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Wh-Movement in Sudanese Arabic: A Minimalist Approach

Taha, M., Sultan, F. M. and Yasin, S. M.

Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science, Volume 24, Issue 4, December 2016

Keywords: Wh-expression, wh-movement, Sudanese Arabic, minimalist approach

Published on: 22 Nov 2016

The difference in the morphological and semantic properties of cross-linguistic wh-expressions is due to the difference in wh-question formation strategies. It is the contention of this paper that wh-expressions are universally consistent, in the sense that their semantic force is undetermined in the lexicon. However, once they are chosen for the computation, the wh-expression becomes merged syntactically with another element and this gives rise to relative or interrogative semantic interpretation. The syntax of wh-expression generally falls in two categories: argument wh-expression and non-argument wh-expression. In conclusion, this paper maintains that the wh-movement's driving force is underspecified by the [+Q] feature of the head C operator wherein the interpretation that wh-expression gets is at the level of the interface.

ISSN 1511-3701

e-ISSN 2231-8542

Article ID

JSSH-1455-2015

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