Towards an analysis of the adverbial use of German interrogative was ('what')
- The paper discusses the so-called adverbial use of the wh-pronoun was ('what'), which establishes a non-standard interrogative construction type in German. It argues that the adverbial use of was ('what') is based on the lexical properties of a categorically deficient pronoun was ('what'), which bears a causal meaning. In addition, adverbial was ('what') differs from canonical argument was ('what') as it is analyzed as a functor which is generated in clause-initial position. By means of empirical facts mainly provided by d'Avis (2001) it is shown that was ('what') behaves ambivalently regarding the wh-property: On the one hand, was ('what') can introduce an interrogative clause, but on the other hand it cannot license wh-phrases in situ. While formally analyzing the data against the background of existing accounts on wh-interrogatives couched in the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, an analysis is developed that separates two pieces of information to keep track of the wh-information percolating in an interrogative clause. Whereas the WH-value models wh-fronting and pied-piping phenomena, the QUE value links syntactic and semantic information and thus keeps track of wh-phrases in-situ.
Author: | Anke HollerORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-712838 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.21248/hpsg.2009.7 |
ISSN: | 1535-1793 |
Parent Title (English): | Proceedings of the ... International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) |
Publisher: | CSLI Publications |
Place of publication: | Stanford, CA |
Document Type: | Conference Proceeding |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2009/10/15 |
Year of first Publication: | 2009 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Contributing Corporation: | International Conference on Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (16 : 2009 : Göttingen) |
Release Date: | 2024/09/05 |
GND Keyword: | Interrogativpronomen; Adverbiale |
Volume: | 16.2009 |
Page Number: | 19 |
First Page: | 131 |
Last Page: | 149 |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
4 Sprache / 43 Deutsch, germanische Sprachen allgemein / 430 Germanische Sprachen; Deutsch | |
Sammlungen: | Linguistik |
Linguistik-Klassifikation: | Linguistik-Klassifikation: Syntax |
Licence (German): | Creative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |