Why is ‘Why’ Unique? : : Its Syntactic and Semantic Properties / / ed. by Gabriela Soare.
Why is ‘Why’ Unique? Its Syntactic and Semantic Properties considers the behaviour of this peculiar wh-element across many different languages, including Ewe, Trevisan, Italian, Basque, German, Dutch, Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Hebrew. In ten original chapters, the authors explore various aspe...
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Superior document: | Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Ebook Package English 2021 |
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Place / Publishing House: | Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2021] ©2021 |
Year of Publication: | 2021 |
Language: | English |
Series: | Studies in Generative Grammar [SGG] ,
142 |
Online Access: | |
Physical Description: | 1 online resource (VI, 318 p.) |
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Other title: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part 1: Why in a Gbe language -- Reason questions as a complementizer domain phenomenon: Evidence from Ewe -- Part 2: Towards a cartography of high and low reason adverbials -- On ‘why’ in situ in Northern Italian dialects: Evidence from Trevisan -- Why questions break the residual V2 restriction (in Basque and beyond) -- Is German warum so special after all? -- Why in Dutch? On why-stripping and high and low adverbials -- Part 3: Wh-in-Situ languages: Whys, hows, and whats -- On applicative Why-questions in Chinese -- What-as-Why sentences in Cantonese -- Part 4: Some syntactic aspects of how come -- How come questions and diary English -- Part 5: A special class of why rhetorical questions: Semantics and pragmatics -- Why rhetorical questions? -- Part 6: Why and the syntax-prosody interface -- On some special properties of why in syntax and prosody -- Index of subjects |
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Summary: | Why is ‘Why’ Unique? Its Syntactic and Semantic Properties considers the behaviour of this peculiar wh-element across many different languages, including Ewe, Trevisan, Italian, Basque, German, Dutch, Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Hebrew. In ten original chapters, the authors explore various aspects of why-questions, such as the way why interacts with V2 constructions in Basque, with a subject clitic in Trevisan or how its morpho-syntactic make-up determines its merge position in Ewe, to mention but a few. Furthermore, a clear-cut distinction is established between high and low reason adverbials which are subsequently examined in why-stripping environments in Dutch. Beyond why proper, the book explores a special class of wh-expressions in some in-situ languages which give rise to unexpected why-construals with a touch of whining force. The objective is to explain the unusual syntactic position of these wh-expressions as well as their association with peculiar pragmatics. The questions are addressed for Cantonese: are what-initial sentences genuine questions? To what extent are Cantonese what-initial sentences similar to how-initial sentences in Mandarin? Beside these what-as-why questions, a special class of rhetorical questions, the doubly-marked interrogatives in Hebrew, come under scrutiny. Why is ‘why’ unique also concerns the interface with prosody and several experimental studies investigate precisely this aspect. |
Format: | Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. |
ISBN: | 9783110675160 9783110750720 9783110750706 9783110754001 9783110753776 9783110754117 9783110753882 |
ISSN: | 0167-4331 ; |
DOI: | 10.1515/9783110675160 |
Access: | restricted access |
Hierarchical level: | Monograph |
Statement of Responsibility: | ed. by Gabriela Soare. |