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proceedings 2003/9/19 17:30 page 63 #67

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Superiority Effects and Structural Distinctionsin Polish and Czech wh-Questions

Roland Meyer

University of Leipzig

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

2 Superiority effects in Polish and/or Czech? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

3 Acceptability studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3.1 Relative order of subject and objectwh-pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3.1.1 Polish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3.1.2 Czech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

3.2 wh-subject/wh-adjunct orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3.2.1 Polish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3.2.2 Czech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684 Structural differences between Polish and Czechwh-questions . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.1 Single wh-questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.1.1 Initial wh-phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.1.2 Non-initial, preverbalwh-phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

4.2 Multiple wh-questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

1 Introduction

Slavic wh-questions have attracted much attention in the generative literature, mostlybecause of the fact that they involve the fronting ofall their wh-phrases to the leftclausal periphery (neglecting echo and special discourse-bound uses; cf. Toman 1981,Rudin 1988). At the same time, existing analyses disagree considerably about basicempirical issues, such as, e.g., the question whether the fronted wh-phrases have tostand in a fixed linear order or may be ordered freely. A first goal of this paper is toreport the results of a series of controlled studies on wh-ordering effects (see section2), showing that Polish and Czech pattern alike. wh-ordering constraints (superiorityeffects), have been taken as an indicator of syntactic structure for wh-questions across

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Page 64 Generative Linguistics in Poland

Slavic languages (Bokovic 1998, Bokovic 2002). The paper aims at showing thata classification based on superiority alone is not fine-grained enough: even closelyrelated languages with the same superiority pattern may require quite different struc-tural analyses for independent reasons (see section 3). Although these structures areat odds with the specific explanation of superiority effects in Bokovic (1998, 2002) asit stands, it seems that relatively minor changes in the theory could accomodate them(cf. section 4).

2 Superiority effects in Polish and/or Czech?

As is well-known, the superiority condition holds strictly in English multiple ques-tions (modulo discourse-linking, cf. Pesetsky 1987), banning overt wh-movement of

a structurally lower wh-phrase across a structurally higher one which could havemoved instead. Under the assumption that wh-phrases may not be generated in vary-ing base orders, superiority effects can provide insights into differences in the syn-tactic structure of wh-questions across languages. According to Rudin (1988), thoseSlavic languages which move only one wh-phrase to CP-Spec and adjoin all othersto IP, do not show strict superiority effects, although there are certain preferred wh-orders; the only Slavic language which moves all wh-phrases to CP-Spec (Bulgarian)obeys superiority rather strictly (see Billings and Rudin 1996 for important qualifi-cations). However, Rudin (1996) notes rather clear superiority effects for Russian, alanguage which otherwise behaves like the members of the former group and unlikeBulgarian; she concludes that superiority effects in Slavic languages might generally

be just gradual preferences, rather than a reliable criterion.Bokovic (1998) uses superiority effects as key evidence for his analysis of Slavic

wh-questions and argues against all other criteria put forward in Rudin (1988). Heestablishes three different structural options: (i) wh-moving all wh-phrases to SpecC(Bulgarian), with superiority effects in all contexts; (ii) wh-moving one wh-phrase toCP-Spec and focus-moving the others to Agr P (Serbo-Croatian), with superiority ef-fects only in embedded clauses and embedded-like contexts; and (iii) focus-movingall wh-phrases to a lower projection (Agr P), with no superiority effects at all.

Unfortunately, the theoretical importance of superiority effects seems much moreobvious than their empirical status; opposing opinions about the latter can befound throughout the literature (see Baszczak and Fischer 2001 and Meyer 2002 foroverviews). The least disagreement concerns Czech, where neither Toman (1981),nor Rudin (1988) detect superiority effects, although the latter author mentions somepreferences. For Polish, the judgments range from free wh-ordering (Toman 1981,

Przepirkowski 1994, Citko 1997) over some preferences (Rudin 1988, 1996) to strong,syntactically relevant superiority effects (Cheng 1997, Dornisch 1998). However, no-

body seems to have undertaken (or published) controlled studies of superiority ef-fects with linguistically naive subjects. The common approach seems to be for theresearcher to rely on his/her own introspective judgments. While there is nothing a

priori wrong with introspection as a means of developing hypotheses, one would liketo see the hypotheses supported or falsified by methodologically stricter studies, as iscommon practice in other fields (cf. Keller 2000 for discussion). The judgment stud-ies reported here use the method ofMagnitude Estimation, as described in Bard et al.


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Roland Meyer Page 65

(1996), and Keller (2000). Participants were first presented with a reference clause,to which they randomly assigned a numerical acceptability rating. They then sawa sequence of fillers and test clauses, each of which had to be judged by assigningnumerical ratings in proportion to the acceptability of the reference item: a test itemestimated twice as good would get the double value of the reference clause, an itema third as good would be assigned a third of the value of the reference clause etc.It is the rationale behind Magnitude Estimation that subjects are actually able to pro-vide relative acceptability judgments of this kind, much as they are able to judge therelative strength of stimuli in psychophysical experiments (cf. Bard et al. 1996 andKeller 2000). The proportional scale gives subjects maximal freedom to make as manyfine-grained distinctions as they wish; being open in both directions, it ensures that

there is no artificial limit to (un)acceptability. Magnitude Estimation has been appliedsuccessfully in linguistic research (Bard et al. 1996, Keller 2000), also with respect tosuperiority effects (Featherston 2001).

The studies on Czech and study #1 on Polish as reported here were realized overthe internet, using the WebExp software package (Keller et al. 1998). Subjects were re-cruited by posting messages to catalogues and newsgroups; all participants who didnot obviously violate the instructions took part in a random prize draw. Study #2 onPolish was conducted on paper in a seminar group at the University of Bydgoszcz. 1

Study #1 was also repeated on paper and showed exactly the same significant effectsand interactions as its counterpart conducted over the internet. In order to avoid nor-mative answers, subjects were instructed to imagine that they heard someone utteringthe given sentence in conversation; their task was to judge intuitively the naturalnessand acceptability of the item.

3 Acceptability studies

3.1 Relative order of subject and objectwh-pronouns

3.1.1 Polish

Beginning with the most basic case, the first study checked for differences in ac-ceptability between the wh-orders kto who kogo who and kogo who ktowho

. According to Stepanovs (1998) analysis of superiority effects in Russian,

using cto what instead ofkogo who as the object wh-phrase makes a clear differ-ence. Thus, we introduced a further binary factor kogo vs. co-object for comparison,which will be dubbed OBJ -A NIMACY here. Since Bokovics (1998, 2002) theory makesan important difference between main and embedded clauses with respect to superi-

ority effects, the main/embedded-distinction was included as a third binary factor(EMBEDDING)2, leading to 8 superiority conditions. 8 different lexical realizations ofthese were distributed systematically over 4 questionnaires, so that each subject saweach lexical realization twice in two different conditions, and each condition twice

1I would like to thank the participants and Dana Karnowska for the opportunity to conduct the study.2The main/subordinate distinction is sometimes blurred in Slavic wh-interrogatives, because a putative

matrix clause may be interpreted as an adsentential, with the putative subordinate clause as a main clausequestion (Bokovic 1997). The test items for all studies reported here were carefully designed in order toresist such an interpretation.


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with different lexical forms (Latin square design, cf. Keller 2000). All test items werematched for length and structure; a native speaker carefully controlled them for infre-quent words and pragmatic plausibility. Under the prevailing view in the literature,we would expect no effect ofwh-ORDER. According to Cheng (1997) and Dornisch(1998), on the contrary, there should be a clear effect. Under no theory advanced sofar should the factors OBJ -A NIMACY and EMBEDDING play a role in Polish. Everysubject had to judge 16 superiority examples, 18 long extractions (from another ex-periment) and 11 unrelated fillers in random order. Data provided by 24 participants(age 1750) could be included in the evaluation.

Results: An ANOVA revealed a significant main effect ofwh-ORDER (F

(1,23) =10,501, p

= 0,004); F (1,7) = 35,549, p = 0,001), and a significant interaction between

wh-ORDER and OBJ-A NIMACY (F (1,23) = 13,703, p 0,001; F (1,7)=18,327, p =0,004). No interaction between wh-ORDER and EMBEDDING and no other effects werefound. Separate ANOVAs for kto

kogo and kto

co showed a significant main effect of

wh-ORDER only for the former combination (F

(1,23) = 13,900, p

= 0,001; F

(1,7) =37,874, p = 0,000), but no effect for the latter.

