The paper offers an analysis of pied-piping within the theoretical framework of Word Grammar. This framework combines cognitive linguistics with dependency grammar, so it assumes that the full power of domain-general cognition is available for syntax, and that syntactic structure can be conceived as a network of relations between individual words. In this network, words are related by at least two kinds of link: dependencies and ‘landmark’ links that determine word order. To handle the special characteristics of pied-piping, the analysis also includes a single special relation, ‘pipee’, which links the ‘piper’ (the wh-type word) to the word which replaces it in the landmark structure. The analysis is applied in detail to English, and then compared with previous analyses and extended to accommodate both the pied-piping with inversion found in Meso-American languages, and the boundary markers found in other languages.

It is well-known that wh-pronouns may pied-pipe their containing host phrases as they move to their final scope positions. In Finnish, such pied-piping requires further that a wh-element is situated at the left edge of host phrases, a position in which it ends up either through base generation or through wh-movement. This article investigates which independent properties define such pied-piping domains. An empirical generalization will be defended according to which a phrase constitutes such pied-piping domain if and only if it is adjoinable. The hypothesis that pied-piping domains are islands is put into question. Secondary wh-movement, pied-piping and adjunction are thus intrinsically linked with each other.