Interpretive effects in multiple interrogation

Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1–42

Interpretive effects in multiple interrogation Becky Kennedy* Lasell College, 1844 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02466, USA

Abstract Superiority phenomena in multiple WH-questions are analyzed as an effect of a range of sentencelevel but discourse-related contingencies centering around question focus and concomitant constraints on question structure. It is argued that multiple interrogation formations in English are restricted by constraints ensuring the informativeness of the question focus: These constraints interact with intonational and logophoric characteristics of the sentence to determine felicity of multiple interrogation structures. In particular, subject-object and argument-adjunct asymmetries in focus projection from a lexical item receiving primary stress translate into similar asymmetries in multiple interrogation structures. The proposed model accounts for systematic amelioration and degradation effects by invoking principled contingencies and by appeal to a contextual dependency spectrum allowing amelioration via targeted manipulation, such that question-internal structural adjustments affecting focus projection and question-external contextual priming can satisfy the informativeness requirements of multiple interrogation structures. # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: WH-questions; Multiple interrogation; Logophoricity; Superiority; Focus; Discourse

1. Introduction Consider the following contrast: (1)

a. b.

Who bought what?
What did who buy?

The contrast between (1a) and (1b) has been adduced frequently as a superiority effect: In a multiple interrogation with two possible candidates for WH-fronting, the structurally * Tel.: þ1-617-243-2224. E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Kennedy).

0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.017

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superior WH-term is selected for WH-movement, and the structurally inferior WH-term remains in situ: in its base position.1 The paradigm (1a, b) and a range of other WH in situ formations have been examined in the literature under different models. Of these, certain structural accounts (e.g., Pesetsky, 1987) include a discourse-theoretic component; other explanations (e.g., Kuno and Takami, 1993) distinguish functional and syntactic factors. Judgments on certain sentences are disputed, but there has been general agreement on examples like (1a, b). The analysis presented here reconsiders examples (1a, b), as well as other well-studied multiple interrogation examples; it also adduces some less well-studied structures. The approach, however, diverges from earlier approaches in that it reassesses the sources of grammaticality contrast. Although this study, like many others, examines decontextualized, artificial sentences as its primary data, it builds on the observation that the grammaticality status of certain multiple interrogation structures appears to improve if a favorable context is provided. Question-external manipulations are therefore examined; for instance, (1b) becomes more acceptable (if not fully grammatical) if it is embedded in discourses like (2a, b): (2)

a. b.

I know that each book was bought by some buyer, but what did who buy? Each of the gifts is lovely, but some of the cards have been separated from the gifts, and I want to thank each of you individually! So you will all have to tell me: What did who buy?

(1a), in contrast, does not require this type of contextualization or priming context in order to be judged grammatical. Question-internal manipulations can improve acceptability as well; thus (1b) is also improved when a second in situ WH-term is added (What did who buy where?). It is argued that both external and internal variations that improve acceptability do so by altering or mitigating contingencies of question focus. Structural modifications within the question itself alter the locus or extent of focused material in the question (internal variation); alternatively, the effects of a paucity of focused material in the question can be mitigated by enriched prior context that activates crucial material (external variation). In the latter case, the question’s acceptability is contingent on the type of contextual support that appears in (2a, b). Decontextualized examples like (1a) and (1b), therefore, differing with respect to syntactic well-formedness, also represent two endpoints on a spectrum of contextual dependence. Because (1a) does not require a priming context, it can be uttered in a range of 1

A reviewer has pointed to the difficulty in defining the notion in situ with reference to WH-movement, illustrating the problem with examples (ia, b): (i) a. Who took a picture of whom? b. Who took whose picture? Both whom in (ia) and whose in (ib) qualify as WH-terms that have remained in situ while who has been selected for WH-movement, yet either (ia) or (ib) (depending on one’s derivational assumptions) has responded to another type of movement rule in the syntax. A WH-term that remains in situ, therefore, as that notion is used in the present discussion, must be a term that retains its position when the syntactic rule of WH-fronting applies to move another WH-term in the sentence.

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discourses. (1b), however, in the absence of internal manipulation, requires that specialized information be activated in its immediate discourse context and is therefore uttered under relative contextual dependence. This analysis does not, of course, preclude the possibility of other sources of ungrammaticality in multiple interrogations. However, focus occurrence within the question plays a peculiar role in superiority phenomena in English, where grammaticality contrasts appear to relate directly to the fronting of one of multiple WH-phrases. This (it is argued here) is due to the relationship between the fronted WH-term and the question focus. The English single WH-questioner fronts a WH-phrase in a request to identify an unknown (WH) quantity, and the subsequent open statement serves as a semantic predicate that holds of (is true of) the fronted WH-term. Thus, the open statement that constitutes the body of the question is informative semantically, with respect to the WH-term. More is expected by the listener, however; typically, the question is also informative pragmatically, insofar as its key addition to the discourse is focused via phonological highlighting (stress). This focus of the question represents key information that the questioner pairs with the WH-term: not merely what is true of the WH-term, but what the questioner wants to say about the WHterm. Material in the body of the question that is not highlighted in this way will still be part of the semantic predicate but must have been activated in immediately prior discourse; question material that is highlighted by focusing prosody, however, is thereby activated or introduced within the question itself and will instruct following discourse turns. The same expectations regarding question focus hold for the English multiple WH-question, but the presence of two or more WH-terms to be identified renders more complex the satisfaction of this focusing requirement. And a multiple interrogation that does not focus key information will once again be more dependent on discourse context for information activation. This focusing expectation and its effect on contextual dependency are explored here, and I develop ranking metrics that predict the acceptability of decontextualized WHquestions by projecting relative contextual dependence. The metrics rate WH-question structures by considering informativeness: Those questions that utilize conventional focusing mechanisms to highlight information will be less dependent on specific context, because (like (1a) and unlike (1b)) they will not require contextual priming. These metrics are developed in an account of both orderly and problematic data; they are then tested against new structures. As I present this analysis of the prosody-mediated relationship in WH-questions between structure and function, I utilize certain familiar notions: focus, stress, and focus projection. In addition, I introduce new terminology: contextual dependence, focus sequence, and contextual priming. Because focus has been analyzed under many different frameworks, I briefly introduce my use of that term and related terms in Section 2. I continue in that section to discuss the ways in which prosody, structure, and context interact in the formulation of the single English WH-question; and I develop the notion of the focus sequence, pairing a fronted WH-term with the question’s focus. Section 3 moves to the multiple WH-question, in a review of previous superiority accounts. In Section 4, an account of multiple interrogation is developed along the lines of the Section 2 principles for single WH-questions, and ranking metrics that guide the distribution of multiple WH-terms in English are proposed. In Section 5, the metrics are tested against new or problematic

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structures and are amended to account for variations in focus projection and logophoricity. Section 6 summarizes the findings of this study.

2. The interpretation of WH-questions: issues of focus 2.1. Focus It was stated in the Section 1 that conventions of English WH-questioning call for material to be encoded in the body of the question as question focus via prosodic and structural mechanisms. These mechanisms involve focal stress and focus projection, concepts that are addressed briefly before it is argued that focus in the English WHquestion—like focus in other constructions—is an information-highlighting mechanism signaled by stress and not typically residing in the fronted WH-phrase. The study of focus has been both enriched and complicated by various controversies regarding its definition, taxonomy, position in the language model, and cross-linguistic universality (cf. Roberts, 1998 for discussion of some of these issues). A focus constituent often conveys new, newly activated, or contrasted information. In addition, focus is used to designate the target of logical operators such as only or intensifying operators (cf. Kennedy, 1999a). One commonly accepted view of focus (concentrating on the case of sentence focus) analyzes propositions informationally as comprising common ground material presupposed by discourse participants and focus material that is new or of central interest and is highlighted by intonation and/or structure. This type of analysis was formalized by Jackendoff (1972), who identified focus as the new informational, F(ocus)-marked member of a pair that also included a presupposition derived via l-abstraction on the focus constituent. Problems regarding the characterization of focus material strictly as new information have been addressed by scholars like Chafe (e.g., 1994) and Lambrecht (1994). Chafe recast the old–new information dichotomy in terms of information activation: Information may be given, accessible, or new, with intonational prominence fundamental in the activation of both new and accessible (but inactive) segments. Lambrecht characterized focus as relational, representing that segment of content that distinguishes an assertion from its presupposition, so that it is the selection of focal information rather than a focal referent that is unpredictable or novel. There has been general concurrence on the association between the point of maximal intonational prominence and the sentence focus, but scholars have disagreed on the relationship of that position of intonational prominence to structure. Thus, the Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) of Chomsky and Halle (1968) related focus-associated prosody directly to surface syntactic structure; Selkirk (1983) abandoned the NSR itself but went on to map the phonological (prosodic) manifestations of focus onto sentence syntax in a more complex fashion, accommodating contemporaneous views on the structure of the grammar. Bolinger (1972), representing an opposite view, saw focus as a highlighting mechanism that signaled special informational value of an element and was placed in accordance with communicative intent rather than grammar. Under a more formal but similarly pragmatic model, Roberts (1998) differentiated prosodic and syntactic structures, suggesting that prosody indicating focus is not annotated directly onto syntax but is instead a feature of an

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independent grammar component. Conventional presuppositions permit prosody, for instance, to relate the denotation of an expression to its information role within discourse. Equally controversial have been questions of taxonomy, with many studies (cf. for instance, Rooth, 1992) distinguishing typologically between two kinds of focus: information focus, signifying new or asserted information; and operator focus, which targets an entity from a domain and bears contrastive connotation. Roberts, on the other hand, analyzed operator focus as a subcase of the more general pragmatic category of information focus by which a distinguished constituent is selected via a conventional stress mechanism. The conception of focus utilized here derives most directly from information structural characterizations such as those of Lambrecht and Chafe and from the work of ErteschikShir (e.g., 1973, 1986, 1997), who defined focus in terms of speaker intent: Focus is assigned to a constituent to which a speaker wishes to draw the hearer’s attention (cf. also Kennedy, 1993, 1999a). Because the focus under consideration in this study appears in questions, however, its conceptualization brings special issues. First, there is controversy regarding the association of focus with the WH-element in a WH-question; second, the discourse role of the WH-question complicates the definition of focus in terms of an assertion–presupposition relation. Focus has often been invoked in an account of WHquestions: It is frequently argued that the WH-phrase in a WH-question is the focus of the question (cf. for instance, Culicover and Rochemont, 1983; Lambrecht, 1994; Rochemont, 1986). Because an English WH-phrase does not generally receive primary sentence stress, however, inherent focus on a WH-phrase (as in Rochemont’s model) would preclude a reliable association between stress and focus in English. Not only does the English WHphrase not attract primary stress, but the association between WH-words and stress also varies cross-linguistically, challenging further an across-the-board statement about the relationship between WH-words and focus in questions (cf. Culicover and Rochemont, 1983; Ladd, 1996 for treatment of this issue). Concentrating on the English case alone, dissociation of focus in a WH-question from prosodic prominence (so that the WH-phrase is termed focus) adheres to previously cited notions of focus as that constituent to which the speaker wishes to draw the hearer’s attention and whose choice is unpredicted or novel in the discourse content. One reason not to analyze the English WH-term as inherent focus, however, derives from the observation that stress sometimes does fall on a WH-term. Collapsing stressed and unstressed WH-words with respect to focus (such that in both cases the WH-term would be considered focus) would sacrifice insight into informational and discourse distinctions between examples like (3a) and (3b) (underscore indicates stress): (3)

a. b.

Who bought the book? Who bought the book?

