allowed. However, most North American and British English disallows these constructions.
Examples like this demonstrate that the wh-phrase does not necessarily occur at the front of the sentence, but sometimes occurs at the beginning of a subordinate clause. However, sometimes wh-movement can extend over several clauses all the way to the front of the sentence. In the following example, the fronted question word what is the object of the verb buys in the third clause, which is a dependent clause:
To see the extent of the movement, note that in the absence of fronting the word order would have been as in She thinks that I said that he buys what?
In these examples the wh-word may be omitted:
The word that may also be used instead of a wh-word in this context:
where a wh-word begins at some other place in a sentence and moves to the front. Although wh-movement is a common name for this phenomenon, there are also a number of other elements in a sentence that show the special word order found in questions.
The details of wh-movement are very complex, particularly when English is compared to other languages with wh-movement. All modern theories of syntax
have some part of the theory which deals with the correct formulation of the rules for wh-movement.
Because of debate about the best analysis of wh-movement, there is also some variation in the terminology for talking about the parts of a sentence that contains wh-movement. However, any theory will need to talk about all of the following:
In early transformational
approaches to syntax, the analysis of wh-movement involved two syntactic levels -- deep structure and surface structure. The moved element occupies the position of the "gap" at deep structure. It undergoes a rule which moves it to a special position at the beginning of a clause. The structure of the sentence after the movement rule is called surface structure. In more modern approaches to syntax such as Minimalism, there is no special deep structure level, but words and phrases still undergo movement to arrive at their final position.
Theories that do not posit separate syntactic levels like deep structure and surface structure, such as lexical-functional grammar and head-driven phrase structure grammar
, do not use movement rules as such in their analyses. Instead they speak of the dependency relationship between the "filler" and the "gap" in a sentence to account for the grammar of these sentences through restrictions on the feature structure
s on the sentences.
'What did Juan buy?'
In this example qué is the object of the verb compró, but it appears at the beginning of the interrogative clause. In contrast, a normal object will follow the verb:
'Juan bought meat.'
Wh-movement is also found in many other languages around the world. In some languages, such as French
, it is optional in certain matrix clauses.
) describes the situation where a phrase larger than a single wh-word occurs in the fronted position. In the case where the wh-word is a determiner such as which or whose, pied-piping refers to the wh-determiner's appearance sentence-initially along with its complement. For instance, in the following example, the entire phrase "which car" is moved:
In the transformational analysis, the wh-word which moves to the beginning of the sentence, taking car, its complement, with it, much as the Pied Piper of Hamelin
attracted rats and children to follow him, hence the term pied-piping.
In the case of determiners, pied-piping is obligatory. For instance, the following sentence would be ungrammatical:
However, there are cases where pied-piping can be optional. In English, this is often the case when a wh-word or phrase is the object of a preposition. For instance, the following two examples are both grammatical:
The second example is a case of preposition stranding
, which is possible in English, but not allowed in Latin
or other Romance languages
. For languages that use postpositions rather than prepositions, stranding is not allowed either.
Prescriptive grammarians often claim that preposition stranding should be avoided in English as well; however, in certain contexts obligatory pied-piping of prepositions in English may make a sentence feel artificial or stilted (e.g. "To whom are you talking?" rather than the more conventional "Who are you talking to?").
Some languages show a special word order in pied-piped phrases. This phenomenon is known as pied-piping with inversion
or secondary wh-movement.
In more technical terms, we can say that the dependency relation between the gap and its filler is unbounded in the sense that there is no upper bound on how deeply embedded within the given sentence the gap may appear. Consider the following three examples:
In these examples, the NP the book functions as a filler and a gap in the embedded clause. As shown above, there is no grammatical limit on how many layers of embedding there should be to make a grammatical sentence. (If we don't attempt a much longer sentence with the embedding structure, that's probably because of processing constraints or psychological reasons, not because of the grammatical restriction of the long-distance dependencies.)
