Speaker:Oddur Snorrason (QMUL) and Zhouyi Sun (MIT)
Title: How are Icelandic degree questions moving many phrases
Time: Tuesday, April 15th, 1pm – 2pm
Location: 32-D461
Abstract: Icelandic, despite being a language which does not permit Left Branch Extraction in general, allows an exceptional way of forming degree questions in addition to the standard pied-piping structure, as shown in (1):
(1) a. Hvað ertu __ gamall?
what are.you old
‘How old are you?’
b. Hvað skrifaðir þú __ langa bók?
what wrote you long book
‘How long a book did you write?’
More interestingly, evidence from parasitic gaps and reflexive licensing suggests that the apparently in-situ containing phrase is undergoing movement as well.
In this talk, we sketch a derivation in which both the degree operator and its containing phrase move simultaneously, drawing a comparison with Fox and Nissenbaum’s (2018) proposal for English pied-piping. We suggest that the difference between the English and Icelandic patterns can be reduced to distinct PF conditions. Finally, we show why alternative approaches, such as direct subextraction, remnant movement (with the left branch as a remnant), and covert pied-piping with distributed deletion, fail to account for the Icelandic data.