Discussion: Somewhat unexpectedly, the results do indicate a wh-ordering pref-erence, but only when both wh-pronouns range over animates. No ordering prefer-ence could be identified for the combination of an animate subject (kto who) withan inanimate object (co what). This pattern does not tie in at all with common case(nom acc) and animacy (animate inanimate) markedness constraints on word order,

because the (acceptable) wh-sequence co kto violates both constraints, whilethe (relatively unacceptable) ordering kogo kto violates only one of them. Thus,the option for co to occur higher up in the wh-sequence should be viewed differently:e.g., it might be due to an idiosyncratic weak pronoun property, which can overridea superiority configuration. Alternatively, one might argue that free wh-ordering isthe basic case, with superiority effects showing up only for wh-phrases which have thesame restriction, i.e., potentially range over the same set of referents. This idea seemsmore promising (because no clear superiority effects are observed for wh-arguments/ wh-adjuncts either, see below), and it has a greater explanatory potential: Note thatwhen the set of possible referents for the two wh-phrases is necessarily identical, as inquestions asking about the direction of a reversible relation, the two wh-phrases mustoccur in a fixed nom-acc order. On the other hand, combinations of lexically D-linkedktry which-phrases, which usually explicitly differ in restrictions, show no superi-ority effects (Pesetsky 1987). In any event, the Polish pattern clearly differs from the

Bulgarian one, where superiority effects hold irrespectively of the (in)animacy of thewh-object (Billings and Rudin 1996).

3.1.2 Czech

The method, conditions, and design of the test materials were the same as in the pre-ceding two studies (plus two additional superiority conditions with double long ex-traction, not reported here). According to the literature, there should be no significanteffect ofwh-ORDER or interaction with other factors, besides some unspecified prefer-ences. A total of 20 superiority examples, 16 long extractions and 12 unrelated fillers


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in random order had to be judged. 25 participants (age 1661) could be included inthe evaluation.

Results and discussion: In an overall ANOVA, the factor wh-ORDER showed asignificant main effect in the by-subjects analysis, though not in the by-items anal-ysis (F

(1,24)=11,755, p

=0,002; F (1,9)=2,430, p =0,153). There was a significant

interaction between wh-ORDER and OBJ -ANIMACY (F(1,24) = 14,871, p

0,001;F (1,9)=38,654, p =0,000), but no interaction between wh-ORDER and EMBEDDINGand no other effects. Seperate ANOVAs for the conditions with the wh-object kohowho on the one hand, and with the wh-object co what on the other, indicate asignificant effect ofwh-ORDER for kdo/koho (F

(1,24)=24,145,p

=0,000; F (1,9)=10,612,

p

=0,010), but no such effect for kdo/co. Thus, as in Polish, we found a contrast

between animate and inanimate object wh-phrases with respect to wh-order: Whilethe wh-sequence co what kdo who was judged equally acceptable as thesuperiority-conform nom-acc variant, there was a preference for nom

acc in the case of

all-animate wh-sequences. This effect was not predicted. As above, it cannot be easilyexpressed by a constraint favoring animate

inanimate word orders.

3.2 wh-subject/wh-adjunct orders

3.2.1 Polish

A second study tested for superiority effects with subject/adjunct and object/adjunctwh-phrases. Given that adverbial adjuncts can occupy a wide range of surface po-sitions in Slavic clauses, it is not immediately clear where they are merged into thetree, i.e., if they should induce superiority effects with wh-arguments at all. The study

reported here concentrates on combinations ofkto

who and kogo

whom withthe manner adverb jak how, which should be generated in the domain of the lexicalverb for reasons of focus assignment and relative adverbial scope (see Szucsich 2002for discussion). According to Cheng (1997) and Dornisch (1998), we would have toexpect a preference for wh-arguments to precede the wh-adjunct. According to theprevailing view in the literature, there should be no effect ofwh-ORDER.

Each participant had to judge 8 items for the subject/adjunct conditions, 8 for theobject/adjunct conditions, 6 examples of so-called wh-scope constructions (beyondthe scope of this paper) and 13 unrelated fillers, i.e., 35 sentences altogether. The ma-terials were presented on paper to 31 students of a seminar group at the Universityof Bydgoszcz, Institute of Political Science. 24 subjects could be included in the eval-uation; there were no significant effects ofwh-order, neither between wh-subject andwh-adjunct (jak how), nor between wh-object and wh-adjunct. The result of the secondPolish study thus fails to support the claim in the literature that there is a superiorityeffect with wh-arguments wh-adjuncts.

3.2.2 Czech

For Czech, wh-adjunct/-argument orders were tested as part of two separate stud-ies. On the basis of the existing literature, we would expect no superiority effects inthis domain. The first study contained the 4 wh-subject / wh-adjunct conditions (wh-ORDER

EMBEDDING) with jak how and kdo who. Each participant had to judge 8

superiority examples, along with 24 multiple questions with discourse-linked refer-


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ents, 8 long extractions and 8 unrelated fillers, a total of 48 sentences. Data providedby 24 subjects (age 2055) could be included in the evaluation.

