1887
Volume 51, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1810-7478
  • E-ISSN: 2589-5230
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Abstract

Abstract

Alongside ‘what is superiority?,’ which displays a canonical word order, the order is also possible in Chinese. In this paper I argue that this optionality results from a derivation that starts with merger of the two heads ‘what’ and , which generates a head-head structure that cannot be labeled under Chomsky’s labeling algorithm. The system must therefore resort to movement of either or in order for the structure to be labeled. Evidence for this analysis comes from the fact that when the sentence contains phrasal elements like ‘what meaning’ or ‘what person,’ the optionality disappears. I also examine examples involving other interrogative items in the language and claim that this optionality only obtains with ‘what’ and ‘who,’ other superficially similar word order patterns being different in terms of their semantic properties. Finally, I discuss the implications of this analysis in the context of symmetry-breaking in the sense of Moro (2000) and of Chomsky’s (2013) labeling algorithm.

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2025-11-06
2025-12-04
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