e-ISSN 2231-8542
ISSN 1511-3701
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