Results and discussion: In the analysis of variance, the factor wh-ORDER showedno significant main effect; there was a significant main effect of EMBEDDING(F

(1,23)=10,220, p

=0,004; F (1,7)=9,535, p =0,018) and a nearly significant inter-

action with wh-ORDER (F(1,23)=3,735, p

=0,066; F (1,7) = 4,924, p =0,062). Sep-

arate ANOVAs for main and embedded clauses indicate a non-significant prefer-ence for jak kdo over kdo jak only in embedded clauses (F

(1,23) = 2,285, p

=0,144;

F (1,7)=6,573, p =0,037), but no effect at all in main clauses. Altogether, we foundno clear superiority effect for wh-subject / wh-adjunct orders, except for a slight butunreliable preference in embedded clauses. Apparently, lexical factors come into playhere as well.

The second study involved the 4 wh-object/wh-adjunct conditions for jak howand koho whom. Participants had to judge 8 of these examples, along with 8 itemsconcerning multiple wh-questions and discourse-linking, 16 long extractions and 11unrelated fillers, for a total of 43 sentences. Data provided by 32 speakers (age 1765,average 26.0) could be included in the evaluation.

Results and discussion: An ANOVA revealed a non-significant overall pref-erence of jak

koho over koho

jak (F

(1,31) = 2,802, p

0,104; F

(1,7)=2,162,p

0,185), and a significant main effect of EMBEDDING (F

(1,31)=16,533, p

=0,000;F (1,7)=24,009, p =0,092). There was no interaction between these effects. Sepa-rate analyses of variance for main and embedded clauses showed a (non-significant)ordering preference only for main clauses (F (1,31)=3,779, p =0,061; F (1,7)=2,882,

p =0,133), but no effect at all for embedded clauses. Thus, Czech seems to show onlya weak preference for jak

koho over koho

jak in main clauses, but the effect is not

significant and may not be taken for granted.

3.3 Conclusion

The Magnitude Estimation studies reported show that Polish and Czech fall intothe same typological group with respect to superiority effects: Both languages showno ordering preferences for (i) pronominal (animate) wh-subjects and inanimate wh-objects, and for (ii) pronominal argument wh-phrases and the adjunct wh-phrase jakhow. At the same time, they do show a subject object preference for animatewh-pronouns. Parallel studies on Russian have shown ordering preferences also for

the inanimate object conditions, as well as between wh-subject pronouns and thewh-adjunct kak how (Meyer 2002). Therefore, I suppose that the method chosen issensitive and selective enough so that the lack of preferences detected here reflectsan actual lack of superiority effects. Interestingly, the acceptability data discussedhere closely match the frequency distribution of the various wh-orders in multiple wh-questions, as they can be found in text corpora (see Meyer 2002 for details). RegardingBokovics (1998, 2002) classification, both Czech and Polish should probably belongto class (iii) mentioned above, i.e., their wh-phrases should move only to check a focusfeature and adjoin to Agr P.


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4 Structural differences between Polish and Czechwh-questions

4.1 Singlewh-questions

4.1.1 Initialwh-phrases

Against the above conclusion, most analyses of Czech and Polish take it for grantedthat a sentence-initial wh-phrase occupies the CP-Spec position (cf. Przepirkowski1994 for an exception). Is there any further empirical evidence that could decide be-tween these two positions? Relevant elements which may show up in fixed positionshigh enough in the structure are (i) complementizers and (ii) auxiliary clitics. Let usreview them in turn.

A wh-phrase followed by a complementizer is only admissible with an echo read-

ing in Polish:(1) CO

whatczywhether

nienot

napisaam? [PL]wrote1.SG .FEM

Didnt I write WHAT? (CHILDES-PL)

I assume that the obligatorily stressed co what in these examples occupies a CP-external position reserved for emphatic, contrastive foci (see section 4.1.2 for furtherevidence), rather than the usual landing site of interrogative wh-phrases. A specialcase relevant here is the phenomenon ofze-support: Ifze in examples like

(2) Dok adwhere-to

(ze)EMPH

toEXPL

zmierzacie?head2.PL

Where are you heading? (Banski 2001, 200)

was indeed a spell-out of C " (Banski 2001, 200), then (2) would constitute overt evi-dence for the wh-phrase occupying CP-Spec. However, given that suppletive ze canalso occur in other positions in the clause (e.g., in I " , see Banski 2001), one may nottake (2) as safe evidence that the wh-phrase is in CP-Spec. (In fact, Banski assumesthat the position of the wh-phrase in (2) is fixed and that it provides evidence for z

being in C"

.)In Czech, the situation is slightly more complicated: Not only are echo wh-phrases

typically followed by e (cf. Grepl and Karlk 1998, 101), but also true wh-phrases inembedded clauses may occur in combination with e:

