Proceedings of the 8th Seoul International Conference on Generative Grammar:
Minimalist views on language design (2006) 61-77.

Q-feature Movement in Single and Multiple Whquestions in Japanese*
Jason Ginsburg
University of Arizona
1. Introduction
In this paper, I argue that in in-situ wh-questions in Japanese, a Q-featurethat is base generated within a wh-phrase raises overtly to C, via head
movement, where it satisfies an uninterpretable Q-feature. This proposal
accounts for certain wh-question facts in Japanese; notably, why a wh-phrase
may remain in situ, and why constructions in which a wh-phrase is supposedly
contained within a wh-island are ill-formed. Furthermore, I argue that the wellformedness of certain multiple wh-questions can also be accounted for in termsof Q-feature movement.
I claim that a Q-feature is associated with every wh-phrase that has scope ina clause, and that this Q-feature raises to C, where it surfaces as a Q-particle
when it is pronounced. I also argue that a Q-feature is not always pronounced. I
follow work by Hagstrom (1998) and Miyagawa (2001), who argue formovement of a Q-feature in Japanese. Hagstrom (1998:72) claims that a Q
particle, which contains a Q-feature, originates “as low in the tree as possible”
and his analysis implies that a wh-question can only have one Q-feature.1 In thispaper, I differ from Hagstrom in that I argue that there may be more than one Qfeature in a wh-question that contains multiple wh-phrases.
Although a wh-phrase may remain in-situ in Japanese, there appear to be
wh-island effects, which is generally taken to be an indication that there is some
type of covert phrasal movement (e.g., Richards 2001) or operator movement*
I would like to thank the following people for their very helpful comments: Andrew
Carnie, Heidi Harley, Paul Hagstrom, Simin Karimi, Yosuke Sato, and the Fall 2005
Prelim Class at the University of Arizona.
1. In a similar manner, Maki (1995) argues that a wh-feature moves from a wh-phrasal
argument to C and that a wh-argument does not move. Maki argues for movement of awh-feature, whereas Hagstrom and Miyagawa argue that a Q-feature moves.

2

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese(e.g., Watanabe 1992a, 1992b, 2003). For example, in (1), the wh-phrase nani-o‘what-ACC’ occurs inside a wh-island and the result is marginal, at least forsome speakers.2 Interestingly, example (1b) is better because of the addition of
the wh-phrase dare-ni ‘who-DAT’ outside of the wh-island.
(1)(a) ??John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta kadooka] Tom-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether Tom-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘What did John ask Tom if/whether Mary bought?’(b) John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta
kadooka] dare-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether who-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘Who did John ask if/whether Mary bought what?’ (Adapted from
Watanabe 2003:208)

The following generalization can then be made. A construction in which a whphrasal argument occurs within a wh-island, such as in the configuration in (2a)is ill-formed and this type of construction improves with the addition of a whphrase outside of the wh-island, as in (2b).3(2)(a) *...[wh-island ...wh-phrase ...]...
(b) ...[wh-island ...wh-phrase ...] wh-phrase...

2. Watanabe (1992b:12) writes that “the degree of unacceptability” of constructions
such as (1a) “varies among different speakers.”
3. Notably, although Japanese generally allows relatively free ordering of direct andindirect objects, for some speakers a construction in which an additional wh-phrase ccommands a wh-island is ill-formed. For example, the configuration in (ia) is fine, butthat in (ib) is ill-formed. I do not examine this phenomenon in this paper, but see
Watanabe (1992a, 1992b), Saito (1994), Richards (2001), among others, for further
discussion.
(i)(a) ...[wh-island ...wh-phrase ...] wh-phrase...
(b) *... wh-phrase [wh-island ...wh-phrase ...] ...

