Vol. 9 (2023)
Articles

Wh-complement Clauses and (non-)Local Selection

Anna Roussou
University of Patras
Christos Vlachos
University of Patras

Published 2023-09-30

Keywords

  • Antirogative,
  • Responsive,
  • Rogative,
  • Selection,
  • Wh-clause

How to Cite

Roussou, A., & Vlachos, C. (2023). Wh-complement Clauses and (non-)Local Selection. Quaderni Di Linguistica E Studi Orientali, 9, 147–159. https://doi.org/10.36253/qulso-2421-7220-15151

Abstract

This paper revisits c- and s-selection in the context of wh-clausal complements. The standard treatment of predicate-complement selection can be traced back to generative approaches of 70’s and says that the selection of a complement by a predicate is evaluated both in syntax and semantics. As regards syntax, the grammatical category of the complement must belong to the subcategorization frame of the predicate, and vis-à-vis semantics, the semantic type of the complement must fall in the set of types selected by the predicate. The present paper examines several licit instances of wh-clausal selection that should have been ungrammatical under the standard treatment, but they are not. The analysis offered here says that c-selection reduces to argument selection and is computed derivationally (at the point of External Merge), while s-selection reduces to an interpretation function that spans a larger grammatical domain and is evaluated representationally (at the syntax-semantics interface).

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...