VERB RAISING IN QUESTIONS
In this paper, I compare three approaches to syntactic movement, in particular to V-to-C movement in Finnish and English questions: (i) the Greed-based approach of Chomsky (1993), according to which elements move to satisfy their own requirements; (ii) the Enlightened Self-Interest (ESI) approach of Lasnik (1995), according to which elements move to satisfy either their own requirements or those of some other element; (iii) the licensing approach developed in this paper.
The third approach extends the theory of null subjects argued for in Speas (1994; 1995) and Vainikka & Levy (1995) to the movement domain, by defining the Principle of Obligatory Occupant Licensing (POOL), according to which a projection can only be projected in a syntactic tree if BOTH ITS HEAD AND ITS SPECIFIER ARE FILLED by phonetic or abstract (semantic) material (contra Speas, according to whom EITHER the head OR the specifier must be filled). Given POOL, no totally empty positions are licensed in a syntactic tree.
The verb raises to C in Yes/No Questions in both English and Finnish, as exemplified in (1):
1a) Did Mary find the book?
b) Loysiko Maija kirjan?
found-Q book
'Did Maija find the book?'
Greed-based explanations of such verb raising (i.e. that the verb must
raise in order to satisfy a requirement of its own) immediately run into
two problems: (i) something other than the verb can raise to the sentence-
initial position in Finnish, as shown in (2); and (ii) the verb does not
always raise, as shown in the embedded questions in (3). Similar problems
arise with WH-questions for a Greed-based explanation of V-to-C raising.
2) Kirjanko Maija loysi?
book-Q found
'Did Maija find a BOOK? Was it a book that Maija found?'
3a) Peter asked if Mary had found the book.
b) Pekka kysyi, josko Maija oli loytanyt kirjan.
asked if-Q had found book
'Pekka asked if Maija had found the book' (spoken Finnish)
c) Pekka kysyi, oliko Maija loytanyt kirjan.
asked had-Q found book
'Pekka asked if Maija had found the book'
(spoken or written Finnish)
On the other hand, explaining the Finnish data using Lasnik's ESI is
straightforward. The Yes/No Question affix -kO cannot be stranded, and
it is hosted in one of three ways: (a) the verb raises to host it to form
a typical Yes/No Question, whether matrix or embedded (1b and 3c); (b) a
focussed NP raises to host it (as in (2)); or (c) a complementizer can be
inserted as a host in some varieties of Finnish (as in (3b)).
Extending the Finnish analysis to English is more complicated, given Lasnik's ESI as the motivator of movement. This appears to require positing an abstract bound Yes/No Question morpheme equivalent to the Finnish -kO. Given such a morpheme, the English verb raises to C in Yes/No Questions to support the abstract bound morpheme in matrix clauses, whereas in embedded clauses an overt complementizer hosts the affix, similarly to the Finnish example (3b).
Under the POOL-based approach, no abstract Yes/No Question Affix need be posited for English. In both languages, the C position must be filled in order for a CP to be projected. In Finnish, C is filled by the question suffix -kO (which cannot be stranded, resulting in verb raising). In English, C is filled by a Yes/No Question Complementizer (WHETHER/IF) in embedded clauses. Since there is no corresponding complementizer in the matrix clause, the verb raises in order to fill the C position.
Turning now to WH-questions: in Finnish, no verb raising to C occurs in WH-questions (whether matrix or embedded), as exemplified in (4b), contrary to the English (4a):
4a) Where did Mary find the book?
b) Mista Maija loysi kirjan?
where-from found book
'Where did Maija find the book?'
Again, an ESI-based approach works well for Finnish: verb raising does NOT
occur in WH-questions because the language has no WH-Question Affix, and
thus there is no affix in C requiring a host. Once again, extending this
simple analysis to English appears to require positing an abstract bound
WH-Question Affix in C. Under such an analysis, verb raising occurs
because the abstract affix needs to be supported in matrix clauses, whereas
in embedded clauses an abstract WH-complementizer would be required in order
to block verb raising. Thus, although the ESI-based analysis is
straightforward for Finnish, it involves positing two abstract elements in
English for which independent evidence is not readily available.
A POOL-based analysis results in a more balanced situation in terms of positing abstract elements for the two languages. In order to account for lack of verb raising in Finnish WH-questions, an abstract WH-Question Affix must be posited; this abstract affix is the WH-equivalent of the overt Yes/No affix -kO. Since this affix is always supported by the WH-phrase in Spec(CP), no verb raising occurs.
In English, an abstract WH-Question Complementizer must be posited, being the WH-equivalent of the overt Yes/No Complementizer WHETHER. In embedded WH-questions, the C position is filled by the WH-Complementizer, while in matrix clauses there is no such complementizer, and the verb must raise in order to license the C position. Thus, in both languages under POOL, the single abstract morpheme posited is the WH-version of an overt Yes/No morpheme, an affix in Finnish and a complementizer in English.
REFERENCES
Chomsky, Noam (1993) A minimalist program for linguistic theory. In The View from Building 20: Essays in linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger, ed. K.Hale and S.J.Keyser. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lasnik, Howard (1995) Case and Expletives Revisited: On Greed and Other Human Failings. Linguistic Inquiry 26:615-633.
Speas, Margaret (1994) Null Arguments in a Theory of Economy of Projections. University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers 17:179-208.
Speas, Margaret (1995) 'Economy, Agreement and the Representation of Null arguments', University of Massachusetts/Amherst ms.
Vainikka, Anne & Yonata Levy (1995) Empty Subjects in Finnish and Hebrew. University of Pennsylvania and Hebrew University ms.