Why is ‘Why’ Unique? : : Its Syntactic and Semantic Properties / / ed. by Gabriela Soare.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Ebook Package English 2021
• MitwirkendeR: Bocci, Giuliano,; Bonan, Caterina,; Buell, Leston Chandler,; Catasso, Nicholas,; Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen,; Corver, Norbert,; Cruschina, Silvio,; Doron, Edit,; Endo, Yoshio,; Irurtzun, Aritz,; Rizzi, Luigi,; Shlonsky, Ur,; Soare, Gabriela,; Tsai, Wei-Tien Dylan,; Wolf, Lavi,
• HerausgeberIn: Soare, Gabriela,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter Mouton, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Generative Grammar [SGG] , 142
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VI, 318 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

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