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Joanna Blochowiak · Cristina Grisot
Stephanie Durrleman
Christopher Laenzlinger Editors

Formal Models
in the Study of
Language
Applications in Interdisciplinary
Contexts
Formal Models in the Study of Language
Joanna Blochowiak ⋅ Cristina Grisot
Stephanie Durrleman ⋅ Christopher Laenzlinger
Editors

Formal Models in the Study

of Language
Applications in Interdisciplinary Contexts

123
Editors
Joanna Blochowiak Stephanie Durrleman
Department of Linguistics Department of Psycholinguistics
University of Geneva University of Geneva
Geneva Geneva
Switzerland Switzerland

Cristina Grisot Christopher Laenzlinger

Department of Linguistics Department of Linguistics
University of Geneva University of Geneva
Geneva Geneva
Switzerland Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-319-48831-8 ISBN 978-3-319-48832-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48832-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956847

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or
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Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This collection of articles is dedicated to
Jacques Moeschler, Full Professor at the
University of Geneva. His work in formal
semantics and pragmatics, as well as in the
framework of Relevance Theory, has
impacted the research of many scientists in
the field of formal linguistics as shown by the
heterogeneity of the contributions to this
book.
It pays homage to the rich and diverse nature
of Jacques Moeschler’s work and to his
scientific expertise in the domain of Language
Sciences, and more broadly, in that of
cognitive sciences.
It has been intended as a ‘Festschrift’ for his
60th birthday to which many of his colleagues
and friends have more than happily
contributed. Among the authors, there are
both budding researchers who initiated their
careers under Jacques Moeschler’s
supervision, experienced researchers who
have collaborated with him over the years, as
well as other colleagues who wanted to join us
for this celebration.
The ‘Festschrift’ partly developed into the
volume ‘Formal Models in the Study of
Language’, which proposes innovative,
empirically motivated theoretical models
and their application to various linguistic
phenomena.
Contents

Formal Models in the Study of Language: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Joanna Blochowiak, Cristina Grisot, Stéphanie Durrleman
and Christopher Laenzlinger

Part I Linguistic Models

A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Christopher Laenzlinger and Gabriela Soare
On the Syntax and Pragmatics of Some
Clause-Peripheral Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi
Two Challenges for ‘Neo-Sassurean’ Approaches to Morphosyntax . . . . 49
Frederick J. Newmeyer
Some Notes on Floating Quantifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Genoveva Puskás
A Pragmatic and Philosophical Examination of Everett’s Claims
About Pirahã . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Anne Reboul
A Perspective-Based Account of the Imperfective Paradox . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Gaetano Fiorin and Denis Delfitto
Spatial Deictic Expression in Serbian Ovde, Tamo, Tu;
A New Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Tijana Ašić
The Singular Square: Contrariety and Double Negation
from Aristotle to Homer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Laurence R. Horn

vii
viii Contents

Connectives: Order, Causality and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Joanna Blochowiak

Part II Cognitive Models

Irony, Hyperbole, Jokes and Banter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Deirdre Wilson
Context in Relevance Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Stavros Assimakopoulos
Sequential Structure of Discourse Segments Shaped by the Interplay
of Recipient Design or Salience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Istvan Kecskes
She Said You Said I Saw It with My Own Eyes: A Pragmatic
Account of Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Kira Boulat and Didier Maillat
Why French Modal Verbs Are not Polysemous, and Other
Considerations on Conceptual and Procedural Meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Louis de Saussure
Building and Interpreting Ad Hoc Categories: A Linguistic
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Caterina Mauri
Grammar and Theory of Mind in Autism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Stephanie Durrleman
The Place of Human Language in the Animal World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Stephen R. Anderson

Part III Computational Models

Temporal Coherence in Discourse: Theory and Application
for Machine Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Cristina Grisot
Discourse Connectives: Theoretical Models and Empirical
Validations in Humans and Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Sandrine Zufferey and Andrei Popescu-Belis
The Interface Between Semantics and Discourse Functions: Exploring
the Adjective Possibile in a Corpus of Italian Financial News . . . . . . . . . 391
Andrea Rocci and Elena Musi
What Is Pretty Cannot Be Beautiful? A Corpus-Based Analysis
of the Aesthetics of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Jesús Romero-Trillo and Violeta Fuentes
Contents ix

When English Meets French: A Case Study in Comparative

Diachronic Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Eric Haeberli
Some Recent Results on Cross-Linguistic, Corpus-Based
Quantitative Modelling of Word Order and Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Paola Merlo
Parsing Language-Specific Constructions: The Case of French
Pronominal Clitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Eric Wehrli
Formal Models in the Study of Language:
Introduction

Joanna Blochowiak, Cristina Grisot, Stéphanie Durrleman

and Christopher Laenzlinger

1 Introduction

1.1 Background Context

The present volume, originally presented as an electronic collection of papers in

honour of Jacques Moeschler for his 60th birthday, focuses on the application of
formal models in the study of language in a variety of innovative ways. The
contributions, by seasoned and budding linguists of all different linguistic back-
grounds, reflect Jacques Moeschler’s diverse and visionary research over the years.
He has investigated a series of aspects of natural language, such as negation,
causality, temporality and their expression through pragmatic connectives, logical