Notice that (3a) but not (3b) would be an appropriate sequitur to Everybody appears to have pencils and notebooks, but . . .. On the other hand, (3b) would follow I know that someone here has purchased Dilbert, but . . .. (3b), that is, presumes that the information that someone has bought the book in question has just been foregrounded or activated in the preceding discourse context, and therefore that material need not be focused in the question

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itself. (3a), in contrast, permits no such assumption; in (3a), the question itself foregrounds the notion that someone bought the book. The differential positioning of stress in the two examples is consistent with the suggestion that this information is focused in (3a) but presupposed in (3b), with focus occurring instead on the stressed WH-term in (3b). This analysis of a WH-phrase as a focus in (3b) but not in (3a) permits us to maintain the association between prosody and focus, proposed by Roberts (1998) as a linguistic universal; that analysis also suggests that the functional role of focus in a WH-question is one of foregrounding. In (3a), focus foregrounds information that the questioner wishes to activate: The questioner associates the WH-term who informationally with focused the book (or bought the book; cf. discussion of focus projection in Section 2.2). Retraction of focus to the WH-phrase in (3b) can occur only in the case in which this type of important information about the entity being questioned has just been foregrounded (cf. ErteschikShir, 1986, 1997, where a WH-phrase is analyzed as focus under limited circumstances). Focus in the English WH-question, like that in other structures, can thus be related to discourse agenda and information flow. Focus is therefore seen here as an information-highlighting mechanism not only in the more typical case of declarative sentence focus but also in other constructions. Drawing on Chafe’s work, I emphasize the role of focus as an information activation mechanism; drawing on Lambrecht’s insight, I emphasize the relational aspect of focus, insofar as focus directs us to selection of information to be activated, relative to presupposed material. As a combined effect of perceived duration, amplitude, and pitch, moreover, stress designates an English focus constituent. Language conventions and, therefore, interlocutor expectations about the informational role of focus in a given structural context will determine the way in which focus is interpreted; in this way, the approach might again resemble that of Lambrecht, who made crucial distinctions between focus construction types. In the present approach, however, construction-particular occurrences of focus are related directly to the communicative function of the construction. In addition, structural contingencies interact crucially with focus and constrain its domain: The relationship between locus of stress and broader focus constituency is mediated systematically by focus projection. 2.2. Focus projection Prosody, with its manifestation in stress, is a consistent but at times indirect focus marker for English. The indirect nature of the relation between stress and focus can be attributed in part to the phenomenon of focus projection. Focus can be characterized as discourseassociated; but an articulated, sentence-level prosodic structure (that need not coincide strictly with surface syntax) has often been argued to play a role in focus projection from the locus of primary stress to a broader focused constituent.2 Thus, for instance, Kennedy (1999a), Rochemont (1986), and Selkirk (1983) discussed data like (4a, b) (see also Cinque, 1993). 2 Lambrecht (1994) accounted in a different way for the focus interpretations corresponding to the various systematic stress patterns. In his analysis, distinct prosodic patterns are associated with three informationstructure categories, each conveying a particular focus interpretation.

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(4)

a. b.

7

John bought Dilbert. John bought Dilbert.

A WH-question set is often used to diagnose focus constituency, under the assumption that it is the focus constituent in the answer that identifies the WH-phrase in the question (cf. Paul, 1880; Sgall et al., 1986, for instance). In an active, agentive sentence like (4a), a stressed object NP can signify either narrow focus on that NP alone or broad focus projected to VP or IP; thus (4a) can be used to answer What did John buy? with focus on the object NP, What did John do? with focus on the VP, or What happened? with focus projected to the entire sentence. (4b), in contrast, is unambiguous with respect to focus interpretation; stress on the subject NP can signify only narrow focus on that NP. Thus, (4b) can be used as an answer only to a WH-question like Who bought Dilbert? In sum, focus in (4a) can project from a stressed lexical item (referred to here as the nuclear term in the focus constituent) to a broader constituent, but focus does not project in (4b) beyond the subject NP.3 More generally, focus can project from a stressed verb or (a term representing) a stressed object argument to the VP or IP level, but focus does not typically project from the subject position; thus consider (5a–c). (5)

a. b. c.

John recognized Bill. John recognized Bill. His company recognized Bill.

Focus can (although need not) project from the stressed object NP in (5a) to VP (or IP) level; thus (5a) might answer either Who did John recognize at the awards ceremony? (no focus projection, and narrowly focused object NP) or Did John know anyone at the awards ceremony? (focus projection, and focused VP). (5c) represents the case in which focus can project from V: When recognize signifies ‘acknowledge formally’, the verb typically receives stress within VP. Focus in (5c) can project from V to VP or IP level; thus (5c) might answer What happened at the awards ceremony? (focused IP). (5b), however, permits only narrow focus on the subject NP, answering a question like Did anyone recognize Bill at the awards ceremony? Projection from an adjunct position is more complex, as is projection within NP (cf. Selkirk, 1983). 2.3. Focal stress in WH-questions Focus projection in a WH-question, like projection in a statement, interacts with argument structure; as in a statement, focus will introduce or activate special information. In the WH-question, we see that this focused information is linked in a focus pair with the fronted WH-phrase. The focused information is generally distinguished from semantically predicated information in the question in that it represents what (regarding the questioned entity) is being highlighted for discourse purposes, rather than simply what holds of the fronted WH-term; it therefore reflects previous conversation and presages future con3

See Faber (1987) and Kennedy (1999a) for discussion of focus projection from a stressed subject NP.

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versational turns. Most important to the present discussion, its presence or absence will influence the degree to which the question is dependent on specific information preactivation in prior discourse for felicity. Notice first that just as in a statement, stress on an object NP in a WH-question like (3a), repeated here, can project focus to VP, whereas stress on a subject NP in both the question (6a) and the statement (6b) signifies only narrow focus. In (3b), likewise, stressed who is narrowly focused. (3)

a. b.

Who bought the book? Who bought the book?

(6)

a. b.

What did John buy? John bought the book.

Note, second, that (as observed in Section 2.1) differential positioning of stress in (3a) and (3b) accompanies differences in focused/presupposed status of information in the question. Although it has often been argued that the abstract resulting from l-abstraction of the WH-phrase (cf. Jackendoff, 1972) represents the presupposed material in a question, consider again the distinction between (3a) and (3b). In both cases, l-abstraction of the WH-phrase yields the abstract bought the book (x); and in (3b), it does indeed appear to be presupposed that someone bought the book. In (3a), however, focal highlighting on NP (or, under focus projection, on VP) gives that constituent’s denotation a different role in the question. Whether the focused information in the body of the question (3a) is new to the discourse or old and accessible but inactive material (cf. Chafe, 1994), occurrence of focal highlighting signifies a discourse need for its activation, in contradistinction to the case in (3b).4 Stated in converse, a WH-question like (3b) with no focus-activated information in the body of the question will require appropriate preactivation of material in its prior context. In addition, focus highlighting reflects the questioner’s agenda in posing the question: The questioner exploits prosody systematically to highlight information he or she wishes to link with the WH-phrase. This function of prosody can be illuminated if we distinguish the notions of focus and (semantic) predication. Lambrecht (1994), citing the traditional definition of (semantic) predicate as that property attributed in a sentence to its subject, differentiated semantic and pragmatic predicates: The semantic predicate expresses what is true—what holds—of a subject, whereas the pragmatic predicate expresses what is said of a subject. In a declarative like (6b), the semantic predicate would be bought the book, because this property holds of the subject John. From a pragmatic perspective, however, the subject of the utterance (6b) is bought the book, and the pragmatic predicate—what the speaker would like to say about buying the book, highlighted by focal stress—would be [is] John. Extending Lambrecht’s distinction to a WH-question like (6a), the semantic predication relation associates what and John bought, insofar as John bought will hold 4 Compare Lambrecht’s (1994) analysis, however, whereby a fronted WH-phrase is a main sentence focus, with the open proposition constituting the body of the question as presupposed material. Lambrecht analyzed the class of accent falling on BOOK in (3a) as an activation accent that demarcates topical material.

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of the entity questioned by what. This relation, however, is not one of pragmatic predication, which would relate bought [something] as subject and [was] John as predicate. Focus intonation directs us to the pragmatic predicate and often dissociates semantic and pragmatic predicates, which can but need not converge. This in turn is because focus, reflecting speaker goals, directs us not simply to what is true but to what is being said of contextual topics: to a highlighted addition to the discourse that will guide future conversation. Lambrecht’s distinction between semantic and pragmatic predication in declaratives can be drawn on to illuminate the discourse contribution of prosodic features of the WHquestion. As noted, his semantic predication relation can be compared to the relation between the WH-phrase and the l-abstract that introduces those properties that characterize—that are true of—the questioned entity. The relation between the WH-term and the question’s focus, however, involves Lambrecht’s pragmatic predication. Just as Lambrecht’s pragmatic predicate represented not simply what was true of a subject but what was being expressed by a speaker about it, the question focus reflects the questioner’s agenda, representing crucial discourse information that the questioner wants to pair with the WH-term. In (6a), semantic predication tells us that John bought [it] must hold of the constant value replacing what in the answer. Focus, however, links that value with a crucial aspect of this semantic predicate: The speaker asks what it was that it was John who bought it.5 Because the question’s prosody must be representative in this way of the questioner’s agenda but also appropriate to the discourse (must be faithful to novelty and/or accessibility status of information), we see that focus placement in the question serves two functions: It (a) ensures that the question is relevant with respect to embedding discourse and (b) guides future discourse by highlighting a key addition to the discourse in the form of a pairing of WH-term and focus. (6a), for example, is linked by intonation to discourse information or discourse set: Absence of stress on buy indicates that the fact that there were a number of buyers of things is common ground.6 But the narrow focus on the subject NP in that example also reflects the questioner’s special interest in that segment of question, an interest that guides future discourse. To see how a question’s focus performs these two functions, compare (6a) and (7): (6) (7)

a.

What did John buy? What did John buy?

Exploiting the relation of semantic predication, the speaker poses a question such that the l-abstract in the body of the question will hold of the constant replacing the WH-phrase in the answer. (6a) and (7), therefore, sharing the abstract John bought (x) although differing 5 A reviewer has commented that the question translation that reflects speaker focus and identification agenda will involve this type of clefted utterance; as Lambrecht pointed out, a cleft is indeed one constructional strategy whereby a speaker clarifies the structuring of information. 6 This statement oversimplifies the relation between presupposition and discourse common ground; in many cases the hearer will amend the discourse context to assimilate information that is introduced as ostensible presupposition but has not yet achieved the status of common ground, via the process of presupposition accommodation (cf. for instance, Heim, 1983).

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in focus, can be answered in the same way: The constant value Dilbert (for instance) can instantiate what in both cases. We have also seen, however, that focus distinguishes relation to previous discourse; thus (6a) presumes that individuals bought things and foregrounds John as novel or inactive content, whereas (7) presumes that John is preactivated and foregrounds buy (unless focus projects beyond buy to IP). In addition, notice that the two questions will move the discourse in different directions; thus (8a) is a more appropriate response to (6a), whereas (8b) would be more appropriate to (7). (8)

a. b.

Dilbert, and Pete bought The Far Side. Dilbert, and now he’s saving up for Garfield.

Each question, that is, motivates the respondent’s addition of different information to the discourse. The focus in a WH-question therefore reflects not only distinctive discourse history but also a distinctive discourse contribution. (3a) and (6a) also show us that intonation supports the linking of focused material to the WH-phrase. We have seen that each question has distinctive primary stress that designates focus, either directly (as narrow focus) or indirectly (via focus projection). In addition, however, there is a secondary stress in each example that falls on the WHterm: who in (3a) and what in (6a). Although it was argued in Section 2.1 that the WHterm is not inherently the question focus, it participates in a pairing, effected by (secondary and primary) stress; the question focus represents material that the speaker links with the WH-term. This linking derives a focus sequence of WH-term and question focus; the focus sequence for who in (3a) is given in (9), and the focus sequence for what in (6a) is given in (10). (9) (10)

hwho, bought the booki hwhat, Johni

The focus in the sequence in (10) is only an NP (John), because the focus in the WHquestion (6a) can project no further than narrowly focused John. The sequence in (9) presumes that focus has projected to VP (bought the book); under an alternative interpretation, the sequence for that example would be hwho, the booki, with narrowly focused object NP. As noted, differential focus assignment will both reflect distinctions in prior discourse context and affect future information flow. Thus, for instance, question (3a) with narrowly focused object NP (the book) could appear in the following discourse: (11)

A: B: A:

The neighbors bought up almost everything at the yard sale. Who bought the book? Mary did. And I bet you want to know who bought the tape set. It was Bill.

