Syntax II						Spring 2018
Problem 4: WH Questions					Due Friday 4/13


A.  Certain verbs take as their complement a clause introduced by either
'if' or 'whether':

(1)  I was wondering if the packages would arrive on time.
(2)  I was wondering whether the packages would arrive on time.
(3)  Harvey asked me if the monkey had been vaccinated.
(4)  Harvey asked me whether the monkey had been vaccinated.

To what category would you assign 'if' and 'whether'?  Provide a proposed
structure for (3).

Notice also:

(5)  *Harry denied whether he was a wizard.
(6)   Harry denied that he was a wizard.
(7)  *Harry claimed if he was innocent.
(8)   Harry claimed that he was innocent.

Explain exactly how you propose to account for the differences in exx (5-8).

B.  Now consider examples like the following:

(9)   Will she open the door?
(10)  Has the monkey washed his feet?

In standard American English, the particular word order found in (9-10)
is found only in root clauses:

(11) *Do you think will she open the door?				[SAE]
(12) *I wonder has the monkey washed his feet?				[SAE]

But there are varieties of English (one of which is spoken by at least one
member of our very own faculty) in which it happens in certain embedded
contexts too (we will label such varieties "NSE"):`

(13) *Do you think will she open the door?				[NSE]
(14)  I wonder has the monkey washed his feet.				[NSE]
(15)  They asked me could I talk to Owen.				[NSE]
(16) *Frank denied could he have taken a flight to Dallas.		[NSE]

In these varieties, (17) and (18) are also grammatical alongside (14) and (15):

(17)  I wonder if the monkey has washed his feet.			[NSE]
(18)  They asked me whether I could talk to Owen.			[NSE]

But things like (19) and (20) are complete garbage:

(19) *I wonder if has the monkey washed his feet.			[NSE]
(20) *They asked me whether could I talk to Owen.			[NSE]

Construct an analysis of the indicated phenomenon for the NSE varieties,
making sure to be fully explicit about phrase structure, lexicon, and
movement.  Make sure it conforms to whatever assumptions we have adopted in
class, or diverges with very good reason.

C.  Return now to the analysis of root questions in standard English:

(9)   Will she open the door?
(10)  Has the monkey washed his feet?

Can you construct an analysis which will unify the standard and
non-standard varieties, the root and complement questions as much as
possible? 

Under your analysis, what exactly is the difference between SAE and NSE?

D.  In those same non-standard dialects, we find the following:

(21)  I wonder who will they want to hire.				[NSE]
(22)  They asked me what was I reading.					[NSE]
(23)  Nobody knows how big will these tomatoes become.			[NSE]
(24)  We can only guess which bins do they keep the potatoes in.	[NSE]
(25) *Fred thinks what problem will he solve.				[NSE]
(26) *Hilary denies who did she meet in Boston.				[NSE]
(27) *She claimed how smart was she.					[NSE]

The first question here is whether you can state simply what the difference
is between the grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in this set, and
how it can be accounted for in the grammar.

Once you have done that, examine the grammatical examples carefully,
and note the subcategorizations of the verbs in the embedded clauses.
Is there evidence of a movement transformation in these clauses?

If you think there is not, your job is nearly done.  Just show the
derivations of a couple of sentences and go to the beach.

But if you think there is evidence of a movement transormation,
get to work and propose an analysis, including a proposed deep structure
for a representative example, a statement of the required transformation,
and a tree of the surface structure.  Be especially explicit about
what moves, where it starts from, and where it lands.

Bear in mind that the outputs of transformations should conform to
X-bar theory.

E.  Now consider the corresponding sentences in SAE:

(28)  I wonder who they will want to hire.				[SAE]
(29)  They asked me what I was reading.					[SAE]
(30)  Nobody knows how big these tomatoes will become.			[SAE]
(31)  We can only guess which bins they keep the potatoes in.		[SAE]
(32) *Fred thinks what problem he will solve.				[SAE]
(33) *Hilary denies who she met in Boston.				[SAE]
(34) *She claimed how smart she was.					[SAE]

What is your analysis of these?

F.  Finally, what is your analysis of root WH Questions?
(There is no difference between SAE and NSE in these.)

(35)  Who will they want to hire?
(36)  What was I reading?
(37)  How big will these tomatoes become?
(38)  Which bins do they keep the potatoes in?