Jason Ginsburg

3

I argue that the ill-formedness of constructions which contain wh-islands, suchas those with the configuration in (2a), is the result of a Minimal Link Condition(MLC) (Chomsky 1995) violation involving Q-feature movement, andfurthermore, the improvement of this type of construction with the addition of awh-phrase in the matrix clause, as in the configuration in (2b), can be accounted
for in terms of the Principle of Minimal Compliance (Richards 2001).
Watanabe (1992a, 1992b, 2003) accounts for the wh-question data in (1) ina different manner by arguing that overt wh-movement, but not covert whmovement, shows island effects. Watanabe proposes that in Japanese, movementthat looks covert can really be overt. This movement cannot be seen because it ismovement of a null wh-operator to [Spec, CP]. The operator is located in thespecifier of the DP that contains a wh-word. Therefore, in (1a), an operator
associated with nani-o ‘what-ACC’ moves overtly to [Spec, CP] out of a whisland, thereby resulting in ill-formedness. In the well-formed (1b), an operator
associated with dare-ni ‘who-DAT’ moves overtly to [Spec, CP]. This
movement is not out of an island, and so it is well-formed. Then the wh-phrases
dare-ni ‘who-DAT’ and nani-o ‘what-ACC’ adjoin to the operator at LF.
Crucially, movement of the wh-phrases occurs at LF, so this movement is not
subject to wh-island effects.
I account for these data in a different fashion. Watanabe's analysis is basedon the notion that in Japanese, a wh-operator, which is a specifier (an XP),moves to [Spec, CP]. Instead, I argue that there is no specifier movement of awh-phrase or operator in these wh-constructions. Rather, a Q-feature (a head)moves for a wh-question to obtain its interpretation, and this Q-feature
movement can account for the relevant data in (1). The advantage of thisanalysis is that it does not rely on the presence of a null operator. Furthermore,
the relevant data can be accounted for solely in terms of overt movement, as
opposed to both overt and covert movement.
The organization of this paper is as follows. In section 2, I explain why whphrases in Japanese can remain in-situ. In section 3, I account for the illformedness of constructions such as (1a) in which a wh-phrase is contained
within a supposed wh-island. In section 4, I account for the well-formedness ofmultiple wh-constructions such as (1b). Section 5 is the conclusion.
2. Why wh-phrases can remain in-situ

4

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese

Miyagawa (2001) argues that movement of Q-features in wh-questions inJapanese allows wh-phrases to remain in-situ. He proposes that a wh-phrase
contains a wh-feature and that a question particle (ka or no) contains a Q-feature.
Miyagawa follows Hagstrom's (1998) proposal that the Japanese Q-particle canbe base generated next to a wh-phrase and then raise to C to satisfy a Q-feature
on C. According to this proposal, C in English contains both a wh-feature and a
Q-feature, which are uninterpretable, and a wh-phrase contains the interpretablecounterparts of both features. Therefore, when a wh-phrase moves to [Spec, CP],it checks both of these features on C. In Japanese, on the other hand, a wh-wordcontains a wh-feature and a question particle contains a Q-feature, so the two
features are contained on separate lexical items. The question particle then raises
to C, where it checks an uninterpretable Q-feature. Miyagawa argues thatmovement to CP in both languages is motivated by the EPP-feature, in accord
with Chomsky (2000). 4
Following Hagstrom's proposal, a Q particle moves from a wh-phrase to C,
as shown below.
(3)

C'
TP

C
ka1
‘Q’

T'
vP

T

wh-phrase t1
Because movement of a Q-particle satisfies the Q-feature in C, there is noneed for overt wh-movement in Japanese.5 For example, In (4) below, the Q4. I note that movement could just as well be motivated by an uninterpretable feature
on C, or it could be the case that an uninterpretable feature on C is the EPP. I leave thisissue for further analysis.
5. This leaves open the issue of why a wh-phrase does not need to move to check a whfeature. One possibility, argued for by Miyagawa (2001), is that in Japanese, a wh-feature
is checked on T and movement of a wh-phrase to [Spec, TP] can check a wh-feature, but
a wh-phrase does not have to move if a non-wh-DP satisfies the EPP feature on T. Thisissue is worthy of further analysis.

Jason Ginsburg

5feature in C is checked by overt movement of the Q particle no and the whphrase remains in-situ.
(4) [CP [C [TP John-ga1[vP t1 [nani-ot2] katta]] no2]]?
John-NOM
what-ACC
bought Q‘What did John buy?’ (Miyagawa 2001:320)
The following diagram shows the internal structure of (4).
(5)

C'
TP
DP1

T'

John-ga
-NOM
t1

vP
v'
DP

nani-ot2‘what-ACC’

C
no2
'Q'
T
-tta
‘PAST’
Vka‘buy’In (5), no ‘Q’ moves to check the uninterpretable Q-feature in C. The wh-phrase
nani-o ‘what-ACC’ remains in-situ because it does not have to move to check
the Q-feature in C.
Notably, there is some diachronic and cross-linguistic evidence to support
this analysis. Hagstrom (1998) gives the following example from a classicalJapanese text, Nihon Shoki, in which a wh-phrase occurs in-situ with an adjacent
Q-particle ka.
(6) Sisi husu-to
tare-ka kono koto oomae-ni
maosu?
beast lie-QUOT who-Q this thing emperor-DAT say‘Who reported to the emperor that beasts were lying?’ (Adapted from
Hagstrom 1998:25, per Moriyama 1971:32, per Ogawa 1977:221)

6

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese

The subject tare ‘who’ is adjacent to the Q-particle ka, and ka does not occur
clause finally. Hagstrom also shows that in some other wh-in-situ languages a
Q-particle may occur adjacent to a wh-phrase, as in the following example from
Sinhala. In (7), the Q-particle də occurs in-situ in a position next to the whphrase mokak ‘what’.
(7) Siri mokak də keruwə?
Sriwhat Q did‘What did Siri do?’ (adapted from Gair & Sumangala 1991:93, per Hagstrom
1998:20)
These examples may then be evidence that the Q-particle is base-generated in aposition adjacent to a wh-phrase.
One potential problem for this analysis is that movement of a Q-feature to C
is not blocked by certain intervening heads, as this is a violation of the Head
Movement Constraint (Travis 1984), which states that “a head cannot be
separated from its trace by an intervening head (Lasnik 2003:70).” For example,in (5) above, v is filled with ka- ‘buy’ and T is filled with the past tense
morpheme -tta, yet the Q-feature is able to move over these heads to arrive in C.
This is a form of Long Head Movement (Rivero 1991) of a Q-feature overintervening v and T heads. Hagstrom (1998:61) hypothesizes why this long head
movement is possible, as follows:...feature attraction drives movement of the closest element with therelevant feature. If a feature F is being attracted and a head H carries
the feature F, movement of H will only be blocked if there is anintervening head which also carries the feature F. Any head which does
not carry this feature is irrelevant.
Following Hagstrom, a Q-feature may move over any intervening head that does
not carry the same feature F that is being attracted by the head C. One possibility
is that the relevant feature is a quantificational feature (Simin Karimi, p.c.)because movement of a Q-feature can be blocked by an intervening
quantificational element. For example, when a negative polarity item orJason Ginsburg

7

quantifier, both quantificational elements, c-commands a wh-phrase the result is
ill-formed.6
Another potential problem for this analysis is that the Q-particle can be
dropped in Japanese. However, when a Q-particle is dropped, a wh-question
interpretation is available when there is rising intonation at the end of thequestion.7 For example, if the Q-particle is dropped from (4), repeated below,
thereby resulting in (8), an expected answer would state what it was that Johnbought.
(4) [CP [C [TP John-ga1[vP t1 [nani-ot2 ]John-NOM
what-ACC‘What did John buy?’

katta]] no2]]?
bought Q(8) [CP [C [TP John-ga1[vP t1 [nani-ot2 ]John-NOM
what-ACC

katta]] Q-F2]]?
boughtIn (8), a Q-feature moves to C where it is pronounced as rising intonation, rather
than as a Q-particle, and a wh-question interpretation is still available.

