Replacing Copies: The Syntax of Wh-Copying in German

Abstract

The thesis is concerned with a peculiar extraction construction in German, called wh-copying. The peculiarity of this extraction construction is that the fronted constituent seems to be repeated in all intermediate clause initial positions. This peculiarity is interesting from a theoretical point of view, as it raises a number of questions regarding the way extraction is implemented in the grammar. After an inspection of mainly new data from German, the thesis argues first that the term wh-copying is a misnomer. The apparent copies of the fronted constituent are actually independent elements, more specifically, pronominals. These however often happen to be homophonous to the fronted constituent. Secondly, it is shown that these independent elements are nevertheless subject to a number of matching constraints requiring partial identity between this element and the fronted constituent. The theoretical challenge posed by these two results is the tension between them. On the one hand, the repeated element is distinct from the fronted constituent; on the other hand, it has to share some properties with it. The thesis then argues that this tension can be resolved if the Arc Pair Grammar framework is adopted. That the repeated element is a pronominal distinct from the fronted constituent is an effect of the interplay between the analyses for pronominals and extractions. Extraction in general creates a context in which pronominals can appear in clause initial positions; wh-copying is then nothing but the result of exploiting this option. The matching conditions regulating the features the fronted and the repeated element have to share can be subsumed under a single and simple requirement, viz. the requirement that both elements agree in the grammatical relation they bear. The reason why Arc Pair Grammar allows a resolution of the tension has to do with the analytical tools this framework provides. On the one hand, only the Arc Pair Grammar analysis of pronominals allows one to capture the connection between extraction and the presence of pronominals. On the other hand, since only Arc Pair Grammar recognizes grammatical relations as primitives, only it allows the formulation of such the requirement that the fronted constituent and the repeated element have to agree in their grammatical relation. In addition to this, the thesis also argues that the tension cannot be resolved in an adequate manner without recourse to these analytical tools. In the remainder if the thesis it is shown that these tools also offer insight into a number of syntactic phenomena completely different from wh-copying.