However there are cases in which this is not possible. Certain kinds of phrases do not seem to allow a gap. These phrases from which a wh-word cannot be extracted are referred to as extraction islands or simply islands. In addition to the islands listed below, regular that-clauses serving as complements to verbs may show island-like behavior if the matrix verb is not a so-called bridge verb (a verb permitted movement across it, hence the name, coined in Erteschik-Shir 1973). Non-bridge verbs include manner-of-speaking verbs, such as whisper or shout. Compare (the star indicates that the sentence is not acceptable):
clause. Wh-movement is not possible out of an adjunct clause. Adjunct clauses include clauses introduced by because, if, and when, as well as relative clause
s. Some examples include:
Wh-islands are weaker than adjunct islands since extraction is often awkward but not necessarily considered ungrammatical by all speakers.
such as "that" or "for" is used. Take the following examples:
Here is the same sentence where the clause appears in the subject position:
Notice that wh-movement can occur only in the clause that appears in the predicate position:
Two subcases fall under this ban: attributive adjectival phrases (and their subparts) and possessors:
In these situations, pied-piping is obligatory.
Left branch islands are among the most cross-linguistically variable; while they exist in English, they are absent in many other languages (most famously, the Slavic languages).
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
phenomenon found in many languages around the world, in which interrogative word
Interrogative word
In linguistics, an interrogative word is a function word used for the item interrupted in an information statement. Interrogative words are sometimes called wh-words because most of English interrogative words start with wh-...
s (sometimes called wh-words) or phrases show a special word order. Unlike ordinary phrases, such wh-words appear at the beginning of an interrogative clause
Question
A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information may be provided with an answer....
. The term wh-movement is used because most English interrogative words start with wh-, for example, who(m), whose, what, which, when, where, why, etc. (though how is an exception). The term wh-movement tends to be applied to similar word order permutations in languages other than English as well, even when the interrogative words of a given language do not start with wh- (though some authors use the term A'-movement to avoid confusion).
Because of variation in analyses and terminology, wh-movement constructions are sometimes referred to as long-distance dependencies or unbounded dependencies. These names are most commonly used by linguists who work with non-transformational approaches like lexical functional grammar
Lexical functional grammar
Lexical functional grammar is a grammar framework in theoretical linguistics, a variety of generative grammar. It is a type of phrase structure grammar, as opposed to a dependency grammar. The development of the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 1970s, in reaction to...
and head-driven phrase structure grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar is a highly lexicalized, non-derivational generative grammar theory developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. It is the immediate successor to generalized phrase structure grammar. HPSG draws from other fields such as computer science and uses Ferdinand de...
.
According to Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
's linguistic universal
Linguistic universal
A linguistic universal is a pattern that occurs systematically across natural languages, potentially true for all of them. For example, All languages have nouns and verbs, or If a language is spoken, it has consonants and vowels. Research in this area of linguistics is closely tied to the study of...
No.12, "If a language has dominant order VSO in declarative sentences, it always puts interrogative words or phrases first in interrogative word questions; if it has dominant order SOV in declarative sentences, there is never such an invariant rule." Many SVO languages have overt wh-movement too, such as English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, but some do not, such as Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. Languages with no overt wh-movement are referred to as wh-in-situ languages. In 1981, Huang argued that there must in fact be wh-movement in Chinese, though this movement is covert and unpronounced. His arguments were widely influential for theories of generative grammar.
Wh-movement in English main clauses
English is one language that features wh-movement. For example, a declarative sentence in English featuring normal word orderWord order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
would be:
- He buys bread.
The direct object, "bread", of the verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
, "buy", normally follows the verb; however, when the direct object is replaced with a wh-word in order to form a question, the wh-word generally appears at the beginning of the sentence:
- What does he buy?
In standard English main clause questions in which the question word is not the subject, an auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
needs to follow a wh-word. If there is no auxiliary verb, a form of the auxiliary "do" must be used. The auxiliary verb occurs after the wh-word and before the subject:
- He should buy bread.