6. For example, the wh-phrase nani-o ‘what-ACC’ is c-commanded by the negative
polarity item (NPI) sika ‘only’ in (ia) and by the quantifier dare-mo ‘everyone’ in (ib).
Both constructions are ill-formed. Note that well-formedness results when the wh-phrase
is scrambled over the NPI or quantifier.
(i)(a) *?Hanako-sika nani-oyoma-nai no?
Hanako-only what-ACC read-NEG Q’‘What did only Hanako read?
(Adapted from Tanaka 1999, per Pesetsky 2000, per Karimi & Taleghani,ms.)(b) *?Dare-mo-ga
nani-okatta no?
everyone-NOM what-ACC bought Q‘What did everyone buy?’ (Watanabe 2003:215)

7. Miyagawa (2001:312) writes that "the Q-particle contributes quantificational force
to the wh-question" and that it is required for questions that have exhaustive, pair-list, andfunctional interpretations (cf. Miyagawa 2001:311-312). Therefore, questions with andwithout Q-particles may not be entirely identical.

8

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in JapaneseIn summary, Miyagawa and Hagstrom provide an explanation for why there
does not need to be overt wh-movement in Japanese; a Q-particle checks a Qfeature in C and a wh-feature does not need to be checked by overt movement.
In the next section, I attempt to account for wh-question data in terms of Qfeature movement.
3. Wh-islands
Example (1a), repeated below can be accounted for if movement of the Qfeature associated with nani-o ‘what-ACC’ results in a violation of the Minimal
Link Condition (MLC), which requires attraction of the closest element of therelevant type.
(1)(a) ??John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta kadooka] Tom-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether Tom-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘What did John ask Tom if/whether Mary bought?’

The MLC is stated below.
(9) Minimal Link Condition (MLC)
K attracts α if there is no β, β closer to K than α such that K
attracts β. (Chomsky 1995:311)
In accord with the MLC, in the following configuration, movement of the Qfeature (Q-F1) to the matrix C is blocked by an intervening Q-feature (Q-F2),
which is closer to the matrix C.
(10)

CP
...
CP
TP
wh-phrase...Q-F1

C
C
*Q-F2

Jason Ginsburg

9I argue that Q-feature movement from nani-o ‘what-ACC’ is blocked by a
Q-feature of the lexical item kadooka ‘if/whether’, and so the illicit
configuration in (10) is representative of (1a). However, in order for kadooka‘if/whether’ to block Q-feature movement, it must contain a Q-feature, or someother similar type of feature.
Evidence that kadooka ‘if/whether’ has a Q-feature is that it contains thesyllable ka, which has the same pronunciation as the Q-particle ka. Therefore,
one possibility is that kadooka ‘if/whether’ has a complex structure consisting ofa head and a specifier that occur in C and [Spec, CP] respectively. This leads tothe difficulty of trying to determine if ka ‘Q’ is the initial or the last syllable ofkadooka, as kadooka begins and ends with ka. If ka ‘Q’ is the last syllable, thenkadoo would be a specifier occurring in [Spec, CP]. But if this were the case,then kadoo should appear clause initially rather than clause finally, as shown
below.
(11)

CP
kadoo

C'
TP
kare-ga ita‘he-NOM went’

C
ka
‘Q’

This is highly ungrammatical, as kadoo cannot appear clause initially.
The only way to obtain the appropriate word order, under this analysis, is if
ka ‘Q’ is the initial syllable of kadooka ‘if/whether’. This is not a novel
assumption. For example, Watanabe (1992a) and Tanaka (1999) indicate that
kadooka consists of ka and dooka. According to this line of argumentation,
dooka is a specifier appearing to the right of the head ka ‘Q’. Watanabe(1992a:264) states that [Spec, CP] occurs to the right of C in Japanese, although
he notes that this assumption is “without justification.” Also, Tanaka(1999:384), following arguments by Watanabe (1992a), writes “that kadooka
consists of two parts; ka is a [+wh] Comp and dooka is in specifier position.”
Furthermore, Tanaka argues that a specifier occurs to the right of its head inJapanese, and that kadooka has the following structure:10