J. Blochowiak (✉) ⋅ C. Laenzlinger

Faculté des Lettres, Département de Linguistique, Université de Genève,
Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: Joanna.Blochowiak@unige.ch
C. Laenzlinger
e-mail: Christopher.Laenzlinger@unige.ch
C. Grisot
Faculté des Lettres, Département de Linguistique, Université de Genève,
Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: Cristina.Grisot@unige.ch
C. Grisot
Centre de Sciences Cognitives, Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
S. Durrleman
Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de L’éducation, University of Geneva, Geneva,
Switzerland
e-mail: Stephanie.Durrleman@unige.ch

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 1

J. Blochowiak et al. (eds.), Formal Models in the Study of Language,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48832-5_1
2 J. Blochowiak et al.

words and verbal tenses. He has also addressed questions about the structure of
pragmatic meaning and the speaker’s commitment. This research has been carried
out from several perspectives and in an interdisciplinary framework, including both
theoretical and empirical validation (i.e. corpus and experimental work), as well as
human and automatic processing of language. His numerous collaborations are the
direct result of his continued interest in interface phenomena as well as in inter-
disciplinary approaches and methodologies.
The common thread throughout Jacques Moeschler’s research has been to pro-
pose formalized models based on cross-linguistic data regarding the expression of
negation, causality and temporality in natural language. More precisely, his work
on the development of linguistic and cognitive models has been realized by
adopting the Chomskyan perspective of generative grammar, as well as the prag-
matic relevance theoretic cognitive framework (Sperber and Wilson 1986; Wilson
and Sperber 2004, 2012).
Jacques Moescher’s first pragmatic study was on negation (Moeschler 1982), in
the framework of conversational analysis. He then turned to argumentative prop-
erties of negation, on the influence of Ducrot’s theory of argumentation (Moeschler
1991), as well as to a pragmatic model and typology of negative sentences in
French (Moeschler 1992, 1997). In the past few years, he has addressed new issues
related to negation: negative particulars and pragmatic meaning as implicature
(Moeschler 2007, 2012b), and he has developed one of the first derivational models
of descriptive and metalinguistic negation (Moeschler 2010). More recently
(Moeschler 2015b), negation has been proposed as a basic test for a general
approach to semantic and pragmatic inference (entailment, presupposition, expli-
cature and implicature).
Connectives have been the second topic of Jacques Moeschler’s research since
his first work on concessive connectives (Moeschler 1989). Via some excursus on
time and causality, emphasis has been placed on connectives expressing causal and
temporal relations (as parce que ‘because’, donc ‘so’ and et ‘and’). In addition,
logical connectives and their relations to their pragmatic meaning have been
extensively developed in a synthesis article on implicatures (Moeschler 2012a). The
relationships between temporal, causal and inferential connectives have also given
rise to a precise distributional analysis of parce que, donc and et (Moeschler 2011),
an examination of their argumentative contribution (Moeschler 2009) as well as the
nature of their multi-dimensional meaning (entailment, explicature and implicature,
Moeschler 2015a, b).
Another aspect of Jacques Moeschler’s research is the expression of temporality.
This research has focused on two issues regarding temporal reference. The first
issue is the meaning and the function both at the discourse and cognitive level of
individual verbal tenses in French, such as the Passé Simple or the Imparfait.
Moeschler et al. (1998) were the first to propose a pragmatic and procedural
approach to verbal tenses and their contribution to discourse comprehension
through determining the temporal location of eventualities on the time line (before,
simultaneously or after the moment of speech). The second issue regards temporal
discourse relations holding among eventualities and the notion of temporal
Formal Models in the Study of Language: Introduction 3

coherence at the discourse level. Moeschler (2000) applied this to French verbal
tenses and proposed the Model of Directional Inferences (MDI). According to the
MDI, eventualities may be temporally and causally linked through various types of
relations. In the comprehension process, the hearer makes inferences with respect to
the direction of temporal and causal relations, which can be of four types: back-
ward, simultaneous, forward or undetermined. These inferences are made on the
basis of conceptual relations such as push-fall, verbal tenses, connectives and world
knowledge (i.e. contextual assumptions).
In the past five years, Jacques Moeschler’s research on negation, connectives and
verbal tenses has taken a cross-linguistic and experimental perspective. The first
two topics are addressed in the on-going project LogPrag funded by the Swiss
National Science Foundation1 and the last one was investigated in the COMTIS and
MODERN Sinergia projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.2
The outcomes of these projects have pointed to several crucial findings: (1) a
cross-linguistic perspective is necessary in order to have an accurate picture of
temporal reference and a fully explanatory theory of pragmatic connectives and
logical words in natural language, (2) grammatical and lexical aspect, as well as
tense are relevant elements for expressing temporal reference and they have very
rich interactions among them and with other elements, such as temporal connectives
and temporal adverbials, (3) a linguistic expression, such as a verbal tense or a
connective, may encode both conceptual and procedural information which is
necessary in the interpretation process and which is not effective at the same level of
meaning (i.e. entailment, explicature, implicature) (Moeschler et al. 2012; Grisot
and Moeschler 2014 for verbal tenses).
In sum, the past and present topics of Jacques Moeschler’s research have given
rise to linguistic and cognitive models explaining different phenomena of natural
language, which have further been developed through rich collaborations. The
present volume contains articles written by close collaborators and peers of Jacques
Moeschler to honour his work in celebration of his 60th birthday.