(3) [...] bezwithout

monostipossibility

presnexact

lokalizace,localizationGEN.SG

naon

kterwhich

eE

rovinelayer

seREFLACC

tothere

vlastneMP

intencionalitaintentionality

nachz. [CZ]resides

[...] without being able to locate exactly, on which layer intentionality resides.(CNK)

The question here is whether e always acts as a true C"

-element, or rather as a modalparticle. Ackema and Neeleman (1998) take examples similar to (3) as evidence forthe wh-phrase sitting in CP-Spec. However, the e occurring in combination withembedded wh-phrases does not behave like a true e-complementizer: It may split a


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wh-phrase in front of the clitic cluster (see (3)), a configuration which is clearly blockedwith a bona fide complementizer e, e.g., in an echo wh-question:3

(4) *[ Zbvremains

jherDAT

petfive

minut.]minutes

KOLIKhow-much

eE

casutime

jherDAT

zbv? [CZ]remains

[ She has five minutes left.] HOW much time has she left?

I conclude that combinations ofwh-phrase and e in Czech are either (i) echo questionswith a complementizer e or (ii) true interrogatives with a modal particle e. Data asin (3) does not constitute direct evidence for the wh-phrase occupying CP-Spec.

The structural position of auxiliary clitics in Polish is a matter of long-standing de-bate. Looking superficially like verbal inflectional endings, they may occur attached

to the l-participle (the unmarked option for many contemporary speakers). But theymay also in principle attach to almost any other, preverbal constituent (see Borsleyand Rivero 1994 for some exceptions), and they can behave morphonologically likeclitics rather than suffixes also when attached to the verb (see Banski 2001). As re-gards clitics and wh-phrases, the basic observations are illustrated in (5a)(5b):

(5) a. Co(-s)what-PF-AU X

komu(-s)whom-PF-AUX

da?gave

What did you give to whom? (Borsley and Rivero 1994, 408f) b. Do

toktrejwhich

kategoriicategoryGEN

pansir

bySBJ-AU X

sieREFL

zaliczy?count

Into what category would you classify yourself? (APTC)

One or more wh-phrases may precede the clitic auxiliary (cf. (5a)), and the auxiliarymay be separated from the wh-phrases by other XPs. It seems clear that the per-fect auxiliary can in principle occur in C

", since it may be part of complementizers

like ze-s that-2.sg.pt, czy-scie whether-2.pl.pt or zeby-m that-sbj.1.sg, which, accord-ing to Banski (2001), involve syntactic cliticization. The question remains, however,whether the auxiliaries in (5a)(5b) also have to occur so high up in the tree. Dor-nisch (1998) presupposes a system of functional projections CPTPTransitivityPVP,with the subject obligatorily raising up to TP-Spec. Then, by in (6) has to be located inC " and co occupies CP-Spec.

(6) CowhatACC

bySB J

AnnaA.NOM

komuwhoDAT

polecia?recommend

What would Anna recommend to whom? (Dornisch 1998, 118 (2))

As Junghanns and Zybatow (1997) argue, NPs do not have to move overtly tocheck their case feature in Russian; they may, however, scramble into Agr # $ P-Spec-positions, or adjoin to Agr & to be interpreted as a topic. But even in this system, thesurface position of the wh-phrase in (6) would obviously have to be CP-Spec. Onlyan analysis in which the subject in (6) might scramble to a position below Agr , e.g.,to TP, could be compatible with the idea that co adjoins to Agr

'P (cf. Bokovic 1998

3Note that (4) is acceptable as a non-echo question, with a modal particle conveying doubt orastonishment.


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for Serbo-Croatian and Stepanov 1998 for Russian) although more has to be saidwith respect to komu (see section 4.2).4 But note that we need a scrambling position

between VP and TP anyway to derive word orders like

(7) [...] jesliif

[ ( ) [( 1

bedzie]FUT-AU X

onashe

[ 3 ) odpowiedniocorrespondingly

[ 3 ) przygotowana]]]prepared

[...], if she will be prepared correspondingly (GW)

Then (6) does not necessitate the movement of the first wh-phrase to Spec-CP: thesubject could have been scrambled to a TP- or VP-adjoined position.

In Czech, (2nd position-)clitics constitute clearer evidence for the surface position

ofwh-phrases. Essentially, auxiliary clitics are placed syntactically into a high headposition (see Lenertov 2001) and form a cluster with reflexive and pronominal cli-tics which is either immediately adjacent to C " or seperated from C " by exactly onefocused phrase (cf. (8a)) or by a pronoun (cf. (8b)).