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese

(12)

CP
C'

dooka

TP

C
ka

(adapted from Tanaka 1999:385)

But this analysis raises the following question: is it reasonable to assume
that the specifier of CP occurs to the right of C, even though the specifiers ofother projections appear to occur to the left of their heads in Japanese? I notethat Miyagawa (1997, 2001, 2003) indicates that specifiers occur to the left oftheir heads in Japanese. For example, the subject kare-ga ‘he-NOM’ in Kare-ga
hon-o yomimashita ‘he read a book’, shown below, occurs in a specifier to theleft of T, because the subject occurs at the beginning of the sentence.
(13)

TP
DP1

T'

kare-ga‘he-NOM’
t1

vP
v'
DP

hon-o
‘book-ACC’

T-mashita‘PAST’
vyomi‘read’

If specifiers occur to the right of their relevant heads, then the subject kare-ga‘he-NOM’ in (13) could not be in [Spec, TP], but would have to be in someother position. Another possibility is that the specifier of TP occurs to the left ofT, but the specifier of CP occurs to the right of C. These proposals seem
unnecessarily complicated.
Rather, I argue that the first syllable of kadooka is a Q-feature in C and thatdooka is not a specifier. I do not have an account of the exact position of dooka,
but some possibilities are as follows: 1) dooka also occurs in C, so kadooka is asingle head with a Q-feature, 2) dooka occurs in some other projection in anJason Ginsburg

11

elaborated CP, along the lines of that proposed by Rizzi (2000). Thesepossibilities are worthy of further analysis, but for the sake of simplicity I
assume 1); that kadooka forms a single head in C, and that this head has a Qfeature, as shown below.
(14)

CP
C'
TP

C
kadooka[+Q]

The following examples may provide evidence for this proposal. These
examples have the same (or virtually the same) meaning; they're both
ungrammatical in the same way. The only difference between the two examples
is what follows ka; dooka follows ka in (1a), repeated below as (15a), and to‘COMP’ follows ka in (15b).
(15)(a) ??John-wa [CP Mary-ga nani-okatta ka-dooka] Tom-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether Tom-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘What did John ask Tom if/whether Mary bought?’(b) ??John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta ka-to]
Tom-niJohn-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought Q-COMP Tom-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘What did John ask Tom if/whether Mary bought?’

The element to is a complementizer because it can occur by itself at the end ofan embedded clause, as can be seen in the following example.

12

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese(16) Hideya-wa [CP [C [Junko-ga
sore -o katta] to]]kare-ni
Hideya-TOP
Junko-NOM that-ACC bought COMP him-DAT
iimashita.
told‘Hideya told him that Junko bought that.’
I assume that to cannot occur in [Spec, CP] because it is a complementizer,
meaning that in example (15b), [Spec, CP] of the embedded clause does notcontain an overt element. Since kadooka has virtually the same meaning andoccurs in the same position as ka-to, it may also be reasonable to assume that
there is no overt element in [Spec, CP] of the embedded clause in (15a).8
The ill-formedness of example (1a) can then be accounted for in terms of
the MLC under the assumption that both nani-o ‘what-ACC’ and kadooka‘if/whether’ have a Q-feature. In order for the matrix clause to be a wh-question,
the Q-feature associated with nani-o ‘what-ACC’ must raise to the matrix C.
However, movement of the Q-feature associated with nani-o ‘what-ACC’ isblocked by the intervening Q-feature of kadooka ‘if/whether’ in the embedded
C, as this is the closest Q-feature to the matrix C. Below is a diagram.9
8. Example (15b), along with (i) below, based on an example pointed out to me by
Yosuke Sato (p.c.), may support the notion that there is an elaborated CP in accord withRizzi (2000).
(i) Watashi-wa [Junko-ga
kuruma-de itta kadooka to]tazuneta.
I-TOP Junko-NOM
car-by-went if/whether COMP asked‘I asked whether/if Junko went by car.’I think that it is unlikely that ka and to in (15b), and kadooka and to in (i) can co-occur in
C. Therefore, they may be heads of different projections in the left periphery.
9. The structure of this sentence is rather complex. The diagram given in (17), as wellas that in (19) below, follow Larson's (1988) analysis of certain Dative Shiftconstructions in English in which the direct and indirect objects are both sisters to V (cf.
Larson 1988:359), as in a construction such as sent Mary a letter, in which Mary is anindirect object and a letter is a direct object, and both objects are sisters to a V, as shownin (i). Note that a letter is a sister to a V head. The initial VP corresponds to the vP of
more recent work in the Minimalist Program. Whether or not this structure is accurate is
an issue worthy of further analysis.

