Abstract
The purpose of the present chapter is to discuss the status of wh-phrases as quantificational expressions. In particular, we will address the question of how the wh-expression should be characterized in terms of its quantificational force. We will see that the syntactic and semantic behavior of constructions in Japanese involving the class of words which Kuroda (1965) very pertinently referred to as ‘indeterminate pronominals’ provides an interesting insight to the issue at hand. The ‘indeterminate pronominals’ essentially correspond to wh-expressions.1
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The attitude represented by Kuroda’s terminology, which carefully avoids identifying wh’s as ‘interrogative pronominals’, appears to be widespread among the traditional Japanese grammarians. Cf. Onoe (1983), for example.
Previous work that discusses constructions exemplified by (3a-d) includes Kuroda (1965), Ohno (1984), Hoji (1985).
See fa. 3.
This distinction in terms of the interrogative marker, though, appears to be independent of the D-/non-D-linked interpretation. That is to say, there are wh-questions ending in no ka which are not D-linked. Cf. Kuno and Masunaga (1986).
For discussion, cf. Saito (1982).
Also Cf. Kuroda (1986).
See fn. 15.
For more on this, cf. Hoji (1985).
According to May’s (1985) definition of dominate, which is subsumed under his notion of c-command, a maximal projection X dominates a node Y only if every segment of X dominates Y. If the node in question is one created by adjunction, that node does not dominate Y in the sense just defined.
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© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Nishigauchi, T. (1990). Construing WH . In: Quantification in the Theory of Grammar. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 37. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1972-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1972-3_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-0644-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1972-3
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