In discourse (11), narrow focus on the object NP in (11B) (¼(3a)) reflects the fact that the previous utterance has just activated people were buying things. The WH-question activates the book, the focus of the question. The paired sequence hwho, the booki, moreover, steers the discourse toward discussion of buyer-object pairs.

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Consider now an example in which the WH-word appears in a which-NP, as in (12): (12)

Which boy bought the book?

Stress on the object NP in (12) identifies the question focus as the book or, under focus projection, bought the book. There are also two candidate WH-phrases: which and which boy. Assuming focus projection to VP, so that bought the book is the question focus, (12) is still associated with two possible focus sequences, (13a) and (13b), depending on the intended WH-phrase; each sequence pairs the question focus with a distinct questioned term. Prominence within NP will determine which WH-term option is intended; this issue is discussed in greater detail in Section 4, when focus projection within a which-NP is addressed. Prominence on which represents narrow focus and indicates that which alone is the questioned term, whereas prominence on boy permits focus projection to NP and indicates that the full WH-NP is the questioned term; it is this (secondary) stress within the which-NP that indicates the intended WHterm and therefore selects between (13a) and (13b) as focus sequences associated with (12). (13)

a. b.

hwhich, bought the booki hwhich boy, bought the booki

The sequence in (13a) is associated with a question in which which is prominent in the WHNP as the questioned term, a question occurring in a context in which some boys are already under discussion as active discourse entities. The sequence in (13b) is associated with a question in which boy is prominent in the WH-NP, receiving secondary sentence stress. This second stress activates boys as the buyers of interest and identifies which boy as the relevant WH-term. Notice that in the examples we have considered, the WH-question (and the focus sequence notation displayed in (9), (10), and (13)) links a WH-term with a non-WH focus. As initially noted in Section 2.1, however, there are cases like (3b) where stress falls on the WH-term. We observed that (3b) requires that certain information has just been activated in the discourse, as in I know that someone here purchased Dilbert. But who bought the book? A semantic predication (bought the book) appears, so that the listener is given a semantic basis on which to evaluate who. Indeed, earlier comparison of (3a) and (3b), repeated here, revealed that the two questions shared the l-abstract bought the book (x), so that in both cases the semantic predicate bought the book holds of the WH-term. (3)

a. b.

Who bought the book? Who bought the book?

Focus activation of information within the two questions differs, however: In (3a), material within the semantic predicate is activated, whereas no material within the semantic predicate is activated in (3b). The focus sequences (9) (for (3a)) and (14) (for (3b)) reflect this contrast:

12

(9) (14)

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hwho, bought the booki hwhoi

The representation (14) tells us that who is both WH-term and focus in (3b); it indicates that who is associated with no focused material in the body of the question. The absence of focus within that non-WH material, however, forces a special dependence on the previous sentence: (3b) must be preceded by discourse that activates predicate content. Apparently semantic predication content alone is not adequate in a question: That content will establish contingencies that the constant replacing the WH-term in the answer must satisfy, yet the content must also be newly activated information in the discourse. This activation may occur via (a) activation in prior context or (b) activation via focus in the question itself. Utterance of (3b) involves the first activation mode and entails a specific relation to the discourse, due to a mediating priming context: a preceding discourse in which non-WH question content has been activated. When no material other than a WH-term is highlighted prosodically (as in (3b)), only material that has already been activated—material already in the speaker’s focal consciousness, in Chafe’s (1994) terms—appears in the question itself; prior discourse must have brought this material into the speaker’s focal consciousness. In the discourse suggested for (3b), I know that someone here purchased Dilbert. But who bought the book?, the boldface material in the sentence preceding the WH-question serves as priming context, activating information that is not highlighted in the question itself. The preceding discussion suggests a contextual dependence hierarchy, where ! signifies ‘involves less contextual independence’, and hBi ! hAi signifies that sequence B occurs under less contextual independence than does sequence A: (15) (16)

hWHi ! hWH, . . .i A WH-question occurs under heightened contextual dependence if its felicitous utterance requires specific priming context.

(15) and (16) state that a sequence comprising a WH-term alone and including no non-WH focus signals a question that is more dependent on specific priming context than does a sequence including a non-WH focus. The WH-question whose focus sequence comprises only a WH-term, insofar as it requires a priming context to activate material that later appears (unfocused) in the question, occurs in a more restricted set of contexts: only those contexts that are enriched as priming contexts. To summarize Section 2, I considered focus, its associated prosody, and the informational import of the prosodic contour in single WH-questions. A general conceptualization of focus as a functional highlighting mechanism was established; the association of stress with focus in English was maintained, but the association between focus and the English WH-phrase was not. Instead, it was proposed that stress is used to highlight the WHquestion’s focus, paired informationally with the fronted WH-term in a focus sequence. Although the body of the question introduces a semantic predicate whose content holds of the constant replacing the WH-term in the answer, activation of that content must occur by (a) focus highlighting of all or part of the predicate in the question itself, or (b) activation in a priming context. In the first case, prosody (secondary and primary stress) in a single WHquestion links the WH-term and focused non-WH material within the question. In the

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second case, content activation occurs externally (prior to the question); in this case, a focus sequence comprising only a focused WH-term is associated with a question that is felicitous in a restricted set of contexts. In the next section, we move from single to multiple WH-questions; we begin consideration of multiple interrogations by reviewing superiority phenomena.

3. Superiority effects in multiple interrogations 3.1. Syntactic accounts (1)

a. b.

Who bought what?
What did who buy?

The contrast in (1a, b), repeated here, is often given as a central exemplar of the superiority effect. A multiple WH-question in English, like a single WH-question, contains a fronted WH-term in [Spec, CP] (specifier of CP) position; it also includes one or more WH-terms in situ: terms that have not been moved by WH-fronting in the syntax and therefore occupy base positions at surface structure (cf. note 1). The superiority effect has been explained syntactically and pragmatically, as well as in accounts that invoke both structure and function. As a seminal structural statement of the constraint governing the superiority effect, consider (17), in which the relative S-structure positions of the WHterms are limited by Chomsky’s (1973) Superiority Condition: (17)

Superiority Condition: No rule can involve X, Y in the structure . . . X . . . [. . . Z . . . WYV . . .] . . ., where the rule applies ambiguously to Z and Y, and Z is superior to Y. The category A is superior to the category B if every major category dominating A dominates B as well but not conversely.

The Superiority Condition (17) looks at a D-structure with two sources of WH-movement and requires that a rule like WH-movement select the superior source. Because who in subject position is superior in the base to what in object position, the rule of WHmovement, applying ambiguously to who and what, must apply to who, yielding (1a). (1b) is excluded because WH-movement did not involve the superior term in that example. (Vacuous movement for the subject WH-term is assumed here, but cf. Chomsky, 1986.) Later accounts of superiority invoked the Empty Category Principle (ECP), a general constraint (cf. for instance, Chomsky, 1986) requiring that an empty category be licensed: (18)

Empty Category Principle: A nonpronominal empty category must be properly governed, where A properly governs B iff A theta-governs or antecedentgoverns B.

(19a), as the LF-representation for (1a), shows both empty categories properly governed; but (19b), as the LF representation for (1b), is ill formed because the subject empty

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category is neither theta governed nor antecedent-governed (cf. Lasnik and Saito, 1984; LF stands for ‘logical form’). (19)

a. b.

Problematic to the ECP account of (1a, b), however, was an example like (20): (20)

Who knows what who bought?

The ECP does not distinguish the embedded question in the multiple interrogation (20) from the matrix question (1b); yet (20) is grammatical. In addition, (21a, b) from Pesetsky (1987) display the same superiority effect as do (1a, b), although the LF representations (22a, b) show the traces of LF-movement properly governed in both cases: (21)

a. b.

(22)

a. b.

Whomi did you persuade ti [PRO to read whatj]? ??Whatj did you persuade whomi [PRO to read tj]?

Lasnik and Saito (1992) therefore abandoned an ECP approach to superiority phenomena and proposed an Operator Disjointness Condition (ODC), reformulated by Epstein (1998) as the Scope-Marking Condition (SMC): (23)

Scope-Marking Condition: In the LF component, a Wh in situ Y can adjoin to a WH-chain X only if X c-commanded Y at S-structure.

The SMC assumed LF-adjunction of a WH in situ to a scope-marking WH-chain rather than to a WH-phrase (chain head), stipulating that the WH-chain must have c-commanded WH in situ at S-structure, where a chain c-commands an item iff all members of the chain c-command that item. An important consequence of (23) is an account not only for the grammatical status of (20) but also for its restricted interpretation. Notice that in situ who in (20) must take wide scope; that is, it contrasts with what in Baker’s (1970) example: (24)

Who knows where we bought what?

(24) is ambiguous, in that in situ what can be associated with the WH-phrase in either the embedded or the matrix [Spec, CP]: (24) can be answered by either (25a) or (25b): (25)

a. b.

John knows where we bought what. John knows where we bought biscuits, and Mary knows where we bought tea.

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In (20), in contrast, in situ who can be associated only with the WH-phrase in the matrix [Spec, CP], so that (26b) is an acceptable answer but (26a) is not: (26)

a. b.




John knows what who bought. John knows what Bill bought, and Mary knows what Ralph bought.

In order to capture this type of contrast, Baker proposed a Q morpheme in interrogative Comp; scope of a WH-phrase might be represented via coindexation with matrix or embedded Q, so that what in (24) would be coindexed with either matrix or embedded Q, whereas who in (20) would be coindexed only with matrix Q. By the SMC, in situ who in (20) cannot adjoin to what in the embedded [Spec, CP] for the same reason that a similar adjunction cannot occur in (1b): All members of the WH-chain hwhat, ti do not c-command who at S-structure. The WH-chain headed by who in matrix [Spec, CP] does, however, ccommand in situ who, so that the latter term can be adjoined at the matrix level. Scope of in situ who is therefore matrix level, yielding an interpretation associated with response (26b). In contrast, the SMC will permit scope marking for what in (24) at both the embedded and the matrix levels, because all members of the WH-chains headed by both who and where ccommand what at S-structure. Returning to constraint on movement, we see a locality metric in Chomsky’s (1995) Minimal Link Condition (MLC): (27)

Minimal Link Condition: K attracts a only if there is no b, b closer to K than a, such that K attracts b.

Under Chomsky’s Minimalist framework, syntactic movement (actually feature movement), is recast as a feature-checking attraction between two elements. Like the earlier Superiority Condition, the MLC will preclude fronting of a WH-term a to a position where its WH features can be checked if (as in a multiple interrogation) it is in competition with a more local WH-term b, where greater locality of b with respect to K can be (informally) characterized as structural superiority: b will be closer to c-commanding K if b asymmetrically c-commands a. The more local WH-term will move in the syntax to [Spec, CP] in order to check the strong [þWH] feature of C. (See, for instance, Boskovic and Lasnik, 1999; Marantz, 1995; Tanaka, 1999 for applications of the MLC to superiority phenomena.) We have therefore seen two types of structural accounts for superiority phenomena: Chomsky’s movement-constraining Superiority and (later) Minimal Link Conditions, and the representation-constraining ECP and ODC/SMC conventions. Another representational approach, developed in Pesetsky (1987) and May (1985), utilized a Path Containment Condition (PCC): (28)

Path Containment Condition: Intersecting A0 -categorial paths must embed, not overlap.

Under this approach, each path created by syntactic movement comprises a sequence of nodes connecting a moved category and its trace. If two paths intersect (share a segment),

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(28) requires that one path properly contain all the category members of the other. Again assuming adjunction at LF of WH in situ to a WH-phrase in [Spec, CP], the empirical consequences of the PCC are similar to those of the SMC on examples like (1a, b); but the PCC fails on (20), because the A0 -chain headed by what will overlap the chain headed by in situ, LF-moved who. There is another set of examples, however, on which the PCC is more successful than either the SMC or the MLC: examples in which the addition of a second WH-phrase in situ ameliorates a structure like (1b). Thus, consider grammatical (29): (29)

What did who buy where?