1.2 Formal Models in the Study of Language

The construction and application of formal models in linguistics have proved their
descriptive and explanatory power for building robust theoretical accounts as well
as empirical testing, validation and adjustment of the theories. Investigating lin-
guistic communication includes dealing with syntax, semantics, pragmatics, as well
as their interfaces, and with human and computational processing of natural

1
LogPrag (The Semantics and Pragmatics of logical words, n° 10012_146093).
2
COMTIS (Improving coherence of machine translation output by modelling intersentential
relations, CRSI22_127510, 2010-2013) and MODERN (Modeling discourse entities and relations
for coherence machine translation, CRSII2_147653, 2013-2016).
4 J. Blochowiak et al.

language. This volume proposes innovative, empirically motivated theoretical

models and their application to various linguistic phenomena. All contributions
show the growing interest of contemporary linguistic research for an interdisci-
plinary theoretical and methodological framework. The book is composed of three
parts, each of them focusing primarily on one of the three types of models
accounted for in this volume: linguistic, cognitive and computational. One of the
greatest strengths of these formal models, as illustrated throughout the book, is that
they allow concrete empirical testing, which in turn allows the re-adjustment of the
initial theory standing behind the model tested.

Part I
The articles included in the first part of this volume show how different formal
models can be applied to the analysis of diverse problems situated at the interfaces,
such as the syntax and pragmatics of quantifiers, the syntax, semantics and prag-
matics of tense, aspect and deictic expressions, as well as the semantics and
pragmatics of negation and connectives.
Laenzlinger and Soare’s contribution is rooted in the Cartographic trend of
Generative Grammar. The aim of their paper is to extract a set of properties that
systematically captures the features responsible for certain Relativized Minimality
effects. Such an analysis allows the identification of the ameliorating/aggravating
features and establishing of a hierarchy of the ameliorating features. Rizzi and
Belletti investigate the interface of syntax, phonology and semantics, with a direct
application to Romance languages, and argue that the syntactic position influences
the prosody and meaning of a sentence. Through the use of question-answer pair
discourse fragments, this paper highlights the conditions on the felicitous use of
topics and provides a clear-cut distinction between new information focus, cor-
rective focus and mirative focus. The morphology-syntax interface is studied by
Newmeyer in his paper focusing on possible and impossible morpho-syntactic rules
predicted by the Saussurrian sign-based approach to language (Sign Theory of
Language (STL), Bouchard 2013). More specifically, he points out some potential
problems for STL, such as extraposition of phonological “heavy” elements or the
order of morphemes in Chinese compounds based on the number of syllables they
contain.
The subject of quantifiers is discussed in the two next contributions from syn-
tactic and pragmatic points of view, respectively. First, Puskas addresses the
question of floating quantification and proposes to re-examine some of its aspects
based on French data. In particular, she puts forth the idea of an overt movement of
floating quantifiers to a dedicated position motivated by an interpretative require-
ment related to the property of distributivity. Second, Reboul’s article offers a
critical analysis of Everett’s claims about the non-existence of universal quantifiers
in Pirahã. She demonstrates that taking into account basic pragmatic factors allows
to demonstrate flaws of Everett’s arguments and to argue in favour of the universal
existence of similar systems of quantification across languages.
Delfitto and Fiorin’s paper assesses two accounts of the progressive and
imperfective: the ‘event-based’ approach, which is able to account for the
Formal Models in the Study of Language: Introduction 5

imperfective paradox, and the ‘perspective-based’ approach, which is supported by

experimental findings. Using the formal framework of possible world semantics, the
paper offers a third solution that has the advantage to account for both the imper-
fective paradox and the experimental findings.
The semantics-pragmatics interface is investigated by Asic with respect to
pronominal adverbs, Horn with respect to negation and Blochowiak with respect to
connectives. In her article, Asic studies the semantics-pragmatics interface with
application to the system of spatial deictic adverbs in Serbian. It is demonstrated
that in order to account for the meanings of the three pronominal static adverbs in
Serbian, the standard oppositions in terms of spatial features are not enough. The
paper proposes a new account in which the basic semantics of these expressions is
defined and, more importantly, the crucial role of the pragmatic import for their
interpretation is enlightened. Horn focuses on the role of the Singular Square, a tool
originally created by Aristotle to treat the interrelation of singular statements as a
device to clarify and explain the natural language tendency for a formal contra-
dictory (apparent wide-scope) negation ¬p to strengthen a contrary of p in a variety
of syntactic and lexical contexts. Blochowiak proposes an analysis of so-called
causal connectives which aims at investigating the parameter order (iconic, e.g.
cause-consequence vs. non-iconic, e.g. consequence-cause) and demonstrating that
their uses go well beyond causality. The analysis formally takes into account the
laws, i.e. a sub-class of contextual assumptions referring to non-accidental gener-
alizations that work as premises in the reasoning behind connectives. The claim is
that the order does not directly pertain to causes and consequences but to the order
of implication (antecedent-consequent) induced by the laws.

