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Wh-movement and unbounded deletion in Polish equatives1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Robert D. Borsley
Robert D. Borsley
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, University College, London
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Extract

Chomsky (1977) argues that all constructions that apparently involve unbounded deletion rules obeying island constraints in fact involve successive cyclic wh-movement followed by deletion in COMP. Among the relevant constructions are English equatives. There is no direct evidence that they involve wh-movement. Polish equatives, however, often show quite clear evidence of the operation of wh-movement. It might be thought, then, that they provide some evidence for Chomsky's position. In this paper, I will argue that this is not in fact the case. I will argue that Polish equatives often involve not only wh-movement but deletion in S as well. I will then argue that they sometimes involve just deletion. Finally, I will argue that this deletion is unbounded and subject to island constraints. Clearly, if this is correct, Polish equatives, far from providing support for Chomsky' position, in fact provide important evidence against it.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , September 1981 , pp. 271 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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