(i)[VP [V’ [V [V sent [DP Mary ] ] [DP a letter ] ] ] ]Jason Ginsburg

(17)

13

CP
...
vP

C

DP

v'

John

VP

v
V'

CP
...
vP
DP
Mary

v'
DP

nani-ono‘what-ACC Q’

VCDP
kadooka* Tom-ni‘-DAT’

V
tazuneta‘asked’v
katta‘bought’

In this section, I have argued that certain wh-island violations result from Qfeature movement, and that these supposed islands do not contain overt
specifiers. One possibility, however, is that they contain covert specifiers. If thiswere the case, their ungrammaticality could result from movement of an XP; i.e.
movement of a wh-phrase would be blocked by a null element in [Spec, CP].
However, I claim that the ungrammaticality of these examples follows
straightforwardly as MLC violations involving head movement of Q-features,and so there is no reason to postulate the presence of a covert specifier in CP.
4. Multiple wh-questions
In the previous section, I accounted for the ungrammaticality of (1a),repeated below. Now recall that the addition of a wh-phrase to the matrix clauseresults in grammaticality, as shown in (1b), repeated below.

14

(1)

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese(a) ??John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta kadooka] Tom-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether Tom-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘What did John ask Tom if/whether Mary bought?’(b) John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta
kadooka] dare-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether who-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘Who did John ask if/whether Mary bought what?’

In (1b), the Q-feature associated with dare-ni ‘who-DAT’, in this case no,moves overtly to the matrix C, where it checks the Q-feature of C. Also, nani-o‘what-ACC’ has scope in the matrix clause, which I assume indicates that its Qfeature moves to the matrix C. In this way, it appears as though there may be
more than one Q-feature in C, but only one of which is pronounced. However,this is problematic because movement of the second Q-feature to C should
violate the MLC, as there are two Q-features that are closer to the matrix C, theQ-feature associated with dare-ni ‘who-DAT’ and the Q-feature associated withkadooka ‘if/whether’.
Richards (2001) provides a possible explanation in terms of what he refers
to as the Subjacency Tax Approach, which is based on Brody's (1995) view that
Subjacency only needs to be satisfied once “per wh-comp (Richards 2001:9).”Once Subjacency is satisfied, any other movement of a wh-phrase “is free ofSubjacency (Richards 2001:9).” According to this approach, (1b) is grammaticalbecause dare-ni ‘who-DAT’ is able to move to the matrix C without violating
Subjacency, as it does not pass over two bounding nodes. The Subjacency Tax is
paid and further movement of the wh-phrase nani-o ‘what-ACC’ from theembedded clause is not subject to Subjacency, as this phrase passes over two TP
bounding nodes on its way to the matrix C.
Subjacency refers to movement of phrases that occur in specifiers ofprojections and not to movement of heads. My analysis relies on head
movement instead of specifier movement, and so a similar approach that canaccount for head movement is needed. A related proposal of Richards' may besuitable. This is the Principle of Minimal Compliance (PMC), defined below,