Part II
The articles included in the second part of this volume present the application of
formal models to the treatment of cognitive issues related to the use of language. In
particular, they represent cognitive accounts dealing with different aspects of lan-
guage interpretation, such as the context, the speaker’s commitment, the con-
struction of ad hoc concepts, the underdetermination of natural language, the
relation between theory of mind and language in Autism Spectrum Disorders, and
finally, the place of human language, i.e. a cognitive faculty specific to the human
species, in the animal world. The cognitive models of languages presented in this
part are mostly developed within the relevance theoretic framework (a pragmatic
theory of human cognition), as well as within a socio-cognitive approach to lan-
guage interpretation.
Wilson’s article proposes a cognitive account of human interaction and analyzes
cases of figurative uses of language. She offers arguments against a common
treatment of a series of phenomena like hyperbole, banter, understatement, jokes
and rhetorical questions as in cases of irony in the experimental literature. Assi-
makopoulos investigates the notion of context, which is viewed in cognitive terms
as sets of assumptions that are brought to hold during the processing of an utter-
ance. His suggestion is that contexts are psychological constructs (mutual and
6 J. Blochowiak et al.

manifest assumptions that will be activated during the inferential comprehension

process) built during the interpretation process.
In a different pragmatic framework, Kecskes investigates human communication
as involving the notions of recipient design (from the hearer’s perspective) and
salience (from the speaker’s perspective). His suggestion is that salience is linked to
the previous context (lexically encoded), whereas relevance dominates actual sit-
uational context. Boulat and Maillat’s article investigates the notion of commit-
ment, as it was developed in Relevance Theory and, more specifically, in Moeschler
(2013). Their main claim is that for the hearer, the strength of the contextual
assumptions and contextual implications derived from the interpretation of a given
utterance is (in part) a function of the degree of commitment the hearer assigns to
them. Saussure’s article investigates the semantics-pragmatics interface by ana-
lyzing the nature of semantic ambiguity expressed by French modal verbs. He
provides evidence for the thesis according to which the meaning of French modal
verbs is underdetermined, but has nevertheless a conceptual basis, with the
exception of the epistemic devoir (must).
Regarding the interface between grammar and cognition, Mauri argues that the
selection of grammatical strategies is connected to the more general function of
constructing sets, which is naturally close to the construction of categories.
Experimental work is conducted by Durrleman to elucidate links between grammar
and cognition in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), with results suggesting that
syntax plays a privileged role in Theory of Mind (ToM) reasoning in ASD, even as
compared to other abilities thought to influence ToM, such as Executive Func-
tioning. Finally, Anderson investigates the differences between human language
and animal communication. Even if animals convey meaning via their commu-
nicative behaviour, there is a gap between human language and other systems of
animal communication. Anderson argues against a “functionally referential” view
and builds upon recent studies on animal behaviour to claim that animal signals can
be only analysable in pragmatic terms. Therefore they lack the intrinsic component
of human language meaning, that is, the semantic content following from the
grammatical organization of phrases and sentences.

Part III
The third part of this volume addresses human and automatic computational models
developed in a corpus-based approach to natural language in order to investigate
language variation, language universals and discourse related issues.
Grisot’s and Popescu-Belis and Zufferey’s articles present follow-up research
carried out in collaboration with Jacques Moeschler that focus on computational
models of the role played by verbal tenses and discourse connectives in language
interpretation. Grisot provides an account of temporal coherence in discourse as it is
expressed by verbal tenses that guide the hearer toward the intended temporal
inference, which was validated in offline experiments with humans and in automatic
annotation experiments. Popescu-Belis and Zufferey argue that Jacques Moesch-
ler’s descriptions of causal connectives have provided valid theoretical insights on
the nature of their procedural meaning, confirmed by human and automatic
Formal Models in the Study of Language: Introduction 7