(8) a. Aand

cowhat

EmaEma

by,SBJ

mysl,think2.SG

rekla?said

[zeptalasked

se.]REFLACC

And what would Ema say, do you think? [he asked.](CNK, cf. Lenertov 2001)

b. [...] aand

cowhat

jI

siREFLDAT

pakthen

pocnubegin

bezwithout

tebe?you

and what will I be doing without you then? (CNK)

The only obvious way to ensure the adjunction ofwh-phrases to Agr

P and the properclitic placement at the same time, would be to explain the positioning of clitics asa pure PF phenomenon (see Bokovic 2001 for such an approach to Serbo-Croatianand some remarks on Czech). However, it is unclear how a pure PF principle couldcover clitic-3rd effects as in (8a)(8b). The suggestion by Bokovic (2001) that fociintroduce separate prosodic phrases with clitic placement occurring only in the nextprosodic phrase, does not help for (8b), and it cannot explain why only one XP mayintervene (see Lenertov 2001 for further problems with a PF account). Thus, Czechclitic placement constitutes quite robust evidence for exactly one wh-phrase enteringthe C-domain.5 To sum up, while we find evidence that the first wh-phrase has toraise up to the C-domain in Czech, it could in principle be susceptible to movementto CP-Spec or to a lower projection in Polish.

4.1.2 Non-initial, preverbalwh-phrases

As has sometimes been noted in the literature (e.g., by Willim 1989), XPs may precedethe wh-phrases in spoken Polish:

4I presuppose throughout like most recent analyses of Polish clitics that the auxiliary in (6) islocated in a syntactic head position and not randomly attached at PF.

5In fact, two wh-phrases may precede the clitics, when they carry a special single-pair, D-linked readingand form a compact syntactic cluster (Lenertov 2001, Meyer 2002).


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(9) a. [Nastepniethen

pytaasked

drugiego:]the-other

Aand

tyyou

ilehow-much

jestesare

winien?owing

[Then he asked the other:] And how much do you owe (him)? (NT) b. [Co

whatjaI

powiemsay1.SG .PF

ministrowi?ministerDAT

Cowhat

jaI

powiemsay1.SG .PF

mediom?]medaDAT

LUdziompeopleDAT

cowhat

powiem?say1.SG .PF

[Ludziepeople

sieREFL

zfrom

wasyou

smiej a!]laugh3.PL

[What should I tell the minister? What should I tell the media?] Whatshould I tell the PEOPLE? [People will laugh at you!] (from the movieKiler)

Usually, the wh-phrase has to be focused in this construction, and the preposed itemis a contrastive topic (cf. (9a)). But in rarer cases, such as (9b), the preposed XP canform the only focus. Structures parallel to the one in (9a) have been analyzed eitheras adjunctions to CP (with the wh-phrase in its usual position Bokovic 1998 forSerbo-Croatian, Mller and Sternefeld 1993 and Stepanov 1998 for Russian), or assimple CPs where the wh-phrases remain below the C-domain (see Brown and Franks1995 for Russian). While there is good overt evidence for adjunctions to CP also in em-

bedded clauses in spoken Russian, there is no such overt evidence in Polish. The rareexamples ofczy whether-main clauses like (10) which we can find in the CHILDES-corpus, involve only the preposing of subjects (or adjuncts), obligatorily set off by anintonation break, or they contain a resumptive pronoun. I propose to analyze suchexamples as containing left dislocated topics with a resumptive pronoun. Only in thecase of proposed subjects is overt resumption unnecessary (pro-drop).

(10) [(Dziecko:) A czy rzeczka jest geboka? (Babcia:) Jak maa rzeczka to nie jestgeboka, a jak wieksza, to jest geboka. (child:) and is a river deep? (granny:)When it is a small river, then it is not deep, but when it is a bigger river, thenit is deep.]

(child:) Aand

morzesea

czywhether

jestis

gebokie?deep

And is the sea deep? (CHILDES-PL)

Preposing to embedded interrogative clauses is sharply ungrammatical in Polish (dif-fering from casual Russian, cf. Mller and Sternefeld 1993).

(11) *Juzalready

wiesz,know2.SG

now anew

szkoeschoolACC

gdziewhere

/ czywhether

buduj a?build3.PL

Turning to Czech, note that preposing in front ofwh-phrases is unacceptable for mostspeakers (unless the preposed item is set off by a clear intonation break, cf. below),although even some grammars mention construed examples like

(12) a. (*)Aand

maminkamom

kdywhen

seREFLACC

vrt?returns

And when will mom come back? (Grepl and Karlk 1998, 465)


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b. (*)Aand

penzemoney

kdywhen

siREFLDAT

vyzvedne?withdraw

And when will you withdraw the money (from your account)?(Dane et al. 1987, 328)