Although the addition of where to (1b) yields grammatical (29), adjunction at LF of who to the scope-marking chain headed by what will still be illicit by the SMC, because one member of the chain hwhat, ti does not c-command who at S-Structure. The MLC, moreover, will block syntactic movement of what, because shorter movement of who would be an option. The PCC, in contrast, accounted for (29) by utilizing path union. Thus, May (1985) proposed that in the case of two WH-terms in situ, the PCC should be evaluated with respect to the union of those paths. This approach correctly predicts that (29) will be well-formed. A further type of example, however, is explained by neither the PCC, the SMC, nor the MLC: biclausal examples like (30a), structured as in (30b). (30)

a. b.

What did John learn to do where?

In the ambiguous string (30a), where can modify either do or learn. (30b) represents the latter interpretation, under which where is a matrix-level adjunct, modifying learn. Under this interpretation, LF-movement paths for where and what will overlap, so that the PCC will incorrectly predict (30a) to be ungrammatical under the desired interpretation. Given matrix-level where, the SMC and the MLC will likewise rule out (30a), because the trace of the WH-phrase in [Spec, CP] does not c-command where at Sstructure. To summarize, I have considered syntactic accounts of superiority phenomena. We reviewed an early movement account, Chomsky’s (1973) Superiority Condition; various constraints on representation were then discussed. An ECP approach was challenged by examples (20) and (21b); the Operator Disjointness Condition of Lasnik and Saito (1992) and its reformulation as Epstein’s (1998) Scope-Marking Condition were better motivated empirically, with the SMC also providing an explanation for scopal interpretation of WH in situ. Chomsky’s (1995) Minimal Link Condition bore the same liabilities as the earlier Superiority Condition when confronted by crucial examples like (20) and (29); the Path Containment Condition (May, 1985; Pesetsky, 1987), although similar at some points to the SMC, did not, crucially, explain the status of an example like (20) but did predict the ameliorative effect of the second WH in situ in (29). But neither the SMC, the MLC, nor the PCC accounted for biclausal example (30a), where the fronted WH-phrase originates in the embedded clause and the WH in situ is matrix level.

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3.2. Pragmatic approaches To review the approaches considered thus far, consider the following examples, against which the syntactic accounts discussed in Section 3.1 can be assessed: (31)

a. b.

??Which boy was which book bought by? Which book was bought by which boy?

Because (31a) bypasses the structurally superior (and therefore more local to matrix [Spec, CP]) WH-phrase which book to front the prepositional object NP which boy, its reduced grammaticality is predicted by the Superiority Condition as well as by the MLC; (31b) conforms to structural superiority/locality constraints and is correctly predicted to be grammatical by both conditions. The SMC will also distinguish between (31a) and (31b): It rules out (31a) because the trace of the moved WH-NP which boy does not c-command in situ which book at S-structure, but it rules in (31b) because both the fronted WH-phrase which book and its WH-trace in [Spec, IP] c-command in situ which boy. The PCC likewise excludes (31a), because movement paths for the two which-NPs will overlap rather than embed.7 Although (31a) and (31b) differ in acceptability, however, it is significant that (31a) is not as bad as its structural counterpart (32): (32)




Who was what bought by?

The ameliorative effect of the occurrence of which-NPs in an example like (31a) is even more pronounced in an example like (33b): (33)

a. b.

Which boy bought which book? Which book did which boy buy?

This effect was discussed at length in Pesetsky (1987), one of a number of accounts of multiple interrogation phenomena that have not relied solely on structural distinctions between grammatical and ungrammatical questions. Although syntactic in approach, Pesetsky’s (1987) account of examples like (33a, b) drew on discourse facts. Other factors being equal, examples like (33a, b) ought to behave like their structural counterparts in (1a, b); yet (33b), unlike (1b), is grammatical. Pesetsky attributed this difference to the

7 The NP-trace of which book c-commands which boy as well in (31b), but Epstein (1998) distinguished in his SMC analysis between A0 - and A-chains, such that it is the A0 -chain but not the linked A-chain in an example like (31b) that is relevant to SMC application. It is of interest that the PCC, if it considered both strands of the linked A0 - and A-chains in examples like (31a) and (31b), could also distinguish between preposition-stranding (31a) and its pied-piping counterpart (i):

(i) ?By which boy was which book bought? (i), although not fully grammatical, is preferable to (31b), a distinction that could be accounted for by the PCC if its path computation combined A0 - and A-movement paths.

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occurrence of which boy rather than who as questioned subject NP in (33b) and characterized the which-phrase as discourse-linked or D-linked. The introduction of D-linked phrases like which book and which boy presupposes that speaker and hearer share knowledge of contextual sets of books and boys; Pesetsky proposed that D-linked phrases were not quantified phrases and therefore did not move at LF, obviating any PCC violation. Erteschik-Shir (1997), although sharing with Pesetsky the conclusion that discourse linking is crucial to the grammaticality of an example like (33b), questioned the reference to discourse-theoretic factors in the context of an explicitly structural account, pointing out that an LF-movement rule would then have to refer to extrasentential context for its application. She cited the following example of Pesetsky’s, in which D-linking is a consequence of the textual context itself rather than the WH-phrase structure but permits the subject WH-phrase in situ that is disallowed in (1b). (34)

I know that we need to install transistor A, transistor B, and transistor C, and I know that these three holes are for transistors, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out from the instructions where what goes!

Kuno and Takami (1993), like Pesetsky, identified discourse-theoretic considerations; the following functional constraints selected between multiple interrogation structures, however, rather than feeding syntactic rules: (35)

a.

b.

Sorting Key Hypothesis: In a multiple WH-question, the leftmost WHword represents the key for sorting relevant pieces of information in the answer. List Requirement Hypothesis: Why and how acquire the property of for what reason and in what manner in contexts that make it clear that there is a predetermined list of items that corresponds to each of the multiple WH-expressions in the sentence.

In (35a), Kuno and Takami proposed that the relative position of the WH-phrases in a multiple interrogation like (1a) or (1b) will reflect the speaker’s arrangement of information. The occurrence of which-phrases in (33b) suggests available lists of possible referents (purchasers and purchased items), so that either piece of information may be the sorting key and either which-phrase can be fronted. Kuno and Takami utilized (35b) as well as the syntactic constraint (36) to explain the contrast between (37a), on the one hand, and (37b, c), on the other: (36)

S00 -WH Hypothesis: Why and how are base generated as S00 adjuncts, whereas other WH-adjuncts are base generated as daughters of VP.

(37)

a. b. c.




Tell me who came why. Tell me who bought what why. Tell me who came for what reason.

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Independently motivated in Kuno and Takami (1993) by facts involving a range of fronted elements, (36) rules out (37a) because sentence-final why would need to be dominated by VP, in violation of (36). In (37c), however, sentence-final for what reason, unconstrained by (36), can occur legitimately as a VP-level adjunct. In (37b), the occurrence of three questioned terms insinuates three discourse-established lists: a list of purchasers, a list of purchased items, and a list of reasons for purchase. By (35b), the contextual presence of these predetermined lists permits why to acquire the property of for what reason and therefore to appear under VP. Unaccounted for, however, is the contrast in (38): (38)

a. b.

Who bought what why?
What did who buy why?

By (35b), (38b) should, like (37b) and (38a), be an ameliorated example. In Section 3, I have reviewed syntactic and discourse-theoretic accounts of multiple interrogation. A residue of data will challenge a purely syntactic account; a discoursetheoretic account is more flexible but is also challenged to establish a consistent model. The model introduced in the next section is a pragmatic one; it is argued that superiority effects in multiple interrogations are driven by discourse requirements based on the same conventions (discussed in Section 2) that serve single WH-questions.

4. The interpretation of multiple interrogations We now return to the findings regarding single WH-questions in Section 2 and consider their extension to multiple interrogations; we see that multiple interrogations, like single WH-questions, are sensitive to contingencies of focus and vary with respect to context dependency. As we study prosody and focus sequences within multiple interrogations, we see that (a) exclusion of non-WH material in the question focus is again associated with context dependence, and (b) prosodic prominence (nuclear stress in the question focus) is associated with WH in situ. Recall first that the prosodic pattern in (3b) (repeated here) was associated with relative contextual dependence and thus a need for contextual priming, as was reflected in (15) and (16) (also repeated): (3b) (15) (16)

Who bought the book? hWHi ! hWH, . . .i A WH-question occurs under heightened contextual dependence if its felicitous utterance requires specific priming context.

Although contextual dependence was associated in (3b) with a stressed WH-term, we now consider multiple interrogation examples in which a stressed WH-term is typical and bears no special association with contextual dependence. Consider (39): (39)

Who bought what?

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In the multiple interrogation (39), two items are questioned; it appears, moreover, that stress must fall on the WH in situ.8 Thus, (40) is prosodically ill-formed, although the corresponding single WH-question with a stressed verb, as in (41), is accepted.9 8

Notice that the in-situ questioned term is also stressed in a concealed question like (i):

(i) Who bought a book? One possible response for (i) interprets a book as an interrogative phrase and (i), therefore, as a multiple interrogation with a family-of-answers interpretation, warranting a response like the following: (ii) John bought Dilbert, and Mary bought The Far Side. Under a contour like that in (iii), however, an answer like (ii) is inappropriate: (iii) Who bought a book? We see that an indefinite interpreted as a WH in situ must, like a morphological WH in situ, receive stress. Now notice the following contrast: (iv) a. Who bought a book? b. What did some kid buy? (ivb), unlike (iva), does not generate a family-of-answers response. Thus, a concealed multiple interrogation is constrained both intonationally and structurally like a multiple WH-question: The indefinite interpreted as WH in situ must be stressed and cannot occur in subject position (cf.
What did who buy?). (An example like (ivb), with an indefinite in subject position, can be used under only a limited set of circumstances. Thus, a mother, anxious about her child’s purchase, might run into a store after her child has come and gone, asking, What did some kid [come in and] buy?) 9 It is not the case that the unacceptability of (40) is due to the fact that stress is not sentence-final in that example; an example like the following is just as bad: (i)
Who gave what to Mary? It is true, however, as pointed out by Peter Culicover, that an example like (40) could occur in a repair context like the following: (ii) (No, no, no,) I didn’t say who bought what; I said, who sought what? Because an example like (41) also occurs naturally in a similar context (I didn’t say who bought the book; I said, who sought the book?), it might be argued that the difference between (40) and (41) is trivial. Notice, however, that the question in an example like (ii) is used not as a question but as a quotation. When the repair involves a true question, the string in (41) is felicitous in (iiib), but the corresponding derivative (iiia) of (40) is ill formed: (iii) a.
People may have admired his books, but who ever bought what? b. People may have admired his books, but who ever bought his work? A reviewer has pointed out, however, that intonation of the shape who bought what? can occur in a nonrepair context, given appropriate discourse priming: (iv) I know that lots of people picked things up and looked at them, and that they priced them, but who bought what? An example like (iv), however, contrasts with the ungrammatical (v): (v)
I know that lots of people picked things up and looked at them, and that they priced them, but who did buy what? A possible explanation for the ill-formedness of (v) may lie not in the stressing of did but in the destressing of buy. Destressing implies that we can presuppose its content (that buying occurred): However, buying is absent in the priming discourse. That the stressing of buy is expected corroborates the suggestion made here that contextual priming and stress shift are associated.

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(40) (41)

21




Who bought what? Who bought the book?

An account of multiple WH-questions must explain the contrast between (39) and (40), on the one hand; and (40) and (41), on the other.10 It must also account for the superiority effect in (1a, b), repeated here: (1)

a. b.

Who bought what? What did who buy?




