{"id":{"repo_id":"mit","oai_identifier":"oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/140102"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mit/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/140102","repository":{"repo_id":"mit","name":"MIT","base_url":"https://dspace.mit.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"The (in)distinction between wh-movement and c-selection","abstract":"This thesis asks the following question: what can wh-movement teach us about verb phrase structure? I examine two apparent interactions between wh-movement and Voice: Mayan Agent Focus and the Double Object Movement Asymmetry (DOMA) (Holmberg et al., 2019). In certain Mayan languages, subject but not object wh-questions require the verb to take a special intransitive-looking form; in many languages with symmetrical passives, wh-moving an indirect object in a passive clause is restricted to contexts in which the indirect object is the passive subject. By contrast, wh-moving direct objects face no restrictions about which argument is the passive subject. Typical approaches to these phenomena take the basic underlying verb phrase structure of a language to be insensitive to whether any of its arguments are wh-phrases. In other words, the fact that wh-questions are built from clauses containing a wh-element, while non-questions are built from clauses that lack a wh-element, is assumed to be irrelevant to what we assume the basic underlying clause structure to be in each case — object wh-questions are therefore assumed to be built from clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts; subject wh-questions are assumed to built form clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts, and so forth. On this view, many researchers propose that the so-called interactions between wh-movement and Voice should be explained by constraints on wh-movement from certain contexts. By contrast, I take the opposite approach. I propose that the observed interactions between wh-movement and Voice are teaching us very transparently about the basic structure of clauses that contain wh-elements, which may be different than their non-wh-counterparts. In other words, Mayan Agent Focus teaches us that clauses containing a wh-subject (as opposed to a non-wh-subject) are built in such a way as to feed intransitive-looking morphosyntax; the DOMA is teaching us that indirect object wh-phrases (in contrast to non-wh-indirect objects) are always generated in such a way as to make them the subject in a passive clause. I propose a theory of the features driving Merge in which the underlying position of a wh-phrase is not only determined by the “selectional” properties of verbs, but also by the feature that controls successive cyclic wh-movement through the edge of the verbal domain. Thus, the structure of a verb phrase is not invariant across all contexts — it depends on the features and categories of the elements that are configured inside of it, including the distribution of wh-elements. This approach likewise has implications for clauses that do not contain wh-elements, which I propose account for symmetric and asymmetric A and A-movement in different contexts.","abstract_html":"This thesis asks the following question: what can wh-movement teach us about verb phrase structure? I examine two apparent interactions between wh-movement and Voice: Mayan Agent Focus and the Double Object Movement Asymmetry (DOMA) (Holmberg et al., 2019). In certain Mayan languages, subject but not object wh-questions require the verb to take a special intransitive-looking form; in many languages with symmetrical passives, wh-moving an indirect object in a passive clause is restricted to contexts in which the indirect object is the passive subject. By contrast, wh-moving direct objects face no restrictions about which argument is the passive subject. Typical approaches to these phenomena take the basic underlying verb phrase structure of a language to be insensitive to whether any of its arguments are wh-phrases. In other words, the fact that wh-questions are built from clauses containing a wh-element, while non-questions are built from clauses that lack a wh-element, is assumed to be irrelevant to what we assume the basic underlying clause structure to be in each case — object wh-questions are therefore assumed to be built from clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts; subject wh-questions are assumed to built form clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts, and so forth. On this view, many researchers propose that the so-called interactions between wh-movement and Voice should be explained by constraints on wh-movement from certain contexts. By contrast, I take the opposite approach. I propose that the observed interactions between wh-movement and Voice are teaching us very transparently about the basic structure of clauses that contain wh-elements, which may be different than their non-wh-counterparts. In other words, Mayan Agent Focus teaches us that clauses containing a wh-subject (as opposed to a non-wh-subject) are built in such a way as to feed intransitive-looking morphosyntax; the DOMA is teaching us that indirect object wh-phrases (in contrast to non-wh-indirect objects) are always generated in such a way as to make them the subject in a passive clause. I propose a theory of the features driving Merge in which the underlying position of a wh-phrase is not only determined by the “selectional” properties of verbs, but also by the feature that controls successive cyclic wh-movement through the edge of the verbal domain. Thus, the structure of a verb phrase is not invariant across all contexts — it depends on the features and categories of the elements that are configured inside of it, including the distribution of wh-elements. This approach likewise has implications for clauses that do not contain wh-elements, which I propose account for symmetric and asymmetric A and A-movement in different contexts.