Only 2 out of my 15 informants (students of Charles University) would allow (12a)(12b) at all without a clear intonation break; 10 speakers who were asked for moreminute judgments found (12a) more acceptable than (12b), favoring the insertion of apresumptive pronoun in (12b), three thought (12b) ungrammatical. It should be notedthat there are at least two possible sources of confusion related to the above construc-tion, which may create an illusion of acceptability. First, reflexive clitics have becomepinned to 2nd position only fairly recently in the history of Czech. Some speak-ers, especially if they are intuitively aware of a certain freedom in clitic placement,could avail of a wh in situ analysis for (12a)(12b) (wh in situ being fully acceptablein colloquial Czech). For most speakers, however, the presence of the clitic after thewh-phrase seems to be incompatible with wh in situ. Second, the preposing of a single,contrastively focused phrase in front of subordinate wh-interrogatives is grammaticalin cases like

(13) ... alebut

PETRP.NOM

kdewhere

bydl,lives

tothat

nevm.know-not1.SG

... but where PETER lives, that I dont know.

The only authentic example of an XPwh-phraseclitic sequence to be found in the(spoken part of) CNK is of the kind illustrated in (13). Note that the ungrammaticalityof (12a)(12b) cannot be due to clitic placement (clitics being able to occur in thirdposition in wh-interrogatives see (8a)(8b)). I conclude that a ban on unrestrictedCP-adjunction in Czech must be responsible for the exclusion of (12a)(12b).

For both languages, we have seen good reasons not to resort to CP-adjunction.6 Atthe same time, wh-phrases can be preceded by preposed XPs rather freely in spokenPolish, but not in Czech. This fact can be attributed to a difference in the landing siteof the moved wh-phrase, which may be below the C-domain in Polish, but only inCP-Spec in Czech.

4.2 Multiplewh-questions

An obvious potential problem for Bokovics (1998) and Stepanovs (1998) analysesof non-superiority languages concerns material intervening between the wh-phrases.

While phrasal adjunction in between might still take place, at least syntactic heads inan intervening position should be excluded. Dornischs (1998) example (6) shows thatthis is not the case.7 Bokovic (1997) suggests that the focus feature which attracts thewh-phrases out of VP might be scattered over the Agr system, i.e., reside in AgrSPor AgrOP, as needed. But this idea would certainly have to be further spelled out

6A further, more theory-dependent one would be that long scrambling is severely ungrammatical inboth Polish and Czech (cf. the approach to Russian taken in Mller and Sternefeld 1993).

7Borsley and Rivero (1994), struggling with the same problem, suggest that the Polish subjunctive aux-iliary by, clearly a syntactic head, might exceptionally adjoin to IP as a phrase.


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after all, the focus feature should still attract all wh-phrases to the same projection.Note also that neither in PL, nor in Czech can the problem be relegated to conditionson clitic placement: The non-clitic future auxiliary may intervene between the wh-phrases just as well:

(14) a. CowhatACC

AniaA.NOM

bedzieFUT-AU X

komuwhoDAT

szya? [PL]sew

What will Ania sew for whom? (Dornisch 1998, 136 (27)) b. [... nedostatecn

insufficientkomunikace,]communication

(kdowho

seREFLACC

budeFUT-AU X

cemuwhat

venovat)... [CZ]

devote[... bad working ethics, insufficient communication] (who will devotehimself to what) (CNK)

The proper conclusion seems to be that non-first wh-phrase(s) in Polish and Czechcan be licensed either above or below T " . But could they remain even below the Agr-system? Polish wh-phrases pose a well-known puzzle for an approach that assumesthe syntactic derivation of the sequence Verb 5 auxiliary clitic via verb raising (Borsleyand Rivero 1994, Witkos 1996):

(15) a. Coswhat-AU X-PF2.SG

komuwhom

da?gave

What did you give to whom?

b. *Cowhat daesgave komu?whom(Borsley and Rivero 1994, 409f)

When both wh-phrases have moved out of VP and checked their relevant features,then V-raising up to the base position of the auxiliary should make no difference; butsuch aderivation is obviously unavailable. Instead, the lower wh-phrase komu appearsto have remained in situ leading to unacceptability out of context. Generally, wh-phrases which stay inside the VP have to be focused (Dornisch 1998) and receive anobligatorily D-linked interpretation.

The situation in Czech is surprisingly different. In examples like (16), the mainverb can intervene between the wh-phrases without causing unacceptability. The ex-ample does not require focus on the postverbal wh-phraseor a D-linked reading either,

but has the unmarked falling sentence accent on the internal argument hlas.

