The syntactic computation of interrogative words in European and Bantu languages

Abstract

This study deals with the syntactic interpretation of wh-expressions driving data from English, Embosi, French and Lali. It transpires from discussion that feature strength and optionality that stand as two stepping stones in the literature accounting for the distribution of wh-expression are not adequate enough to explain the computation of wh-words cross linguistically. This paper succeeds to demonstrate that Embosi language violates the condition prohibiting a language to instantiate both fronting wh-words and wh-words remain in situ in interrogative sentences. Feature Activation Principle has been advocated to cope with different choices natural languages can have, that is, either front wh-word, allow wh-words to remain in situ or make use of both positions based on the idiosyncratic properties encoded in different interrogative words.