- What should he buy?
A question word can also serve as the subject, which is normally at the beginning of a declarative main clause. The question-word subject stays at the front.
- He buys bread.
- Who buys bread?
There are three circumstances in which wh-movement does not occur in English (aside from when the question word serves as the subject and so is already fronted): echo questions (to confirm what you thought you heard), quiz questions, and multiple questions, when there is already one wh-word at the front:
- You bought what!?
- George Orwell was born in which country?
- Who bought what?
Wh-movement in English subordinate clauses
Wh-movement is also seen in subordinate clauses in English. Sentences of the kind below are sometimes called embedded (or indirect) questions.- I wonder what he bought.
rather than
- *I wonder he bought what.
However, most varieties of English do not show the auxiliary do in such cases:
- *I wonder what did he buy.
In most varieties of English, other auxiliaries remain in their normal position after the subject of the sentence:
- I wonder what he should buy.
rather than
- *I wonder what should he buy.
Belfast English has been cited as an example of an English dialect where *I wonder what did he buy and *I wonder what should he buy are allowed. However, most North American and British English disallows these constructions.
Examples like this demonstrate that the wh-phrase does not necessarily occur at the front of the sentence, but sometimes occurs at the beginning of a subordinate clause. However, sometimes wh-movement can extend over several clauses all the way to the front of the sentence. In the following example, the fronted question word what is the object of the verb buys in the third clause, which is a dependent clause:
- What does she think that I said that he buys?
To see the extent of the movement, note that in the absence of fronting the word order would have been as in She thinks that I said that he buys what?
Wh-movement in English relative clauses
Wh-words used in relative clauses can also be moved to the front of the clause:- I know the woman who John saw.
- I know the place where John put the cheese.
In these examples the wh-word may be omitted:
- I know the woman John saw.
- I know the place John put the cheese.
The word that may also be used instead of a wh-word in this context:
- I know the woman that John saw.
- I know the place that John put the cheese.
Theoretical approaches to wh-movement
The name wh-movement comes from analyses in Generative GrammarGenerative grammar
In theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
where a wh-word begins at some other place in a sentence and moves to the front. Although wh-movement is a common name for this phenomenon, there are also a number of other elements in a sentence that show the special word order found in questions.
The details of wh-movement are very complex, particularly when English is compared to other languages with wh-movement. All modern theories of syntax
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
have some part of the theory which deals with the correct formulation of the rules for wh-movement.
Because of debate about the best analysis of wh-movement, there is also some variation in the terminology for talking about the parts of a sentence that contains wh-movement. However, any theory will need to talk about all of the following:
- the word or phrase which shows a special order, usually at the beginning of a clause. This word or phrase is sometimes called the filler or the moved element.
- the position where the word or phrase would normally have appeared. This position is often called the gap, and in some theories of syntax there is a silent element called the traceTrace (linguistics)In transformational grammar, a trace is an empty category that occupies a position in the syntactic structure. In some theories of syntax, traces are used in the account of constructions such as wh-movement and passive....
, which occupies this position. The trace is sometimes indicated in a syntactic diagram of the sentence as t (for trace) or e (for empty). - the part of the sentence which is between the "filler" and the "gap". This part of the sentence is sometimes called the "dependency path".
In early transformational
Transformational grammar
In linguistics, a transformational grammar or transformational-generative grammar is a generative grammar, especially of a natural language, that has been developed in the Chomskyan tradition of phrase structure grammars...
approaches to syntax, the analysis of wh-movement involved two syntactic levels -- deep structure and surface structure. The moved element occupies the position of the "gap" at deep structure. It undergoes a rule which moves it to a special position at the beginning of a clause. The structure of the sentence after the movement rule is called surface structure. In more modern approaches to syntax such as Minimalism, there is no special deep structure level, but words and phrases still undergo movement to arrive at their final position.