(16) [Kdowho

sledujefollows

tenisovtennis

tisk,press

dozvget-to-know

se,]REFL

kdowho

dalgave

komuwhoDAT

hlas.voteACC

[Those who follow the tennis news, will get to know] who gave whom hisvote. (CNK)

Some evidence that the verb has indeed moved up may be gained from the possibili-ties of adverb placement as in (17):


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(17) Kdowho

(?*nechtene)unwillingly

dalgave

(?*nechtene)unwillingly

komuwhom

nechteneunwillingly

duvodreason

kfor

hdce?quarrelWho gave whom unintentionally a reason for quarrelling?

It is well-known that the finite verb tends to leave the VP and raise to a higherposition in Czech for a variety of syntactic and information-structural reasons (see

Junghanns 2002). The pattern in (16) is actually the one which would be expected forPolish, if the putative verb raising to the head hosting the auxiliary clitic had applied.Data like those in (15b)(17) thus suggest parametric variation with respect to verbmovement: head movement of the finite verb out of the VP can apply rather freely inCzech, but it does not apply in Polish. This means, in turn, that l-participle 5 auxiliarycomplexes have to be formed within the VP in Polish, an idea pursued by Borsley(1999) to handle further asymmetries between the future auxiliary and the clitic aux-iliaries. For our analysis ofwh-movement, it means that the lower licensing positionfor wh-phrases is not as high up as the Agr-System; rather, it has to be VP.

5 Conclusion

Controlled studies on linguistic acceptability suggest that Polish and Czech multiplewh-questions fall into the same typological group with respect to superiority effects.According to the theory developed by Bokovic (1998, 2002), this means that all wh-phrases should adjoin to Agr P overtly in both languages, to check a focus feature.

The comparative evidence gathered here leads to a refinement of this picture. InPolish, there are no clear 2nd-position effects which would call for wh-movementto CP-Spec, and clitic movement to C " is not obligatory. At the same time, non-interrogative XPs may precede the wh-phrases rather freely, although CP-adjunctionhas to be excluded. Thus, the wh-phrase in a single wh-question is obviously ableto surface lower in the structure than CP-Spec. Concerning multiple wh questions, Iargued that potential interveners between the two wh-phrases signal a lower licens-ing position for the second wh-phrase than has been usually assumed, namely as anadjunct to VP.

In Czech, on the other hand, clitic placement into a syntactically defined posi-tion in the C-domain (which is justified independently, see Lenertov 2001) forcesthe assumption that the highest wh-phrase occupies CP-Spec in main and embeddedclauses. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that, other than in Polish

single wh-questions, nothing may precede the wh-phrase (disregarding cases of whin situ). In Czech multiple wh-questions, the finite verb may surface between thewh-phrases without inducing unacceptability or a specific discourse-linked reading(focusing each of the wh-phrases). This option is unavailable in Polish. I attributeit to an independent difference in verb movement, rather than to differences in wh-movement. Regarding wh-phrases themselves, we have to assume that the movementof one wh-phrase to CP in Czech is not motivated by a focus- or wh-feature, becausethat would inevitably predict superiority effects. Note that one could hypothesizethat the wh-phrases undergo a two-step movement process: First, they all check their


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focus features in the lower licensing position; second, one of them checks a strongwh-feature in CP-Spec. Since all wh-phrases count as equidistant with respect to thesecond step, there would be no superiority effects. However, the latter derivation hasto be excluded in embedded Serbo-Croatian wh-questions, to ensure strong superior-ity effects there. To guarantee this, Bokovic (1997, 99ff.) resorts to a general principleprecluding further A-movement once an operator-variable chain has been formed.Our Czech evidence suggests that only two ways out remain: Either the general prin-ciple assumed by Bokovic (1997) has to be a mere language-specific option, subjectto variation. Or the further movement of the wh-phrase to CP-Spec in Czech has to bea PF-phenomenon which does not count as A-movement.

We hope to have shown how Polish and Czech wh-questions differ in empirical

detail, although both belong to the same coarse typological group, lacking superiorityeffects in the strong, syntactic sense. Two main sources for this variation have beenidentified: (i) obligatory movement to CP-Spec, independently ofwh-licensing, and(ii) verb movement out of the VP. Further research has to show the exact motivationof these two movement processes.

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Sources:

APTC Adam Przepirkowskis Toy CorpusCNK Czech National Corpus

GW Gazeta WyborczaRT Rozmowy telefoniczne (Pisarkowa 1975)NT New Testament

Roland MeyerDepartment of Slavonic Languages and LiteratureUniversity of Regensburg93040 RegensburgGermany6 7 9 A C E F G I Q I 6 R S T 6 A U V 9 X Y F ` C X b 6 I c I C S d ` 6 c F E I

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