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Wh-In-Situ and Movement in Sinhala Questions

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Abstract

This article shows that Sinhala, a wh-in-situ language, implements movement of a Q-element to determine the scope of wh-phrases; this movement, which displays the behavior of a phrasal category, may be induced either in overt syntax or in LF. Covert Q-movement observes island conditions in the same manner as overt phrasal category movement. When the option of Q-movement is not available, Sinhala makes use of a strategy to merge a null operator directly in its local scope position to fix the scope of a wh-phrase.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Letters, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku Kobe, 657-8501, Japan

    Hideki Kishimoto

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  1. Hideki Kishimoto
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Correspondence to Hideki Kishimoto.

Additional information

Earlier versions of the present paper were presented at a KLS workshop, November 1994, at the 112th meeting of the Linguistic Society of Japan, June 1996, and Linguistics Colloquium at Cornell University, October 1998. I am grateful to James Gair, John Whitman, Paul Hagstrom, Chris Collins, Masayoshi Shibatani, Yoshihiro Nishimitsu, Hiroshi Mito, Yoshiki Ogawa, Akira Otani, Yoshihisa Fujii, Shuichi Yatabe, Masaki Sano, Yoshie Yamamori, and anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to Carol Georgopoulos and Joan Maling for assistance on both the content and the form of this paper. I am deeply indebted to Dileep Chandralal for acting as a primary informant. Without his assistance and patience, this paper would never come into existence. Other informants consulted include Ketipearachchi Ysaranta, Kalyani Weerasinghe Ketipearachchi, and Milton Rajaratne.

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Kishimoto, H. Wh-In-Situ and Movement in Sinhala Questions. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 23, 1–51 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-004-6574-0

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