Re: Multiple wh-words

caerulean centaur wrote:
>
> Thomas Wier <trwier@u...> wrote:
>
> >Ah, but there's a catch:  we must distinguish between so-called
> >echo-questions and regular wh-questions.  Thus, English is not
> >normally considered a wh-in-situ language like Japanese or
> >Chinese, but we can get wh-words in situ if they are echo
> >questions:
>
> >A: "You'll never guess:  of all people, John saw Mary at
>     the library today."
> >B: "John saw WHO at the library?!?"
>
> You need to explain to me this in-situ language.  It seems to me
> that, regardless of emphasis, "who" is still the object of the
> verb "saw" and should be "whom" (for those of us who still use whom).

This has nothing to do with the distinction between "who" and "whom"
or subject and object.

Suppose I come home. My girlfriend might say to me,

"Who did you see at the library?"

Now, as I understand it, in some languages, the normal word order
for this question would be "You saw whom at the library?" without
any emphasis on "whom."   This is what I understand to be a
wh-in-situ language.

--Ph. D.

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