The status of (40) reflects an apparent constraint on stress assignment in multiple WHquestions; further scrutiny of intonation in (39), however, tells us that although primary stress falls on WH in situ, a secondary stress (as in the single WH-question) is assigned to the fronted WH-phrase, permitting us to derive a focus sequence. Stressed in situ what in (39) permits focus projection to the VP bought what and is therefore the nuclear term in the question focus linked with the fronted WH-term who. Recalling the notion of focus sequence developed in Section 2, we can formulate a focus sequence for (39): (42)

hwho, bought whati

Recall now that in the more typical intonational pattern for the English single WHquestion, stress falls on non-WH material and activates novel or inactive content that is associated with the fronted WH-phrase as a key addition to the discourse. In the more context-dependent single WH-question, however, focus falls on the fronted WH-term itself; because no non-WH material in the body of the question is highlighted, the listener expects that its content is preactivated, and the felicity of the question is therefore contingent on contextual priming. These two focus patterns are found in multiple interrogations as well. Recall (34), for instance, an example in which supporting context licensed a subject WH in situ. It has been noted (cf. Erteschik-Shir, 1997) that an ameliorated example like (34) is still not as good as (1a). We can characterize it as dependent, like (3b), on contextual support for its felicity; we might indeed observe that (34) resembles (3b) in that non-WH material in the question must be activated by the preceding text and will be presupposed in the question. The question focus in (34) thus 10 Contextually justified stress shift from the in situ WH-phrase to a content word occurs in an example like (i), adduced by a reviewer:

(i) Who sent money to whom? A question like (i) might appear in the following priming context: I know that many people gave verbal support to a lot of the candidates, but who sent money to whom? The reviewer points out, however, that an example like (ii) is impossible: (ii)
Who sent this money to whom? The acceptability contrast between (i) and (ii) may be due to the informational difference between money in (i), presumably representing a novel or inactive quantity, and this money in (ii), with the demonstrative suggesting an entity that is informationally given and active. In such a case, stress shift from a more conventional locus (the in situ WH-phrase) is not justified.

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resides narrowly in stressed what; where receives secondary stress and is linked in a focus sequence to stressed in situ what: (43)

hwhere, whati

(43) shows us that (34) also resembles (3b) in that in neither question is any non-WH material focused; recall the focus sequence (14) associated with (3b) and repeated here: (14)

hwhoi

Recall also that (15), repeated here, handles single WH-questions; we can formulate the metric (44), as an expansion of (15), to handle multiple WH-questions: (15)

hWHi ! hWH, . . .i

(44)

hWH, WHi ! hWH, . . . WH . . .i

(44) states that a focus sequence linking the fronted WH-term in a multiple interrogation to a question focus comprising only a WH-term permits less contextual independence (entails greater contextual restriction) than a sequence in which the question focus contains nonWH content. Absence of non-WH focus means that no material in the body of the question is activated (in association with the fronted WH-phrase) as key addition to the discourse. In this case, non-WH material in the body of the question is presupposed and must have been activated in the immediately preceding context. When a WH-term is linked with focused non-WH material within the question itself, however, that material need not have been activated by preceding discourse context via context priming. The question under consideration can then occur in a less restricted set of contexts. (44) constrains the form of a multiple WH-question by favoring the inclusion of focused non-WH material linked with the fronted WH-term. As was indicated in discussion of (39)–(41), however, an additional prosodic constraint appears to be associated with multiple interrogations, insofar as the WH in situ typically receives primary stress and thus is the nuclear term within that focus: the term from which focus projects. The intonational contour in (40), in which stress occurred on the verb rather than the in situ WH-term, appeared to be unacceptable. Because there may be more than one in situ WHphrase, as in (29), we cannot say that in situ WH must receive primary (most prominent) stress; rather, primary stress appears to fall on one in situ WH-phrase and secondary stress on the other(s).11 Thus, (29) will show the prosodic pattern in (45); where bears primary 11 Scholars have discussed secondary stress under different frameworks: Thus, Lambrecht developed the notion of the secondary activation accent whose presence signaled that a discourse-topical referent had not been pre-established as a sentence-topical referent, and Erteschik-Shir (1997) introduced the subordinate f-structure that analyzed a topical constituent in terms of subordinate topic and focus. Notice that in both of these cases, secondary stress is explained functionally insofar as it serves to identify iconically an informational category: topic or subordinate focus. Ladd (1996), in contrast, argued that primary and secondary accents might not only bear different iconic value but also occur in different metrical sites: Accent position is determined by metrical structure of an utterance, so sentence stress is an effect of relative prominence within metrical articulation of the sentence.

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stress, and what and who bear secondary stress (primary stress is indicated by 1 and secondary stress by 2):12 (45)

What-2 did who-2 buy where-1?

Primary or secondary stress on WH in situ is consistent with its novel status as an unidentified quantity in the body of the question: (46)

In a multiple interrogation, WH in situ occurs in a position of relative prominence.

(46) need not specify which of two in situ WH-terms receives primary stress; in (29), for instance, the stress pattern
What did who-1 buy where-2? is ruled out by the same focus projection contingencies (detailed presently) that rule out the intonation in (47) for (1b): (47)




What did who buy?

We can now apply (44) and (46) to the original contrast (1a, b). Stress in those examples can be marked as in (37) and either (48) or (49): (37) (48) (49)

Who bought what? What did who buy?
What did who buy?


(37) satisfies (46): Primary stress occurs on the WH in situ in that example. This stress assignment, moreover, is felicitous with respect to (44), as discussed earlier: Focus can project from the stressed object NP to the VP, deriving the focus sequence hwho, bought whati. (48) satisfies (46) as well, insofar as primary stress falls again on WH in situ; but the focus sequence associated with what, displayed in (50a), reveals that acceptability of the question is dependent on contextual priming. Because focus on the subject NP who is narrow, projecting no further than NP, all other material in the body of the question (all content, therefore, because who is unidentified) is presupposed. This in turn reduces the number of contexts in which (1b) could be uttered felicitously; (48) would be felicitous only with discourse priming to introduce the information that some things were bought by some individuals. (49), in contrast, activates content in the body of the question, as indicated by the focus sequence (50b). Whether stressed buy is narrowly focused or projects focus to the sentence-level, the focus contains non-WH material. (49) does not, however, satisfy (46), because the in situ WH-term is not in a position of relative prominence. (One informant commented that (49) would be a plausible question if it asked about an individual named Who—in other words, if it were a single rather than multiple interrogation that did not request a value for who as well as what.) 12 A reviewer has pointed out that primary stress in (45) may also fall on either what or who under a reference question interpretation.

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(50)

a. b.

hwhat, whoi hwhat, did who buy ti

We might now ask why the following stress pattern for (1b) is not well formed: (51)




What did who-2 buy-1?

In other words, why can we not assign who a secondary stress, as in (45)? It seems that (46) requires another clause to exclude (51): (52)

In a multiple interrogation, primary stress occurs on WH in situ, and every WH in situ occurs in a position of relative prominence.

Occurrence of primary stress on an in situ WH-term in a multiple interrogation designates it as the nuclear term within the question focus. Occurrence of stress on WH in situ is appropriate, as noted, given its novel informational status; occurrence of primary stress on WH in situ, moreover, exploits intonation to establish a link across the WH-terms in the English multiple interrogation in the context of a focal sequence. The capacity of focus to project further than the stressed WH-term, however, is crucial, a point developed further in the Section 5.1 discussion of focus projection from adjuncts. Returning now to other multiple question types, we can ask whether (44) and (52) extend to an example like (33b). Recall that (33a) and (33b), repeated here, do not show a grammaticality contrast, in spite of the fact that an in situ WH-phrase is in subject position in (33b), just as in (1b): (33)

a. b.

Which boy bought which book? Which book did which boy buy?

Possible intonational contours for (33b) are given in (53). (53)

a. b. c.

Whicha -2 book did whichb -2 boy buy-1? Whicha -2 book did whichb boy-1 buy? Whicha book-2 did whichb boy-1 buy?

The intonational contrasts (53a–c) might invite the following differentiated responses: (54)

a.

A: B:

b.

A: B: A: B:

c.

Whicha -2 book did whichb -2 boy buy-1? It was my friend here who bought this one; that one was bought by the tall kid. Whicha -2 book did whichb boy-1 buy? Jason bought this book; Ralph bought that one. Whicha book-2 did whichb boy-1 buy? Jason bought War and Peace, and Ralph bought Sons and Lovers.

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The possible responses in (54a–c) suggest that stress on which in a which-NP presumes that the NP set represents preactivated, presupposed information; the questioner is therefore asking for distinctions among a discourse-established set of entities. In contrast, stress on N within the which-NP implies that the questioner is activating or introducing that discourse set represented by N. Entity names are therefore more likely to appear in the answer in the latter case (cf. (54c)), whereas demonstratives might be adequateto identify constant values in a presupposed set (cf. (54a)). In order to determine now whether (53a–c) are consistent with (52), we must ask whether every WH in situ occurs in a position of relative prominence, with primary stress falling on an in situ WH-term. It has been observed (cf. Selkirk, 1983) that an NP, like a sentence, is a domain for focus with its own primary stress. Focus will project from the N head to NP level but not from which, where it will remain narrow. In (53b, c), focus can therefore project from a stressed head N to the WH-NP level in whichb boy (in contrast to the case in (53a), where whichb is stressed and its focus is narrow): In both (53b) and (53c), the NP which boy is thereby a focused NP in the sentence domain. In (53a), with a secondary stress on in situ whichb but primary stress on a non-WH-term (buy), in situ which receives secondary stress within IP but primary stress within NP (cf. starred (51), in which in situ who receives primary stress in no domain). The well-formedness of (53a) suggests a further revision of (46/52) as (55), by which primary stress in some (IP or NP) focus domain falls on WH in situ. (55)

In a multiple interrogation, primary stress in some focus domain occurs on or projects to WH in situ, and every WH in situ occurs in a position of relative prominence.

When whichb is stressed in (53a), WH in situ (in situ which) receives primary stress in the NP domain; when the N head of the in situ which-NP is stressed in (53b) and (53c), we can say that WH in situ (now a which-NP in situ) receives primary stress—projected from boy to the WH-phrase which boy—in the sentence domain. Remarks regarding focus projection in a which-NP extend to other types of questioned phrases: Thus, for instance, stress on father in whose father or on long in how long projects to the level of the questioned phrase (whose father, how long), and it can therefore be said that (projected) stress falls on that phrase. (53a–c) must also be assessed with respect to (44). (56a), (56b), and (56c) show focus sequences that can be associated with (53a), (53b), and (53c), respectively: (56)

a. b. c.

hwhicha, did whichb boy buy ti hwhicha, whichb boyi hwhicha book, whichb boyi

As in the case of the single WH-question (12) (Which boy bought the book?), the position of the secondary stress within the which-NP determines whether the first member of the focus sequence is simply which (stressed which) or the full which-NP (stressed N). We see that in each of (56a–c), the focus in the body of the question

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includes non-WH material: an open proposition in (56a), and the set boy in (56b, c). Thus, the well-formedness of intonation contours (53a–c) is consistent with (44) and (55). To summarize the discussion in this section, we observed that stress patterns in English multiple WH-questions, like those in single WH-questions, function informationally to activate material associating the question focus with the fronted WH-term in a pairing relating the question to prior and future discourse. In the multiple interrogation, two constraints on the form of a multiple interrogation, (44) and (55), were developed: (44) (55)

hWH, WHi ! hWH, . . . WH . . .i In a multiple interrogation, primary stress in some focus domain occurs on or projects to WH in situ, and every WH in situ occurs in a position of relative prominence.

(55) requires that primary stress in some focus domain fall on WH in situ, with any other in situ WH-term occurring in a position of relative prominence. The felicitous positioning of stress in a multiple interrogation is also constrained by (44), however; the structural site of WH in situ must also permit focus to project to a broader constituent containing non-WH material. Felicity of multiple WH-structures, constrained by (44), is therefore related to that of single WH-questions, constrained by (15), but it is additionally complicated by (55). Both (15) and (44) rank structures for contextual dependence; when a question focus activates non-WH material, a question can be posed felicitously without contextual priming. If the focus contains no non-WH material, however, felicitous occurrence of both a single WH-question like (3b) (Who bought the book?) and a multiple-WH example like (34) or (48) will require priming context, provided for felicitous (34) but not for unacceptable (48): (34)

(48)

I know that we need to install transistor A, transistor B, and transistor C, and I know that these three holes are for transistors, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out from the instructions where what goes!
What did who buy?