Jason Ginsburg

15

which is the notion “...that a given constraint only has to be satisfied once in acertain domain (Richards 2001:197).”(18)(a) Principle of Minimal Compliance (PMC)
If the tree contains a dependency headed by H which obeys constraint
C, any syntactic object G which H “immediately c-commands” can beignored for purposes of determining whether C is obeyed by otherdependencies.
(b) A immediately c-commands B iff the lowest node dominating A
dominates B and there is no C such that A asymmetrically c-commands
C and C asymmetrically c-commands B. (Richards 2001:199)

Richards provides evidence of various phenomena to support the existenceof the PMC. For example, he shows how the PMC accounts for instances ofreflexivity in Dutch, weak-crossover in English, VP-ellipsis in English, longdistance scrambling of adjuncts in Japanese, etc. If the PMC can explain various
phenomena in different languages, then it may be a principle that is at work inlanguage in general, and so an explanation of the multiple wh-question facts inJapanese in terms of the PMC may be desirable.
The Subjacency Tax Approach falls under the PMC as a subcase because itis the stipulation that Subjacency, a constraint, only needs to be satisfied once inthe relevant portion of a sentence. This Subjacency Tax Approach can then bereformulated in terms of the MLC and the PMC. In a multiple wh-question,
when the Q-feature in the matrix C is checked by the closest Q-feature, the MLC
is satisfied. Therefore, the Q-feature in the matrix C heads a well-formed
dependency. This Q-feature in C immediately c-commands itself, and so it may
be ignored with respect to the MLC, thereby allowing a more distant Q-feature
to raise to C.
The grammaticality of (1b), repeated below, can then be accounted for interms of the PMC.

16

(1)

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese(b) John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta
kadooka] dare-ni
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether who-DAT
tazunetta no?
asked
Q‘Who did John ask if/whether Mary bought what?’

The LF representation of this example is shown below in (19). Here, the Qfeature associated with dare-ni ‘who-DAT’ raises to the matrix C to check anuninterpretable Q-feature, and this Q-feature is overtly pronounced as no.
Movement of this Q-feature satisfies the MLC because there is no intervening
head to block its movement. Therefore, no ‘Q’ in the matrix C heads a wellformed dependency. Since this Q-feature is c-commanded by C, as it is in C, it
may be ignored with respect to the MLC. Therefore, the matrix C may attract alower Q-feature. The next closest Q-feature is the Q-feature associated withkadooka ‘if/whether’ in the embedded C. However, this Q-feature alreadysatisfies the uninterpretable Q-feature in the embedded C and so it has no reason
to move. Therefore, the matrix C is able to attract the lower Q-feature associatedwith nani-o ‘what-ACC’.

Jason Ginsburg

(19)

17

CP
...
vP

C

DP

no1

v'

John

VP

Q-F2

v
V'

CP
...
vP
DP

V
C
kadookadare-ni t1‘who-DAT’

v'

Mary

DP

nani-ot2‘what-ACC’DP

Vtazuneta‘asked’v
katta‘bought’This example then shows that once the MLC is satisfied with respect to thematrix C, the matrix C may attract the next available Q-feature. Since the Qfeature associated with kadooka ‘if/whether’ in the embedded C is not available,
the matrix C is able to attract the Q-feature associated with nani-o ‘what-ACC’.
There is another remaining issue. In (1b) above, two Q-features are present
in the matrix C, but only one Q-particle is pronounced. When two Q-particles
are pronounced, as in the following example, ungrammaticality results.
(20)(b) *John-wa [CP Mary-ga
nani-okatta kadooka]
John-TOP Mary-NOM what-ACC bought if/whether
dare-ni tazunetta no no?
who-DAT asked
Q Q‘Who did John ask if/whether Mary bought what?’18

