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Re: THEORY: two questions

From:Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...>
Date:Monday, April 3, 2000, 17:33
And Rosta wrote:

>> Does this constraint also apply to languages where wh-words aren't fronted? > >Surely not, because it doesn't apply to English: > > I wonder who ate bread and what. > According to modern chemistry, lead and which other element are dangerous > when inhaled?
I find the first of your example sentences ungrammatical. The second one is good, though. It's been noted that echo questions (a.k.a. surprise questions, quiz-show questions), in which the wh-phrase is not fronted, do not obey the same kinds of locality constraints as regular wh-questions, where the wh-phrase is fronted. This suggests that things like the Coordinate Structure Constraint are constraints on movement per se, rather than, say, constraints on embedding/processing/whatever. Matt.