From obligatory wh-movement to optional wh-in-situ in Labourdin Basque
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18148/hs/2014.v0i0.11Keywords:
wh-movement, wh-in-situ, parameters, change, language contact, economy, BasqueAbstract
In this article, we analyze the nature and origin of a new wh-question strategy employed by young speakers of Labourdin Basque. We argue that this new strategy implies a parametric change: while Basque has always been a bona fide wh-movement language, these new constructions are instances of wh-in-situ and display the syntactic and semantic properties and patterns of in-situ wh-questions in French. We analyze the emergence of this new strategy as being due to the combination of three factors: (i) the abundance of structurally ambiguous wh-questions in the primary linguistic data, (ii) the change in the sociolinguistic profile of bilingual Basque-French speakers, and (iii) an economy bias for movementless derivations.Downloads
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2017-06-06
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