Open AccessWh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation
Author(s) -
Aiqing Wang
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of language and literary studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2704-7156
pISSN - 2704-5528
DOI - 10.36892/ijlls.v3i1.477
Subject(s) - negation , linguistics , focus (optics) , hierarchy , mathematics , complement (music) , specifier , computer science , philosophy , physics , political science , law , biochemistry , chemistry , noun , complementation , noun phrase , optics , gene , phenotype
Following the Government and Binding theory mainly developed by Chomsky (1981, 1982, 1986), I explore wh-P and the Intervention Effect of negation in Late Archaic Chinese (LAC). I propose that the inverted order of wh-P in LAC is generated via PP inversion followed by the separate preposing of wh and P. The wh-complement raises to [Spec, PP] and further moves to the specifier position of a functional projection. If the wh-PP is base-generated preverbally, the preposition moves to the head position of the functional projection directly; if the wh-PP is base-generated postverbally, the preposition must first incorporate to a V0 and then move to the head position of the functional projection through excorporation. In terms of the Intervention Effect, wh-arguments and adverbials that usually move to the Low focus position below negation are subject to a blocking effect caused by negation, so these wh-phrases have to land in the High focus position above negation which is expected to accommodate ‘high’ adverbials exclusively. I argue that the Intervention Effect in LAC is a consequence of Q-binding as feature movement of [wh], interacting with fronting into the hierarchy of clause-internal positions driven by [Focus] feature.