processing, as well as acquisition studies across several languages. Rocci and Musi
address the semantics-pragmatics interface with respect to the Italian modal
adjective possibile (‘possible’) in a corpus of economic-financial news. They found
that the different syntactic constructions of the predicative and attributive uses of
the adjective are found to impose constraints on the adjective’s readings and on the
type of conversational background they are compatible with, indirectly affecting the
inferential construction of discourse representations. Romero Trillo and Fuentes’s
article presents a corpus-based investigation of the expression of beauty and
addresses the more general question regarding the universal or cultural status of
shared perceptions and emotions in humans.
Haeberli, Merlo and Wehrli’s articles focus on three different approaches to
investigating some specific syntactic phenomena. Thus, Haeberli studies adverb
placement and the placement of object pronouns in a translation corpus and tests
hypotheses about translation effects of the source language onto the target language.
In Merlo’s work, large-scale, data-intensive computational modelling techniques
are used to address fundamental comparative linguistic questions in a so-far
uncharted territory of the study of language: the study of quantitative properties of
complex abstract linguistic representations. She investigates, in the area of word
order, whether frequencies – both typological and corpus-based – are systematically
correlated with abstract syntactic principles at work in structure building and
movement, and to higher-level structural principles of efficiency and complexity.
Wehrli investigates the syntax-semantics interface and gives an account of the
automatic treatment of French pronominal clitics developed for the multilingual
syntactic parser called FIPS. The object-orientation design of the parser allows the
implementation of generic procedures corresponding to universal rules/principles
like Merge and theta role assignment, while allowing the implementation of specific
procedures corresponding to (family) language properties, such as pronominal
cliticisation (including reflexive/reciprocal clitics) in Romance languages.
To conclude, this volume offers a rich array of linguistic topics approached in
different theoretical frameworks and using a series of complementary methodolo-
gies. Despite this apparent diversity, all the studies illustrate Jacques Moeschler’s
research through applying empirically-based formal models of language to the
study of natural language, a cognitive faculty specific to the human species.
Developing these formal models is a necessary step towards enhancing our
understating of this faculty.

References

Bouchard D (2013) The nature and origin of language. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Grisot C, Moeschler J (2014) How do empirical methods interact with theoretical pragmatics? The
conceptual and procedural contents of the English Simple Past and its translation into French.
In: Romero-Trillo J (ed) Yearbook of corpus linguistics and pragmatics 2014: new empirical
and theoretical paradigms. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, pp 7–33
8 J. Blochowiak et al.

Moeschler J (1982) Dire et contredire. Pragmatique de la négation et acte de réfutation dans la

conversation. Peter Lang, Berne
Moeschler J (1989) Pragmatic connectives, argumentative coherence, and relevance. Argumen-
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 Part I
Linguistic Models
A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands

Christopher Laenzlinger and Gabriela Soare

We would like to thank Luigi Rizzi, Ur Shlonsky and Liliane

Haegeman for discussions and comments on a previous version
of this paper.

Abstract The objective of this paper is to explore to what extent the Relativized
Minimality view of locality developed in Rizzi (Relativized minimality. MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA, 1990) coupled with a fine-grained featural analysis as in Starke
(Move dissolves into merge. Dissertation. Université de Genève, 2001) and Rizzi
(Structures and Beyond. The cartography of syntactic structures. Oxford University
Press, Oxford/New York, 2004a) can account for a gradient of extraction from
Weak Islands (WI) in French as well as in Italian and Romanian. The more general
aim is to show that such an explanation holds cross-linguistically. On the basis of a
series of tentative descriptive generalizations, we aim at identifying a set of formal
properties to capture them. Some of these properties are related to the interplay of
the features that enter the specifications of the intervener, on the one hand, and the
extractee, on the other. We also aim at identifying the ameliorating/aggravating
features and furthermore at establishing a hierarchy of ameliorating features.

Keywords Generative grammar ⋅

Weak islands Locality ⋅ Comparative ⋅
syntax ⋅
Micro-parameters ⋅
Features ⋅
Intervention/extraction French ⋅ ⋅
Italian ⋅
Romanian ⋅
English

1 Introduction

In language an element can be displaced to a position which is different from the

position where it is inserted into the structure. Even though movement can proceed
long-distance (though in steps, cyclically), it is subject to locality constraints. These
constraints are classified into two classes: (i) there are domains which are com-
pletely impervious to movement; (ii) there are others where certain types of

C. Laenzlinger (✉) ⋅ G. Soare

Faculté des Lettres, Département de Linguistique,
Université de Genève, Genève 4, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: Christopher.Laenzlinger@unige.ch
G. Soare
e-mail: gabi.soare20@gmail.com

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017 11

J. Blochowiak et al. (eds.), Formal Models in the Study of Language,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48832-5_2
12 C. Laenzlinger and G. Soare