Theories that do not posit separate syntactic levels like deep structure and surface structure, such as lexical-functional grammar and head-driven phrase structure grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar
Head-driven phrase structure grammar is a highly lexicalized, non-derivational generative grammar theory developed by Carl Pollard and Ivan Sag. It is the immediate successor to generalized phrase structure grammar. HPSG draws from other fields such as computer science and uses Ferdinand de...
, do not use movement rules as such in their analyses. Instead they speak of the dependency relationship between the "filler" and the "gap" in a sentence to account for the grammar of these sentences through restrictions on the feature structure
Feature structure
In phrase structure grammars, such as generalised phrase structure grammar, head-driven phrase structure grammar and lexical functional grammar, a feature structure is essentially a set of attribute-value pairs. For example the attribute named number might have the value singular. The value of an...
s on the sentences.
Wh-movement in other languages
Wh-movement is also found in many other languages around the world. Most European languages also place wh-words at the beginning of a clause, as in the following Spanish example:| ¿Qué | compró | Juan? |
| what | bought | Juan |
'What did Juan buy?'
In this example qué is the object of the verb compró, but it appears at the beginning of the interrogative clause. In contrast, a normal object will follow the verb:
| Juan | compró | carne. |
| Juan | bought | meat. |
'Juan bought meat.'
Wh-movement is also found in many other languages around the world. In some languages, such as French
French grammar
French grammar is the grammar of the French language, which is similar to that of the other Romance languages.French is a moderately inflected language...
, it is optional in certain matrix clauses.
Pied-piping
Pied-piping (first identified by John R. RossJohn R. Ross
John Robert "Haj" Ross is a linguist who played a part in the development of generative semantics along with George Lakoff, James D. McCawley, and Paul Postal...
) describes the situation where a phrase larger than a single wh-word occurs in the fronted position. In the case where the wh-word is a determiner such as which or whose, pied-piping refers to the wh-determiner's appearance sentence-initially along with its complement. For instance, in the following example, the entire phrase "which car" is moved:
- Which car does he like t?
In the transformational analysis, the wh-word which moves to the beginning of the sentence, taking car, its complement, with it, much as the Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the subject of a legend concerning the departure or death of a great many children from the town of Hamelin , Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in pied clothing, leading the children away from the town never...
attracted rats and children to follow him, hence the term pied-piping.
In the case of determiners, pied-piping is obligatory. For instance, the following sentence would be ungrammatical:
- *Which does he like t car?
However, there are cases where pied-piping can be optional. In English, this is often the case when a wh-word or phrase is the object of a preposition. For instance, the following two examples are both grammatical:
- To whom did she reveal her secret t?
- Who did she reveal her secret to t?
The second example is a case of preposition stranding
Preposition stranding
Preposition stranding, sometimes called P-stranding, is the syntactic construction in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately adjacent to its object...
, which is possible in English, but not allowed in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
or other Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
. For languages that use postpositions rather than prepositions, stranding is not allowed either.
Prescriptive grammarians often claim that preposition stranding should be avoided in English as well; however, in certain contexts obligatory pied-piping of prepositions in English may make a sentence feel artificial or stilted (e.g. "To whom are you talking?" rather than the more conventional "Who are you talking to?").
Some languages show a special word order in pied-piped phrases. This phenomenon is known as pied-piping with inversion
Pied-piping with inversion
Pied-piping with inversion is a special word order phenomenon found in some languages, for example, languages in the Mesoamerican linguistic area.-Introduction:...
or secondary wh-movement.
Extraction islands
In many cases, a wh-word can occur at the front of a sentence, regardless of how far away its canonical location is. For example:- Who does Mary like t?
- Who does Bob know that Mary likes t?
- Who does Carl believe that Bob knows that Mary likes t?
In more technical terms, we can say that the dependency relation between the gap and its filler is unbounded in the sense that there is no upper bound on how deeply embedded within the given sentence the gap may appear. Consider the following three examples:
- This is the book [which [John recommended ____ t ]].
- This is the book [which [I think [John recommended ___t ]]].
- This is the book [which [I think [you said [John recommended ___t ]]]].