The implication of this analysis is that a question like (1b) is limited to a highly restricted set of possible contexts rather than being simply ungrammatical. The fact that a multiple interrogation with a subject WH in situ can be ameliorated by priming context, as in (34), suggests that the limitation on (1b) is one of contextual restriction: An example like (1b) is uttered in a more restricted set of contexts than is an example like (1a), because focus on what in (1b) can project no further than the WH-phrase and therefore activates no non-WH material in the question. It is important to note that contextual restrictedness itself represents a spectrum: Thus, the priming discourse context provided for (34), although very specific, is plausible. Other examples, however,

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are more difficult to match with a meaningful priming context and thereby appear more deeply unacceptable.13 In the next section, (44) and (55) are applied to a range of multiple interrogation structures, as we consider the interaction of stress, focus projection, and speaker index.

5. Other multiple interrogation structures 5.1. Focus projection from arguments and adjuncts The preceding account of the status of (1b) explained the subject-object asymmetry in multiple interrogation—such that an object WH in situ is permitted (as in (1a)) where a subject WH in situ fails (as in (1b))—as a direct consequence of focus projection: The stressed subject WH in situ in (1b) necessarily bears a narrow focus interpretation, as a consequence of restricted focus projection from a subject argument. The questioner therefore activates no informative content in a focus pairing that includes moved and in situ WH-terms; material that is predicated of the fronted WH-term must therefore be introduced or activated in prior discourse. The subject-object asymmetry in multiple interrogations occurs exactly as predicted by focus projection phenomena: The restrictions on focus projection from subject position parallel restrictions on subject WH in situ. Another source of asymmetry in multiple interrogations is that between arguments and adjuncts: Thus, compare (1a), in which WH in situ is a verbal argument, with Kuno and Takami’s (1993) (37a), in which WH in situ is an adjunct: (1) (37)

a. a.

Who bought what?
Tell me who came why.

Like the subject-object asymmetry, the argument-adjunct asymmetry illustrated by the contrast between (1a) and (37a) is driven by focus projection contingencies. In exactly those structural contexts in which focus cannot project from an adjunct position (e.g., in situ why in (37a)), that is, we find acceptability restrictions: Absence of non-WH material within the narrow question focus is associated with context dependence.

13

Thus, consider (i), offered by a reviewer as an intractable example:




(i) Which book did whose father read? The contexts in which the question (i) might be asked are highly limited; one would have to make accessible not only a set of books and a set of readers but also a contextual set of children of the readers. One might imagine a classroom of 10-year-olds who have created books and have invited parents in to read one another’s products; each father has time to read exactly one book. The teacher might later ask the class: (ii) I know that your fathers were each able to read one of your classmates’ books, and now tell me: Which book did whose father read? It is the challenge in designing this highly specific context that renders decontextualized (i) so deeply unacceptable.

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As we consider a range of adjuncts, however, we also find differences between adjuncts. The discussion in Section 3.2 mentioned Kuno and Takami’s (1993) proposal that differences between why or how and other WH in situ adjuncts derived from structural (attachment) distinctions; here, it is argued that differences among adjuncts, like differences between adjuncts and arguments or between subjects and objects, derive from distinctive focus projection contingencies. In this section, those differences are explored; we first observe the ameliorative effects of the addition of certain in situ WH-adjuncts, attributing the amelioration to an effect on focus projection. We go on to observe distinctions among adjuncts; the theme that focus projection possibilities from specific argument and adjunct positions translate into grammaticality distinctions is pursued further as the present account is applied to examples (21b) and (30b), two structures adduced in Section 3. Consider first a contrast among adjuncts as we review (29) and (38b), repeated here. Recall that although the subject WH in situ cannot project focus, we saw that a structure with subject WH in situ was ameliorated when priming context was added in (34); however, we also saw an ameliorating effect when a second WH in situ was added in (29). The amelioration in (34) enriches priming context, but the amelioration in (29) enriches the question focus by broadening focus projection possibilities; the addition of an adjunct permits non-WH material to be included in the question focus. Notice first that primary stress in (29), repeated here, falls on the final WH in situ, as in (57a), satisfying (55); yet an example like (29) contrasts in acceptability with an example like (38b), containing a why adjunct and the prosody indicated in (57b): (29) (38) (57)

b. a. b.

What did who buy where?
What did who buy why? What did who-2 buy where-1?
What did who-2 buy why-1?

Although (38b)/(57b), like (29), satisfies (55), (38b) is unlike (29) in that it is associated, by (44), with relative contextual dependence. This distinction between (38b) and (29) is in turn due to focus projection contingencies; to understand how focus projection facts differentiate (29) and (38b), consider the following examples: (58)

a. b.

John bought some books at the Coop. John bought some books out of boredom.

The locative sentence-final PP in (58a) answers where; the reason PP in (58b) answers why. Notice that (58a) is an appropriate answer to What did John do? because focus in (58a) (under an assertion rather than contrastive focus reading) can be construed as projected to VP level. (58b), however, cannot answer that question; its focus is narrowly restricted to the PP, so that it is an appropriate answer only to a question like Why did

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John buy books?14 (Although observations in this discussion are descriptive, a more explanatory account would draw on lexical-conceptual distinctions between adjunct types in a lexical entry, as in Hale and Keyser, 1993. See Gussenhoven, 1983, for insightful distinctions between adjunct types with respect to focus projection phenomena; see also discussion in Kennedy, 1993.) It is therefore by (44) that the status of (38b) is degraded and that of (29) (cf. (1b)) is improved; focus cannot project from why (or how; cf. note 14) in the same way that it projects from where and is therefore interpreted in (38b) only as narrow. The fronted WHphrase in (38b) is linked with the question focus in the focus sequence (59b) and the fronted WH-phrase in (29) is linked as in (59a); the absence of non-WH content in the question focus (why) for (38b) indicates that the contexts that admit (38b) are more restricted, by the metric (44), than those admitting (29): (59)

a. b.

hwhat, did who buy t wherei hwhat, whyi

This line of argument also explains the contrast between (60) and (61), both of which have a single adjunct WH in situ: (60) (61)

What did John buy where? What did John buy why?




In Section 3.2, we saw that Kuno and Takami (1993) explained the difference between in situ why and in situ where by their S00 -WH Hypothesis (36). This contrast was problematic 14

Observations regarding (38b) extend to (i), with a manner WH-term:




(i) What did who buy how? Many manner adjuncts class with reason rather than locative adjuncts with respect to focus projection; thus (ii) (like (58b) but unlike (58a)) is not an appropriate answer to What did John do? (ii) John bought a book HURRIEDLY. There are, however, certain manner phrases of the instrumental type that permit focus projection up to VP; thus John flattened the metal with a HAMMER projects focus to the VP level. That the multiple interrogation
What did John flatten how? is ungrammatical may be due to the fact that projection possibilities across manner PPs (questioned by how) are inconsistent. More acceptable would be What did John flatten with what? where an instrumental-type manner adjunct is specified. Differential focus projection in other PP types is reflected in the following contrast: (iii) a.
What did who buy for whom? b. What was bought by whom? The benefactive PP in (iiia) will not project focus upward, but the agentive PP in (iiib) will. Thus, (iva), with stress as indicated, will not answer What did John do? (requiring focus projection in (iva) to VP) but would be a better response for Why did John buy the building on the corner? (with focus projection to PP). (ivb), on the other hand, would permit focus projection to VP, as an appropriate answer for a question like What happened to the building on the corner? (iv) a. John bought that building for his business. b. It was bought by Dunkin’ Donuts.

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to an account that attributed the ungrammaticality of (61) to an ECP violation (with the trace of why not properly governed at LF): The trace of where in (60) should likewise provoke a violation, yet (60) is grammatical. Under the present account, the contrast between (60) and (61) accompanies a contrast across adjunct types, such that focus may project from a where adjunct but will not project from a why adjunct. This means that the question focus linked with fronted what in (60), displayed in the focus sequence (62a), activates more information than the question focus (only in situ why) in (61), displayed in the focus sequence (62b): (62)

a. b.

hwhat, did John buy t wherei hwhat, whyi

Compare now (29), (38a), and (38b), repeated here and marked for primary and secondary stress in (63a–c): (29) (38)

(63)

a. b.

What did who buy where? Who bought what why?
What did who buy why?

a. b. c.

What did who-2 buy where-1? Who bought what-2 why-1?
What did who-2 buy why-1?

As we have seen, primary stress on the adjunct where in (63a)/(29) permits a broader focus constituent; focus cannot project, however, from the adjunct why in (63c)/(38b). We saw that Kuno and Takami explained the contrast between grammatical (38a) and an ungrammatical example like
Who came why? by their List Requirement Hypothesis but did not account for the ungrammaticality of (38b). The analysis presented here explained the contrast between (29) and (38b); can it predict the grammaticality of (38a)? Notice, first, that an example like (58b) receives different focus interpretation when book receives a secondary stress, as in (64): (64)

John bought the book-2 out of boredom-1.

The descriptive generalization is that a stressed reason adjunct projects focus to a broader constituent if the verbal object receives secondary stress. Thus, (64) would, like (57), be an appropriate answer to What did John do? This suggests that focus in an example like (38a) can project from a stressed why adjunct, unlike the case in (38b) or (61), because in situ what receives secondary stress by (55). Focus in (38a) projects to VP and is paired with the fronted WH-phrase in the sequence hwho, bought what whyi, associated by (44) with relative contextual independence. Focus projection facts account as well for the degraded status of a structure like (21b) and the grammaticality of a structure like (30b), repeated here: (21) (30)

b. b.

??Whatj did you persuade whomi [PRO to read tj]?

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Recall that (21b), a case in which the trace of whom is properly governed after LFmovement, could be accounted for under Chomsky’s Superiority Condition (and his later MLC), was problematic for ECP-based accounts of superiority, but was again explained under Epstein’s SMC account. (30b), however, is not covered by either the MLC or the SMC, because the trace of fronted what does not c-command matrix-level where at Sstructure. Observe now that the status of both (21b) and (30b) can be explained under the present account as an effect of focus projection from WH in situ. By (55), whom in (21b) and where in (30b) occur in positions of relative prominence: (65)

a. b.

??What did you persuade whom to read? What did John learn to do where?

Now consider (66a, b), in which a [-WH] term instantiates WH in situ: (66)

a. b.

What did you persuade John to read? What did John learn to do in the army?

Both (66a) and (66b) are well formed as single-WH questions. Notice, however, that John in (66a) is interpreted as a narrow focus; (66a) could occur in I know what you got Bill to read, but what did you persuade John to read? In (66b), in contrast, focus can be interpreted broadly, so that the focus sequence in that example is hwhat, did John learn to do t in the Armyi. Applying these observations about focus projection from relevant argument or adjunct positions to (65a, b), we see that the focus sequence for (65a), given in (67a), restricts possible utterance contexts, because whom (like John in (66a)) is narrowly focused. The focus sequence for (65b), however, given in (67b), shows that focus can project from matrix level where to a string containing non-WH material: (67)

a. b.

hwhat, whomi hwhat, did John learn to do t wherei

To summarize, the contrast between (21b) and (30b) can be explained as an effect of focus projection possibilities from distinctive structural positions. Likewise, the WH in situ adjuncts in (29), (38a), and (38b), differentiated as potential sources of focus projection, played a crucial role in multiple interrogation grammaticality outcomes. Restrictions on focus projection may be due either to an argument’s structural position (e.g., subject position) or to an adjunct’s semantic role (e.g., location vs. cause); in both cases, however, the narrowly focused WH in situ requires specific support from prior context that must preactivate material presupposed in the question itself. 5.2. Focus projection and argument structure The crucial role of focus projection phenomena can be observed as well when those phenomena interact with argument structure (cf. Kennedy, 1999a). It was stated earlier that focus projection observes a subject-object asymmetry; yet note that although a stressed subject NP is typically interpreted as narrow sentence focus, certain verbs (like the verb of

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appearance transpire) permit a stressed subject to signal broad focus. Thus, consider (68), which could be used, under broad (projected to IP) focus interpretation, to initiate a discourse or to answer the question What did you find out? (68)

A MELODRAMA transpired in Vienna.

Notice, now, that transpire permits a subject WH in situ in (69): (69)

Where did what transpire?