elements (i.e. the intervener) occurring on the movement path of the moving ele-
ment (i.e. the extractee) have the capacity of blocking movement. Put differently,
they intervene on the movement of an element. Whereas the locality constraint is
absolute for cases like (i), it is selective for cases like (ii). In this article, we are
going to focus on the second type of locality effects, i.e. those created by a specific
intervening constituent. The goal of this paper is to identify the locality effects
arising from the asymmetries between a moved quantificational element and
another element, when the moved element is a wh-word and the intervener is also a
wh-word. The hypothesis to work with is that the combination of the Relativized
Minimality (RM) approach with a fine-grained feature system provides a locality
system capable of predicting subtle gradations in intervention effects.
The objective of this paper is to explore to what extent the Relativized Mini-
mality view of locality developed in Rizzi (1990) coupled with a fine-grained
featural analysis as in Starke (2001) and Rizzi (2004a) can account for a gradient of
extraction from Weak Islands (WI) in French as well as in Romanian and Italian.
The more general aim is to show that such the account that captures the three
languages can also hold cross-linguistically. In order to achieve this goal, we will
proceed along two axes.
Firstly, on the basis of a series of tentative descriptive generalizations on French,
we aim at identifying a set of formal properties to capture them. Some of these
properties are related to the interplay of the features that enter the specifications of
the intervener, on the one hand, and the extractee, on the other. We also aim at
identifying the ameliorating/aggravating features and furthermore at establishing a
hierarchy of ameliorating features in French.
The second axis is (micro-)comparative in the sense that it extends the area of
investigation to the languages mentioned above in an attempt to refine the pre-
liminary generalizations for French cross-linguistically. The major theoretical
objective of this paper is that it will lay down a uniform analysis of extraction from
WI for fairly closely related languages (Romance).
Our comparative study is situated in the theoretical framework of Cartography
(Rizzi 1997, 2001a, 2004a, Cinque and Rizzi 2008 and related work) and of the
Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2004, 2008). It ultimately bears on one
of the central research themes in syntactic theory, a principle of locality capable of
explaining subtle degrees of extractability.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical framework
related to movement and locality. In Sect. 2.1, the concept of Impenetrability is
discussed (strict locality and strong barriers), while in Sect. 2.2, (selective) inter-
vention locality is expressed in terms of Relativized Minimality. Section 3 deals
with different cases of extractions from weak islands mainly in French and English.
In Sect. 3.1, some asymmetries in weak island extraction are analyzed in terms of
RM intervention involving feature identity and geometry. In Sect. 3.2, the
argument-adjunct asymmetry in weak (wh-)islands is treated according to a
feature-based computation of RM (selective) intervention. Section 3.3 is concerned
with extractions from infinitive wh-islands, which are more permissive than
extractions from a tensed clause. In Sect. 3.4, extraction of a wh-adjunct across
A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands 13

another wh-adjunct is taken into consideration. Slight effects on wh-argument

extraction are revealed with respect to the [Animacy] property in Sect. 3.5 and to
the categorial (DP/PP) property in Sect. 3.6. Section 4 is devoted to a discussion of
weak islands in two other languages, namely Italian in Sect. 4.1 and Romanian in
Sect. 4.2. It will be shown that, despite slight differences, the asymmetries observed
for French hold for both languages. In Sect. 5, a feature hierarchy for A’-elements
that involves aggravating (Q-)features and improving (Arg-)features is derived from
all the asymmetries in weak island extractions observed in French, Italian and
Romanian. Section 6 contains the conclusions.

2 Locality

Natural language syntax makes extensive use of movement: elements are typically
pronounced in positions different from those in which they receive some of their
interpretive (i.e. thematic) properties. The theoretical framework of movement is
laid down in Chomsky’s (1977) seminal paper “On Wh-Movement” which adopts
and builds on his 1973 “Conditions on Transformations”. It consists of the general
movement rule “Move wh-phrase”, which is shown to underlie a number of
seemingly different constructions, later identified as A’ constructions.
A fundamental idea of modern formal linguistics is that apparently unbounded
syntactic dependencies consist of a sequence of local dependencies such as those
established by the cyclic (Comp to Comp) movement of a wh-phrase from its
original position:
(1) Whoi do you think [that Paul said [that Andy hopes [that Mary had met ti]]]?
The theory of locality is a major component in those theories which assume that
syntactic derivations involve movement operations. The identification of locality
principles that constrain movement operations has enriched the scientific debate on
how linguistic computations work, providing evidence on how the human cognitive
system for language computes structures, and raising questions on the generality or
task-specificity of computational principles embodied in language.
Ever since the 1960s, a number of formal locality principles have been put forth.
Rizzi (2011:210) summarises them as intervention and impenetrability:
(A) Intervention: a local relation is disrupted by the intervention of an element
with certain properties which make it a potential participant in that local
relation.
(B) Impenetrability: certain syntactic configurations are impervious to local rules,
which cannot take place across their boundaries.
Below the two concepts are taken over and discussed.1

1
For the possible unification of the two concepts see Rizzi (2010).
14 C. Laenzlinger and G. Soare

2.1 Impenetrability

Though couched in different terms, impenetrability can be traced back to Ross’