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese

These facts can be accounted for by the following generalization.
(21) There may not be more than one Q-particle (a Q-feature that is
pronounced) in C.
This constraint may be a case of haplology (Heidi Harley, p.c.) which prevents
there from being two identical adjacent morphemes at Spell-Out. Some possible
causes for (21) may be production and/or processing difficulties, or that when
two Q-features occur next to each other, they merge into one Q-feature at SpellOut.
5. Conclusion
I have argued that the unacceptability of single wh-questions in which a whphrase is contained within a supposed wh-island results from a violation of the
MLC that involves head-movement of a Q-feature. Furthermore, when the MLC
is satisfied by movement of the closest Q-feature to C, then C may attract thenext available Q-feature. Crucially, in accord with the PMC, this secondary Qfeature movement is not subject to the MLC. Although there may be two Qfeatures in C in multiple wh-questions, only one of them may be pronounced due
to a constraint against pronouncing two adjacent Q-features. Notably, thisanalysis accounts for wh-questions such as (1a-b) in terms of Q-feature
movement and its interaction with the MLC and the PMC, without therequirement that there be XP movement of a null wh-operator, as argued for by
Watanabe (1992a, 1992b, 2003). Furthermore, the wh-question data areaccounted for in terms of movement that occurs at a single level, because
movement of Q-features is overt. This differs from an account that relies on both
overt and covert wh-movement, as argued for by Watanabe.
References
Brody, Michael. 1995. Lexico-logical form. A radically minimalist theory. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
___. 2000. Minimalist Inquiries: The framework. In Step by step, ed. by Roger Martin,David Michaels, & Juan Uriagereka, 89-155. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jason Ginsburg

19Gair, James, & Lelwala Sumangala. 1991. What to focus in Sinhala. In The proceedingsof the Eastern Conference on Linguistics (ESCOL) '91.
Hagstrom, Paul, 1998. Decomposing questions. MIT dissertation.
Karimi, Simin, & Azita Taleghani. Wh-movement, interpretation, and optionality in
Persian. Ms. University of Arizona.
Larson, Richard K. 1988. On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19.335391.
Lasnik, Howard. 2003. Derivation and representation. In The handbook of contemporarysyntactic theory, ed. by Mark Baltin & Chris Collins, 62-68. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
Maki, Hideki. 1995. The syntax of particles. University of Connecticut dissertation.
Miyagawa, Shigeru. 1997. Against optional scrambling. Linguistic Inquiry 28.1-26.
___. 2001. EPP, scrambling and wh-in-situ. In Ken Hale: A life in language, ed. by
Michael Kenstowicz, 293-338. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
___. 2003. A-movement scrambling and options without optionality. In Word order andscrambling, ed. by Simin Karimi, 177-200.
Moriyama, Takashi. 1971. Joshi: jodai no goho. Gekkan Bunpo 3.27-34.
Ogawa, Kunihiko. 1977. Where diachronic and synchronic rules meet: A case study fromJapanese interrogatives and kakari-musubi. In Papers in Japanese Linguistic, vol. 5.
Pesetsky, David. 2000. Phrasal movement and its kin. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Richards, Norvin. 2001. Movement in Language: Interactions and architectures. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Rivero, Maria-Luisa. 1991. Long head movement and negation: Serbo-Croation vs.
Slovak and Czech. The Linguistic Review 8.319-351.
Rizzi, Luigi. 2000. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Comparative syntax andlanguage acquisition, 241-295. New York: Routledge.
Saito, Mamoru. 1994. Additional wh-effects and the adjunction site theory. Journal of
East Asian Linguistics 3.195-240.
Tanaka, Hidekazu. 1999. LF wh-islands and the minimal scope principle. Natural
Language and Linguistic Theory 17.371-402.
Travis, Lisa. 1984. Parameters and effects of word order variation. MIT dissertation.
Watanabe, Akira. 1992a. Subjacency and S-structure movement of wh-in-situ. Journal of
East Asian Linguistics 1.255-291.
___. 1992b. Wh-in-situ. Subjacency and chain formation. MIT Occasional Papers in
Linguistics 2.
___. 2003. Wh-in-situ languages. In The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory, ed.
by Mark Baltin & Chris Collins, 203-225. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Jason Ginsburg
Department of Linguistics, Douglass 200E,
University of Arizona,

20

Tucson, Arizona 85721-0028, USA.
jginsbur@email.arizona.edu

Q-feature Movement in Single andMultiple Wh-questions in Japanese