In these examples, the NP the book functions as a filler and a gap in the embedded clause. As shown above, there is no grammatical limit on how many layers of embedding there should be to make a grammatical sentence. (If we don't attempt a much longer sentence with the embedding structure, that's probably because of processing constraints or psychological reasons, not because of the grammatical restriction of the long-distance dependencies.)
However there are cases in which this is not possible. Certain kinds of phrases do not seem to allow a gap. These phrases from which a wh-word cannot be extracted are referred to as extraction islands or simply islands. In addition to the islands listed below, regular that-clauses serving as complements to verbs may show island-like behavior if the matrix verb is not a so-called bridge verb (a verb permitted movement across it, hence the name, coined in Erteschik-Shir 1973). Non-bridge verbs include manner-of-speaking verbs, such as whisper or shout. Compare (the star indicates that the sentence is not acceptable):
- How did she think he had died __?
- *How did she whisper he had died __?
Adjunct islands
An adjunct island is a type of island formed from an adjunctAdjunct
Adjunct may refer to:* Adjunct , words used as modifiers* Adjunct professor, a professor who does not hold a permanent position at a particular academic institution* Adjuncts, sources of sugar used in brewing...
clause. Wh-movement is not possible out of an adjunct clause. Adjunct clauses include clauses introduced by because, if, and when, as well as relative clause
Relative clause
A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...
s. Some examples include:
- You went home because you needed to do what?
- *What did you go home because you needed to do t?
- Alex likes the woman who wears what?
- *What does Alex like the woman who wears t?
Wh-islands
A wh-island is an island that is created by an embedded sentence which is introduced by a wh-word. For instance, the clause "where Eric went to buy the gift" in the following example, is a wh-island:- John wonders where Eric went to buy the gift.
Wh-islands are weaker than adjunct islands since extraction is often awkward but not necessarily considered ungrammatical by all speakers.
- Grammatical: John wonders where Eric went to buy what?
- Questionable: ?What does John wonder where Eric went to buy t?
Complementizer-trace effect (or that-trace effect)
It is typically easier to extract objects rather than subjects from a clause, especially when an overt complementizerComplementizer
In linguistics , a complementizer is a syntactic category roughly equivalent to the term subordinating conjunction in traditional grammar. For example, the word that is generally called a complementizer in English sentences like Mary believes that it is raining...
such as "that" or "for" is used. Take the following examples:
- Who do you believe t saw Tom?
- *Who do you believe that t saw Tom?
- Who do you believe Jim saw t?
- Who do you believe that Jim saw t?
Subject islands
Wh-movement does not appear to be possible out of phrases that appear in the subject position. This is particularly true for subject clauses. For instance, here is a sentence where the clause appears in a non-subject position (the predicative complement):- It is likely that John went home.
Here is the same sentence where the clause appears in the subject position:
- That John went home is likely.
Notice that wh-movement can occur only in the clause that appears in the predicate position:
- Grammatical: Where is it likely that John went t?
- Ungrammatical: *Where is that John went t likely?
Left Branch islands
The left branch of an NP cannot be extracted.Two subcases fall under this ban: attributive adjectival phrases (and their subparts) and possessors:
- *How expensive did he buy [a _ boat]?
- *Whose did she shake [_ hand]?
In these situations, pied-piping is obligatory.
Left branch islands are among the most cross-linguistically variable; while they exist in English, they are absent in many other languages (most famously, the Slavic languages).
The Coordinate Structure Constraint
Extraction out of a conjunct is possible only if this extraction affects all conjuncts equally (that is, if it occurs in an across-the-board manner):- *What did Sam eat [beans and _]?
- *What did Sam buy [a house next to _] and [a sailboat from Martha]?
- Who did Sam buy [a house next to _] and [a sailboat from _]?
The Complex Noun Phrase Constraint
Extraction out of complex noun phrase such as [a man who went on holiday] is ungrammatical:- *Where do you know [a man who went _]?