The felicity of (69) can be understood as an effect of (44): It is because focus can project from the subject position of transpire to a broader string including non-WH material that the question will not require specific prior context. (70), as the focus sequence associated with the fronted WH-term in (69), displays the consequences of focus projection from the subject of this verb of appearance to a broader string.15 (70)

hwhere, did what transpire ti

We therefore continue to see that (44) and (55) interact to distinguish felicitous stress patterns in multiple interrogations. In the examples in Sections 5.1 and 5.2, we observed manipulations within the question itself that affected question focus and context dependency of the question, in accordance with conditions (44) and (55). By these conditions, primary stress must fall on WH in situ, such that focus projection then permits the question to activate or introduce non-WH content. Amelioration in the examples in Section 5.1 resulted from question-internal manipulations, leading to focus projection onto broader strings; thus focus projection phenomena explained distinctive effects of in situ WHadjuncts. In Section 5.2, focus projection facts explained the grammaticality of (69) as an effect of interaction between focus projection and argument structure and thus of focus constituency within the question itself. Once again, grammaticality results follow focus projection possibilities, here determined by particularities of argument structure and focus projection through that structure. 5.3. Speaker index, WH scope, and illocution We have observed that multiple interrogation felicity may be manipulated from without (via priming context) or from within (via manipulation of focus projection structures). In both cases, adjustments speak to metric (44) and affect relative contextual dependency of a multiple interrogation. In this section, I introduce logophoricity as another source of 15

(i)

Similar comments apply to (i): a. Why did what transpire? b. In the great cycle of life, why does what occur?

Inconsistency in judgments on examples like (69) and (ia, b) may be due to the locus of stress in those examples. Although consistent with (55), the positioning of primary focus violates the general preference in English for sentence-final stress to indicate broad focus.

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sentence informativeness that interacts in an interesting way with the information-highlighting of focus. Logophoricity, defined in a general sense as relatedness to speaker and/or hearer in a discourse context, has been shown to have a range of effects in areas such as anaphora (cf. Erteschik-Shir, 1997; Kuno, 1987) or specificity (cf. Kennedy, 1999b). Matrix verbs of discourse or cognition (e.g., verbs of speech, attention, or belief) can, to varying degrees, be used to reflect not only the view of the speaker of the utterance but also the perception of a speaker or hearer cited in the matrix clause. Thus, consider (71a–d): (71)

a. b. c. d.

The fool bought the book. John said that the fool bought the book. John denied that the fool bought the book. John muttered that the fool bought the book.

Use of the epithet the fool in (71a) reflects the attitude of the speaker toward the person who bought the book. In (71b), however, that epithet can reflect the attitude of either the speaker of the sentence or the speaker cited in the sentence: John. The epithet in (71c) represents the attitude only of the speaker of the sentence, but the epithet in (71d) reflects the attitude only of John. Using primary speaker to refer to the person uttering the sentence and secondary speaker to refer to the person cited in the sentence as source (by speech or belief) of the material in the embedded clause, we can say that verbs of indirect discourse/thought are able to reflect the logophoric intent of the primary and/or secondary speaker. Subscripts (1, 2) index a term in the embedded clause to either the primary or the secondary speaker in order to identify possible logophoricity; we can apply the following possible speaker indices to (71a–d): (72)

a. b. c. d.

The fool1 bought the book. John said that the fool1,2 bought the book. John denied that the fool1 bought the book. John muttered that the fool2 bought the book.

Consider logophoric effects, now, as we revisit ungrammatical (1b) and its grammatical embedding under the epistemic verb know in (20). Recall that the narrowly focused WH in situ entails restriction on the contexts in which (1b) can be uttered, leading to the ungrammatical status of the decontextualized question; yet (1b) can be grammatically embedded under know in (20): (1) (20)

b.




What did who buy? Who knows what who bought?

It was noted earlier that the in situ WH-phrase in embedded subject position in (20) must take wide scope, so that it pairs with the fronted matrix WH-phrase to derive a family of answers. Suppose, now, that we consider logophoric aspects of multiclausal questions: In an indirect question context like Baker’s (1970) example (24), repeated here, the question word what may reflect the inquiry of the primary speaker (under a wide-scope interpreta-

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tion), or it may reflect the secondary speaker’s inquiry (narrow-scope interpretation). Using speaker indexation resembling Baker’s Q-morpheme indexation but representing a discourse-theoretic rather than syntactic perspective, we can represent these two interpretations for (24) as (73a) and (73b): (24) (73)

a. b.

Who knows where we bought what? Who1 knows where2 we bought what1? Who1 knows where2 we bought what2?

Returning to (20), speaker indexation of the three question words yields (74): (74)

Who1 knows what2 who1 bought?

Note that an indexation like (73b), with both embedded WH-terms indexed to the same (secondary) speaker, is not available for (20). This is because speaker indexation, like Baker’s Q-morpheme indexation, recognizes and reflects the interpretive limitation on (20), relative to (24): In situ who in (20) must take wide scope, whereas in situ what in (24) may be either wide scope or narrow. The indexation in (74) (the only possible indexation for (20)) indicates that embedded who in (20) therefore will not bear the same logophoric relationship to preceding what as it did in (1b), because embedded who in (20)/(74) is the questioned term of the primary speaker. In this regard, (20) contrasts crucially with an example like (1b), where both WH-terms reflect questions of and will therefore be indexed to the same speaker (the primary speaker is the only speaker). We can now compare the way in which (1b) and (20) behave with respect to the metric (44). Within its clause, fronted what in (20)/(74) is the first term in the focus sequence (75): (75)

hwhat2, who1i

We can compare (75) to (50a), repeated in the following as the focus sequence associated with ungrammatical (1b): (50)

a.

hwhat, whoi

(75), like (50a), tells us that no non-WH material is activated by focus in the clause under consideration; it appears, prima facie, that previous discourse is relied on in both cases to activate predicate material. Closer inspection, however, reveals a crucial distinction between the two examples. Both WH-terms in the focus sequence (50a) must be indexed to the same (the only) speaker. The two WH-phrases in (75), however, are indexed to different speakers, because what (in embedded [Spec, CP] in the question (74)) is the question word of the secondary speaker. Embedded who, however, with necessarily matrixlevel scope, is a question word of the primary speaker: the questioner of the full utterance. As is reflected in the fact that its logophoric index (1) is lower than that of what (2), its value is not questioned by the logophoric source for what. Because what and who in (75) are question words of different speakers, the focus who in (75) does not have the same status as the focus who in (50a); (matrix scope) who in (75) is evaluated for the primary speaker’s

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query prior to evaluation of (lower scope) what and is thereby an informative focus for the embedded question. This informative character of the focus, due to the difference in logophoric indices for the two WH-terms in (75), permits grammaticality. (76) encodes the logophoricity factor of speaker index in the metric (44): (76)

a. b.

hWH, WHi ! hWH, . . . WH . . .i hWHn, WHni ! hWHn, WHmi, where n, m represent speaker index and m < n.

(76a) and (76b) are subcases of a metric that considers contextual dependence: In both cases, a focus sequence containing a less informative focus renders a question more restricted with respect to possible utterance context. Dependence on specific discourse support is elevated, under (76a), when the question focus comprises only WH in situ. But the focus becomes more informative, with the utterance context relatively less restricted, under (76b), when the speaker index of WH in situ is different from and lower than that of the fronted WH-term. The reasoning behind (76b) is as follows: A focus sequence pairing a fronted WH-term with a narrowly focused in situ WH-term (as in (1b), where in situ who receives narrow focus) will need contextual priming to ensure that presupposed material in the body of the question has been preactivated. But if, as in (74) and focus sequence (75), that in situ WH-term is logophorically indexed to and therefore evaluated by a lower indexed (primary, in (74)) speaker, we are provided with focused information in the question itself about the fronted term (embedded what in (74)): information in the form of the matrix valuation for the in situ WH-term. (76) also predicts the ungrammaticality of a statement like (77). Because the primary speaker is not asking a question, both WH-terms in this indirect question are indexed to the secondary speaker, as in (78), yielding the focus sequence (79). (77) (78) (79)




John knows what who bought. John knows what2 who2 bought. hwhat2, who2i




Notice that (77) becomes grammatical under only one interpretation: an echo question interpretation, as a further consequence of speaker index contingencies. An echo question word is necessarily a primary speaker question word, so that the echo question interpretation for (77) requires speaker indexation as in (80): (80)

John knows what2 who1 bought?

The embedded question in (80) classes with the one in (74) rather than the one in (78). We might ask, however, whether embedded who is the narrow and thus restrictive question focus for fronted matrix who—sharing logophoric indexation to the primary speaker—in (20). To address this issue, note that a term whose focus is narrow within an embedded domain need not be a narrow focus at matrix level. Notice in (81a), for instance, that primary stress within an embedded domain constrains focus interpretation within that domain but not within a higher domain; thus compare (81a) and (81b):

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a. b.

John knows what Bill bought. Bill bought that last copy of The Hobbit.

(81a) contains a stressed subject within an embedded sentence domain; the embedded subject is a narrow focus within that embedded sentence domain but not a matrix-level narrow focus. Thus, (81a) could follow a WH-question probing a range of constituents: It could, for instance, follow What does John know? (focus in the answer is what BILL bought), or What about John? (focus on knows what BILL bought). It appears that the focus at the matrix level is not restricted to a narrowly focused subordinate clause term. (81b), in contrast, comprises a single sentence domain; stress on Bill constrains focus interpretation within that matrix domain, so that (81b) could answer only a question like Who bought the book? Extending these observations to (20), the question focus associated with fronted who can extend beyond the stressed embedded subject who to include non-WH material, in the following focus sequence: (82)

hwho1, t knows what2 who1 boughti

We see, then, that both (44) (revised as (76)) and (55) are satisfied in (20). It is possible for the embedded subject WH in situ to receive primary stress without the consequence of contextual restriction. The device of speaker indexation was crucial to an account for (20); speaker indexation also explained the grammaticality of (77) under the echo question interpretation (80). More generally, attention to logophoric effects, represented via the device of speaker indexation of question words, permits an account for (20) and (80)—two multiclausal examples embedding a structure like that in (1b)—that is consistent with the account presented here for (1b). Because (20) played a crucial role in the development of Epstein’s (1998) ScopeMarking Condition, giving the SMC broader coverage than previous structural constraints, it is critical that the present approach be able to account for (20) as well; thus the preceding discussion of speaker indexation and logophoric effects is crucial to this account of multiple interrogation. The approach also lends itself, however, to other problems. Thus far, I have examined only WH-questions whose illocutionary force is that of a request for information. Certain WH-questions, however, do not call for an informative answer: questions like (83a, b): (83)

a. b.

Who cares what John bought? Who would buy that book anyway?

Although the question formats in (83a, b) suggest a probe for constant value for the fronted WH-term, the primary speaker would be surprised if a name were supplied, because the questions are rhetorical ones whose anticipated responses are No one cares and No one would. Nonetheless, value-supplying responses are in principle possible: Why, Bill cares! could answer (83a), and Well, Jack would . . . could answer (83b), just as value-supplying responses would answer nonrhetorical questions (84) and (85): (84)

Who knows what John bought?

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(85)

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Who bought that book?

Notice now that in certain multiple interrogation structures, the rhetorical reading degrades acceptability. (20), for instance, cannot be recast with rhetorical force; thus compare (20) and (86): (20) (86)

Who knows what who bought?
Who cares what who bought?

We do not, however, witness degradation when the in situ WH-term is in object position: (87) (88)

Who knows who bought what? Who cares who bought what?

Why should we find an asymmetry such that both (20) and (87) can occur; and yet the rhetorical form (88) is possible but (86), intended rhetorically, is not? An explanation for this contrast underscores the significance of logophoricity and speaker index in the analysis of these structures. To understand the difference between rhetorical questions (86) and (88), consider the following speaker indexations, evaluated under the metric (76): (74) (89) (90) (91)

Who1 knows what2 who1 bought?
Who1 knows what2 who2 bought? Who1 knows who2 bought what1? Who1 knows who2 bought what2?