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Newman, Elise Sophia Bershad"],"institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","degree_name":"Doctoral","degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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I examine two apparent interactions between wh-movement and Voice: Mayan Agent Focus and the Double Object Movement Asymmetry (DOMA) (Holmberg et al., 2019). In certain Mayan languages, subject but not object wh-questions require the verb to take a special intransitive-looking form; in many languages with symmetrical passives, wh-moving an indirect object in a passive clause is restricted to contexts in which the indirect object is the passive subject. By contrast, wh-moving direct objects face no restrictions about which argument is the passive subject. Typical approaches to these phenomena take the basic underlying verb phrase structure of a language to be insensitive to whether any of its arguments are wh-phrases. In other words, the fact that wh-questions are built from clauses containing a wh-element, while non-questions are built from clauses that lack a wh-element, is assumed to be irrelevant to what we assume the basic underlying clause structure to be in each case — object wh-questions are therefore assumed to be built from clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts; subject wh-questions are assumed to built form clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts, and so forth. On this view, many researchers propose that the so-called interactions between wh-movement and Voice should be explained by constraints on wh-movement from certain contexts. By contrast, I take the opposite approach. I propose that the observed interactions between wh-movement and Voice are teaching us very transparently about the basic structure of clauses that contain wh-elements, which may be different than their non-wh-counterparts. In other words, Mayan Agent Focus teaches us that clauses containing a wh-subject (as opposed to a non-wh-subject) are built in such a way as to feed intransitive-looking morphosyntax; the DOMA is teaching us that indirect object wh-phrases (in contrast to non-wh-indirect objects) are always generated in such a way as to make them the subject in a passive clause. I propose a theory of the features driving Merge in which the underlying position of a wh-phrase is not only determined by the “selectional” properties of verbs, but also by the feature that controls successive cyclic wh-movement through the edge of the verbal domain. Thus, the structure of a verb phrase is not invariant across all contexts — it depends on the features and categories of the elements that are configured inside of it, including the distribution of wh-elements. This approach likewise has implications for clauses that do not contain wh-elements, which I propose account for symmetric and asymmetric A and A-movement in different contexts."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The (in)distinction between wh-movement and c-selection"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["David Pesetsky"],"dc:contributor.department":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy"],"dc:creator":["Newman, Elise Sophia Bershad"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2022-02-07T15:24:12Z"],"dc:date.available":["2022-02-07T15:24:12Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2021-09"],"dc:description.abstract":["This thesis asks the following question: what can wh-movement teach us about verb phrase structure? I examine two apparent interactions between wh-movement and Voice: Mayan Agent Focus and the Double Object Movement Asymmetry (DOMA) (Holmberg et al., 2019). In certain Mayan languages, subject but not object wh-questions require the verb to take a special intransitive-looking form; in many languages with symmetrical passives, wh-moving an indirect object in a passive clause is restricted to contexts in which the indirect object is the passive subject. By contrast, wh-moving direct objects face no restrictions about which argument is the passive subject. Typical approaches to these phenomena take the basic underlying verb phrase structure of a language to be insensitive to whether any of its arguments are wh-phrases. In other words, the fact that wh-questions are built from clauses containing a wh-element, while non-questions are built from clauses that lack a wh-element, is assumed to be irrelevant to what we assume the basic underlying clause structure to be in each case — object wh-questions are therefore assumed to be built from clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts; subject wh-questions are assumed to built form clauses that are identical to their non-wh-counterparts, and so forth. On this view, many researchers propose that the so-called interactions between wh-movement and Voice should be explained by constraints on wh-movement from certain contexts. By contrast, I take the opposite approach. I propose that the observed interactions between wh-movement and Voice are teaching us very transparently about the basic structure of clauses that contain wh-elements, which may be different than their non-wh-counterparts. In other words, Mayan Agent Focus teaches us that clauses containing a wh-subject (as opposed to a non-wh-subject) are built in such a way as to feed intransitive-looking morphosyntax; the DOMA is teaching us that indirect object wh-phrases (in contrast to non-wh-indirect objects) are always generated in such a way as to make them the subject in a passive clause. I propose a theory of the features driving Merge in which the underlying position of a wh-phrase is not only determined by the “selectional” properties of verbs, but also by the feature that controls successive cyclic wh-movement through the edge of the verbal domain. Thus, the structure of a verb phrase is not invariant across all contexts — it depends on the features and categories of the elements that are configured inside of it, including the distribution of wh-elements. This approach likewise has implications for clauses that do not contain wh-elements, which I propose account for symmetric and asymmetric A and A-movement in different contexts."],"dc:description.degree":["Ph.D."],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/140102"],"dc:publisher":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted","Copyright MIT"],"dc:rights.uri":["http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/"],"dc:title":["The (in)distinction between wh-movement and c-selection"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Doctoral","Doctor of Philosophy"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:21:29Z"}