Questions tagged [wh-words]
Wh-words are question words such as "what", "who", "where", "why" etc, which are used to ask for objects, persons, place, time or similar circumstances.
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Syntactic analysis of why wh-island violations should be ungrammatical yet are commonly used
This is a type of sentence which I found myself often verging on uttering, then pausing when I realized it wasn't grammatical, and trying to find a simple fix to express the same idea with the same ...
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Wh-movement of D/NP in Russian
I have recently come across the following expression:
(они) попрали даже то, что ими диктуется о смысле жизни. (they) trampled even what they dictated about the meaning of life.
It made me wonder: ...
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Why we do not usually say "who did eat the apples" while "What did she eat" is perfect to use? [closed]
I noticed that in English, it is incorrect to say "Who did eat the apples?" but it is correct to say "who ate the apples?" It would be very helpful if you can give me some clues ...
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Are WH-determiner, WH-adverb and WH-pronoun mutually exclusive?
I was going through this article. It describes WH-determiners, WH-adverbs and WH-pronouns. Below are examples for each from the article:
WH-determiners
What book are you reading?
Which plane is he ...
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Possessive vs non possesive WH-pronouns
I was going through Jurafsky book. It says following about pronouns in the context of tag set:
Wh-pronouns (what, who, whom, whoever) are used in certain question forms, or act as complementizers (...
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Wh-movement Question
For wh-movements, I always think of what the sentence would have looked like if it wasn't a question (e.g. for sentence "which promise did he not keep?", I would think that the original ...
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Allowed surface locations of [+wh] phrases apparently depend on semantics—if so, how and why?
Consider
Harvey's machine can resemble a human completely or not at all.
1a) ... The extent to which it resembles a human is determined by its software.
1b) ... To which extent it resembles a human ...
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"It" referring to [+wh] phrases and the syntax of "as to"
Consider
1a) It's up to you whether you actually leave.
2a) It's up to you which path you take.
3a) *? It's up to you for whom the bell tolls.
4a) * It's up to you the path you ...
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Why isn't this sentence in a passive form? [closed]
I found this sentence in a grammar book for grade 10
Which CD sells the most? A traditional music CD.
I wondered why it isn't in a passive form, or just because it's used in spoken context?
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"To whom" in pied-piped infinitive relative clauses
In English wh raised from, or in situ in, a direct object or prepositional object, you can almost always use "who" at least as well as "whom",1 and in some cases you can only use "who":
Who/whom did ...
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Why is *"Where did you move from Paris to?" ungrammatical?
If I'm not mistaken *"Where did you move from Paris to?", while "Where did you move to from Paris?" as well as both "You moved from Paris to London" and "You moved to London from Paris"(at least with ...
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What is the difference between successive-cyclic wh-movement and long-distance wh-movement?
I am concerned with movement spanning the barrier between two clauses, such as:
What did John say [CP that Mary will buy __]?
or
What did John say [CP will Mary buy __]? //with the same meaning as
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Why can interrogatives so often be used-as/made-into intensifier adverbs?
Why does the ability to take normally interrogative words like "what" and "how", and turn them into intensifier adverbs, seem like such a language universal concept?
In Japanese, you can take the ...
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Why do 'wonder' and 'think' act differently in wh-movement?
For instance:
Object moving:
Who do you think that John saw t? (correct)
*Who do you wonder that John saw t? (incorrect)
Subject moving:
Who do you think t saw John? (correct)
*Who do you wonder t ...
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Why is it that the wh-word as a subject in the spec position cannot raise over an auxiliary verb like 'did'?
When the question word is the subject of the clause, there is no aux verb, eg 'Who saw you?'. I understand this, but why is 'who did see you?' also correct, with respect to Chomsky's linguistic theory ...
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Do there exist languages with wh-prepositions?
I can imagine a language where instead of "what did you put a toy on?" one says something like "whon did you put a toy?". Do such languages exist?
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