(1967) Island Constraints (see, for instance, (2) exemplifying the Complex NP
Constraint) and Chomsky’s (1973) Subjacency, in terms of Bounding Nodes or
Barriers (Chomsky 1986). An influential thorough discussion about the imperme-
ability to local rules is Huang’s (1982) Condition on Extraction Domain. The
concept has been discussed more recently by Nissenbaum 2000 and Chomsky 2001
(the Phase Impenetrability Condition of Phase Theory).
(2) * Whomi do you know [the date [when Mary invited ti]]?
In the original formulation (Chomsky 1973), the Subjacency Condition was
based on the notion of bounding nodes. The principle stated that a moved phrase
can cross at most one bounding node; Chomsky (1977) proposed that the bounding
nodes for English are NP and IP, thus forcing wh extraction to proceed cyclically,
from Comp to Comp (see Rizzi 1982 for a parametrisation for Italian). As such,
movement is strictly local.
As said, a natural development of Subjacency in the Minimalist Program is the
Phase Impenetrability Condition. It states that only the edge of a phase, i.e. the head
and the specifier, can be accessed for movement, the complement of a phase head
being opaque (this being a consequence, in fact, of the cyclic spell-out mechanism).
CP and vP constitute phases. Within this view of locality long-distance movement
is a result of successive-cyclic movement through the edges of different phases. In
the course of the derivation, the phases are transferred to the interface systems for
spell-out and interpretation.

2.2 Intervention Locality: Relativized Minimality

Intervention locality is expressed, in different forms, by the principle of Relativized

Minimality (Rizzi 1990, 2004a and much subsequent work) or the Minimal Link
Condition/Minimal Search (Chomsky 1995; Chomsky 2000). Chomsky’s (1964) A
over A Condition (Chomsky 1964) can also be subsumed under intervention. Simi-
larly, the interpretive locality effects in multiple wh constructions discussed by Beck
(1996, 2006) and Pesetsky (2000) are also instantiations of the intervention concept.
This paper focuses on Intervention locality. It proposes to investigate several
types of configurations to be discussed in more detail in Sect. 2.3.
An illustration of intervention locality is provided below. These are the examples
discussed by Rizzi (2011: 221).
(3) How do you think [he behaved < how >]?
(4) *How do you wonder [who behaved < how >]?
A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands 15

The wh-adjunct cannot be extracted across another element of the same kind,
that is the wh-subject who, which intervenes on the chain between how and its trace.
(3) is not a case of intervention as how and the pronominal subject he are not of the
same kind.
Relativized Minimality (Rizzi 1990) generalizes this observation to all local
relations. Informally, X and Y cannot be related in the following configuration
(3) when Z qualifies as an intervener:
(5) …X….Z…Y Z = the intervener
Intervention is defined hierarchically, in terms of c-command: the intervener Z
c-commands Y but does not c-command X. The original implementation of RM
took into account the following structural types of positions:
(6) (i) A’-positions, (ii) A-positions, and (iii) head positions.
Rizzi (2004a) shows that the typology in (6) is not fine-grained enough to make
a difference between, say, two intervening adverbs beaucoup ‘a lot’ and atten-
tivement ‘carefully’ in French. This is illustrated by the contrast in (7) discussed by
Rizzi (2004a) and (2011).
(7) a. *Combien a-t-il beaucoup lu < combien > de livres?
‘How many has he a lot read of books?’
b. Combien a-t-il attentivement lu < combien > de livres?
‘How many has he carefully read of books?’
Though both adverbs are A’ specifiers, only the quantificational adverb beau-
coup ‘a lot’ creates an RM effect in (7a). The manner adverb attentivement ‘care-
fully’ in (7b) does not (see also Laenzlinger 1998) (for further critical discussions of
the 1990 version of RM, see Rizzi (2004a)).2
This concept of locality is rephrased in Chomsky (1995) in terms of the Minimal
Link Condition (MLC) in (8). This condition is violated when an intervener is
identical in feature make-up to the target.
(8) Minimal Link Condition:
K attracts a only if there is no b, b closer to K than a, such that K attracts b.
(Chomsky 1995)
As shown in Rizzi (2004a), the MLC can account for certain facts due to the
fine-grained feature-based typology of interveners it relies on (i.e. identity of the
attracting feature). However, such a system is too selective and loses an explanation
for other facts, for instance, it cannot immediately capture (7a) where the Q-adverb

2
Besides the movement account, there are alternative views. For instance, a pure semantic
approach has been proposed to explain intervention effects in wh-questions (Beck 2006, Beck &
Kim 1997, see also Szabolcsi & Zwarts 1993/1997, Szabolcsi & den Dikken 2003). Basically, a
weak island violation would produce a semantically ill-formed structure (at LF).
16 C. Laenzlinger and G. Soare