Recall that (20) is grammatical under the indexing in (74) but not under that in (89); (87), in contrast, can be interpreted as either (90) or (91). The in situ WH-term in (87), that is, can be either the primary speaker’s or the secondary speaker’s question word. Now a rhetorical question like (88) differs from a conventional (information-seeking) question like (87) in that in the rhetorical question, the primary speaker is not really concerned with the evaluation of WH-words. This is because the rhetorical question is a comment in interrogative form. Embedded in situ WH-terms, therefore, will necessarily be indexed to the secondary speaker. (In this regard, rhetorical questions differ crucially from an echo question like (80), in which the embedded in situ question word is necessarily indexed to the primary speaker.16) This means that only the indexation patterns in (92) (cf. (89)) and (93) (cf. (91)) would be appropriate to rhetorical questions of the Who cares . . . type. (92)




Who1 cares what2 who2 bought?

16 It was noted, in discussion of (77), that an echo question is immune to superiority effects; differential behavior with respect to superiority effects can be observed as well when other question types are considered: incredulity questions (cf. Cole, 1974; Postal, 1972) and quizmaster questions (cf. Postal, 1972). Authier (1993) contrasted echo and incredulity questions, immune to superiority effects; and quizmaster questions, which obey superiority. Future research should test the capacity of the present approach to explain not only the distinction between echo questions and rhetorical questions (which are observed here to obey superiority) but also the partitioning of these four question types into two classes with respect to superiority.

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(93)

Who1 cares who2 bought what2?

The primary speaker in (93) is not querying an appropriate value for WH-terms, and indexation of what to the secondary speaker reflects this fact. The embedded question who bought what? is the quoted question of the secondary speaker; neither of the lower clause question words reflects the direct query of the primary speaker. The fact, however, that a question like (20) cannot be recast rhetorically in (92) is due to the interaction of two types of contingencies: the contingencies of rhetorical questions and the constraints imposed by (76). That metric was used in an account of the scopally restricted grammaticality of (20), a critical structure type in any account of multiple interrogation constraints.17 We now see that the speaker indexation mechanism invoked in (76b) is independently explanatory in the paradigm involving (20), (86), (87), and (88). It was argued earlier that (20) permitted only the speaker indexation in (74), with in situ who indexed to the primary speaker. The structurally parallel rhetorical question (86) is unacceptable because it would require the indexation in (92), with both WH-terms in the embedded question indexed to the secondary speaker. Thus, the rhetorical interpretation is unavailable for (86). In Section 5, we have considered a range of multiple interrogation structures, some of which proved problematic to the accounts reviewed in Section 3. These examples, as well as new data, were explained here in an account based on principles (76) and (55) and drawing on contingencies of focus projection and logophoricity. Thus, focus projection facts explained the contrast, for instance, between (29) and (38b): (29) (38)

b

What did who buy where?
What did who buy why?

The (29)–(38b) contrast revealed that distinctions among adjuncts as focus projection sites were as pronounced as those between adjuncts and arguments, or between subjects and objects. In all cases, however, there was a direct relationship between focus projection possibilities and context dependence. Thus, although the manipulated variables in these examples involved question-internal characteristics rather than question-external context, manipulations were reflected, as in cases of contextual manipulation, in contextual dependency effects: Focus projection possibilities and, therefore, the activation of content in the question were crucially affected. 17

A reviewer points out the following effects with respect to example (20): (i)
Who doesn’t know what who bought? (ii)
Who wondered what who bought? (iii) ?Who learned what who bought? (iv)
Who revealed what who bought? Because the grammaticality of (20) is contingent on the capacity of embedded who to assume scope over the matrix verb, these results are expected: (i), (ii), and (iv) have introduced barriers to scopal movement (of embedded who) in the form, respectively, of negation, question embedded beneath wonder, and a factive verb with substantial lexical content. (Increased lexical content in a matrix verb—as in bridging phenonema described by Erteschik-Shir, 1973—generally blocks scopal extraction.)

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Logophoricity, represented via speaker indexing, was then invoked to account for the crucial contrast between (1b) and (20). The speaker indexation mechanism was shown to lend itself naturally to an analysis of echo question and rhetorical question examples; in particular, the grammaticality contrast between (20) and its rhetorical question counterpart (86) was adduced in independent corroboration of the speaker indexation analysis of multiclausal examples.

6. Conclusion The analysis developed here represented an account for superiority phenomena in multiple interrogations. Data included single- and multiple-clause structures, with attention to familiar subject-object and argument-adjunct asymmetries treated in the literature. It was proposed that the core superiority contrast in (1a, b) is a consequence of the interaction of constraints (76) and (55): hWH, WHi ! hWH, . . . WH . . .i hWHn, WHni ! hWHn, WHmi, where n, m represent speaker index and m < n.

(76)

a. b.

(55)

In a multiple interrogation, primary stress in some focus domain occurs on or projects to WH in situ, and every WH in situ occurs in a position of relative prominence.

It was proposed that although the l-abstract in the body of the question serves as a semantic predicate, indicating a defining quality that holds of the fronted WH-term, the question focus—the focused string in the body of the question—represents that content that the speaker wishes to associate with (the constant replacing the) WH-term, within the embedding discourse. The fronted WH-term and the focused string in a multiple interrogation, marked, respectively, by secondary and primary stress, constitute a focus pair; focus highlights this pairing as a key addition to the discourse. Within the question focus, moreover, the in situ WH-term in a multiple interrogation bears nuclear stress. Under these focus conventions, (76), considering presence of non-WH content within the question focus, ranks multiple interrogation structures for dependence on the context of utterance. An example is associated with greater contextual restriction if the focused string in the body of the question comprises only WH in situ with speaker index matching that of the fronted WH-term. (55) addresses the relation between focus and WH in situ, which must receive (or be the projection target of) primary stress within a focus domain (NP or IP). A pivotal assumption involved the status of infelicitous examples like (1b): Characterization of such examples as degraded by metric (76), and thereby dependent on contextual priming rather than simply ungrammatical, permitted an account of improved status with appropriate contextualization preactivating question content when no non-WH material is activated in the question itself. In a contrast like (1a, b), (76) and (55) interact with characteristics of focus projection, insofar as focus projection possibilities constrain the outcome of (76), given stress

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requirements in (55). Thus, an object WH in situ, as in (1a), receives primary stress in IP (by (55)) but can project focus to a broader constituent, so that the question focus contains non-WH material. In subject position, however, as in (1b), stressed WH in situ cannot project focus and serves exhaustively as question focus. This latter example was observed to be ameliorated under certain question-internal manipulations; thus substitution of which-phrases (as in (33b)) or addition of a second WH-term (as in (29)) neutralized contextual restriction effects by altering prosodic configurations and, therefore, focus projection contingencies; another question-internal manipulation involved argument structure (as in (69)). An external manipulation in the form of a supporting text (as in (34)) provided contextual priming. Results of both internal and external manipulations were consistent with the predictions of (55) and (76): Internal manipulations added nonWH material to the question focus by altering focus location or projection possibilities; external manipulations accommodated focus limitations within the question by preactivating material that was presupposed in the question. Crucially, however, subject-object and argument-adjunct asymmetries characteristic of multiple interrogation paradigms paralleled asymmetries in focus projection from structural sites. Other structural effects— acceptability differences among adjuncts and grammaticality shift with argument structure change—were, again, exactly those predicted by focus projection distinctions, corroborating the proposal that focus position and breadth is at issue in the well-formedness of multiple interrogations. The device of speaker indexing was then invoked in a logophoricity-based account of multiclausal (20), such that a WH-phrase was indexed to either the primary speaker (utterer) or the secondary speaker (sentence subject). This indexing procedure resembled the reference to a Q morpheme for scope determination, as in Baker (1970); appeal to a discourse-theoretic (speaker index) rather than abstract structural (Q morpheme) construct, however, permitted further analysis of rhetorical question phenomena in discussion of the contrast between (20) and its rhetorical question counterpart (86). This account of multiple interrogation was proposed not only to account for challenging data but also to explain, under unifying principles, systematic effects of amelioration and degradation in English multiple interrogation structures. The English-specific nature of the principles and data presented in this analysis raises the critical question, of course, of generalizability to languages that do not rely on prosody, as does English, to indicate focus. It has been observed that French, for instance, although respecting the superiority contrast in French equivalents of (1a, b), does not utilize stress as does English to signal focus but instead relies on syntax. Thus, Lambrecht (1994), discussing French focus marking, characterized French as a language that marks focus constructionally; other languages favor prosody, morphology, and/or syntax to indicate focus. Although an extension of the present analysis to French or to other languages is beyond the purview of this paper, it is important to acknowledge the issues involved. Roberts (1998) argued that prosody and focus are universally linked, but that the realization of that linking will be affected by language-specific prosodic characteristics. Lambrecht also pointed to the privileged status of prosody as focus marker (without arguing for a universal relationship between focus and prosody) but emphasized the differences across languages in focus-encoding mechanisms. Questions around the relation between a WH-term and focus were discussed earlier; these questions themselves are

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complicated by irregular relations, cross-linguistically, between focal stress placement and WH-phrase position (cf. Culicover and Rochemont, 1983; Ladd, 1996). Ladd, however, in his treatment of stress, distinguished between languages like English that mark a metrically strong syllable with phonetic stress, and languages like French that do not. Although a pitch accent may be attracted to a metrically prominent French syllable, pitch accent, as an intonational contour feature, differs from the complex of features that create the acoustic salience reflected in stress. Stress, as a reliable focus marker in English, has been invoked in the present analysis to distinguish between structures and to register focus patterns that are reflected in English prosody. Possible extension of this analysis to a language like French would therefore need to accommodate the absence of English-type focus marking via stress; language-specificity of stress phenomena would preclude a direct application to the French case of a constraint like (55) that refers to stress. Instead, such a constraint would require translation in terms of French modes of focus realization. Following Ladd (1996), such translation would refer to the prominence relations in French metrical structure and those prominence markers (if any) that might be in evidence. Acknowledging phonetic stress as a reliable but Englishspecific concomitant to the focus associated with an in situ WH-term, we might yet find a systematic association between focus (as it is realized in French) and in situ WH-terms in an account of superiority effects. This would be a topic for further investigation. References Authier, J.-Marc, 1993. Nonquantificational Wh and weakest crossover. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 161–168. Baker, Carl LeRoy, 1970. Notes on the description of English questions: the role of an abstract question morpheme. Foundations of Language 6, 197–219. Bolinger, Dwight, 1972. Accent is predictable (if you’re a mind reader). Language 48, 633–644. Boskovic, Zeljko, Lasnik, Howard, 1999. How strict is the cycle? Linguistic Inquiry 30, 691–703. Chafe, Wallace, 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Chomsky, Noam, 1973. Conditions on transformations. In: Anderson, S.R., Kiparsky, P. (Eds.), A Festschrift for Morris Halle. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, pp. 232–286. Chomsky, Noam, 1986. Barriers. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. Chomsky, Noam, 1995. The Minimalist Program. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. Chomsky, Noam, Halle, Morris, 1968. The Sound Pattern of English. Harper and Row, New York. Cinque, Guglielmo, 1993. A null theory of phrase and compound stress. Linguistic Inquiry 24, 239–297. Cole, Peter, 1974. Backward pronominalization and analogy. Linguistic Inquiry 5, 425–443. Culicover, Peter W., Rochemont, Michael, 1983. Stress and focus in English. Language 59, 123–165. Epstein, Samuel David, 1998. Overt scope marking and covert verb second. Linguistic Inquiry 29, 181–227. Erteschik-Shir, Nomi, 1973. On the Nature of Island Constraints. PhD Dissertation. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. Distributed by Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington. Erteschik-Shir, Nomi, 1986. Wh-questions and focus. Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 117–149. Erteschik-Shir, Nomi, 1997. The Dynamics of Focus Structure. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Faber, David, 1987. The accentuation of intransitive sentences in English. Journal of Linguistics 23, 341–358. Gussenhoven, Carlos, 1983. Focus, mode, and the nucleus. Journal of Linguistics 19, 377–417. Hale, Kenneth, Keyser, Jay, 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In: Hale, K., Keyser, S.J. (Eds.), The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvan Bromberger. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, pp. 53–109. Heim, Irene, 1983. On the projection problem for presuppositions. In: Barlow, M., Flickinger, D.P., Westcoat, M.P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford.

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