intervener is not “attractable” to C.3 However, a few words should be said about
these two principles.
Both MLC redefined in terms of Agree (Chomsky 2000) and RM can treat
intervention as a locality condition on syntactic relations. The former applies to the
relation between a Probe and a Goal (Agree). The latter applies to (members) of
chains formed by movement.
Both MLC and RM establish non-local relations among features. A natural
theoretical move would be to consider them as facets of the same process or
mechanism. However, there are some non-trivial problems in the attempt to reduce
one to the other. First, Agree is a derivational relation, while RM is a condition on
representations. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it is frequently claimed that
the intervention effects which delimit Agree are different from those that hold of
RM. A case in point is dative intervention in Icelandic (Holmberg and Hroarsdottir
2004 and references cited therein): A quirky dative subject in situ blocks Agree-
ment between T and a lower nominative while failing to block raising of the
nominative above the dative. On the face of it, it indeed looks like Agree is more
stringently constrained than Move (chain formation).4
Rizzi (2004a) proposes a feature-based version of Relativized Minimality as a
general formal intervention principle which is more fine-grained than the typology
of positions in (6) and less selective than the feature identity of the MLC in (9). This
version of Relativized Minimality (RM) is conceived of as a condition on
representations.
(9) Y is in a Minimal Configuration (MC) with X iff there is no Z such that
(i) Z is of the same structural type as X, and
(ii) Z intervenes between X and Y.
Crucially, the structural typology is expressed in terms of classes of mor-
phosyntactic features, along the following lines:

3
Nevertheless, it is possible to assume that Attract from the Probe applies to a set of features or a
feature class (e.g. Q).
4
We note, however, that movement can “cheat” intervention in a way that Agree cannot. Con-
cretely, movement can include a smuggling operation (in the sense of Collins 2005a) and raise the
nominative—encapsulated within a larger category—above the dative, thus circumventing the
intervention effect. Such an operation can be overtly observed in French. One can argue that the
intervention of the dative in (ia) is circumvented in (ib) by moving the small clause containing the
nominative above the dative, prior to movement of the nominative itself. (Belletti and Rizzi (2012)
deal, in similar terms, with experiencer-subject verbs like piacere in Italian; see also Collins
(2005b)).
(i) a. * Les enfants semble(nt) à Marie [< les enfants > heureux]
b. Les enfants semblent [< les enfants > heureux] à Marie < [les enfants heureux]>
Transposed to Icelandic, one could argue that smuggling cannot be triggered for Agree as it can
only be licensed as a derivational stage of an independently-triggered movement operation. If this
way of seeing things can be generalized, it may turn out that the intervention effects which
constrain Agree are actually the same as those described for chain formation, namely, RM.
A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands 17

(10) a. Argumental: person, number, gender, case

b. Quantificational: Wh, Neg, measure, focus…
c. Modifier: evaluative, epistemic, Neg, frequentative, celerative, measure,
manner,…
d. Topic
What this version of the principle says is that RM effects arise within the same
feature class, but not across classes. To illustrate, consider (7) repeated as (11).
(11)
a. CombienQuantificational a-t-il beaucoup Quantificational,Mod lu <combienQuantificational> de
livres? *

b. CombienQuantificational a-t-il attentivementMod lu <combienQuantificational> de livres?

A quantificational specifier acts as an intervener on a quantificational chain

(11a), but a pure modificational specifier does not, as in (11b).
Thus, RM effects are triggered by interveners which bear features which are
either identical or similar to the target, where “similar” is precisely understood as
“belonging to the same feature class” (see also Starke 2001; Abels 2012; Lahousse
et al. 2014 and Haegeman 2012). Configurations like (11) and others, known as
asymmetries, to be discussed in Sect. 3.1, can be treated in terms Starke’s (2001)
system who proposes to treat locality in terms of the featural specifications of the
elements involved. There can be different significant set-theoretic relations between
the featural specifications of the intervener Z and the two elements, X and Y, which
should enter into a local relation (see Friedmann et al. 2008 and Rizzi 2011):
(12) a. α… β… α (disjunction)
b. αβ…α …αβ (proper inclusion of the intervener)
c. * α…αβ …α (proper inclusion of the target)
d. * α …α … α (identity, simple case)
e. * αβ…αβ …αβ (identity, complex case)
While an intervener with disjoint featural specification (12a) or with a featural
specification properly included in the specification of the target (12b) are
well-formed, the remaining cases, with an intervener which is at least as richly
specified as the target (12d-e), or more (12e), give rise to a violation of featural RM.
Of special relevance for this paper is the proper inclusion case (12b), intended to
capture cases of selective extractability from Weak Islands. This will be discussed
below.
18 C. Laenzlinger and G. Soare

3 Extractions from Weak Islands

3.1 Asymmetries with Weak Islands

In Sect. 2.1, we introduced the fundamental empirical issue that this paper
addresses: it is not the case that all elements are equally (un)extractable from weak
islands. Some wh-elements can, to some degree, be extracted across certain types of
elements.
Several asymmetries have been pointed out and discussed in the literature.
Huang (1982) observed that while adverbial elements strongly resist wh-extraction
from wh-islands, wh-arguments are at least marginally extractable, as shown below:
(13) a. ? Which problem do you wonder how to solve < which problem >?
b. * How do you wonder which problem to solve < how >?
(13) illustrates the argument-adjunct asymmetry: while adverbs fully show the
expected RM effects for A’ chains, arguments seem to be able to escape, at least in
part. Since the mid-1980’s, much work (Chomsky 1986; Rizzi 1990; Manzini 1992;
Szabolcsi and den Dikken 2003, a.o.) has been done on the issue of how to best
characterize the asymmetries and to identify the class of interveners determining
RM effects on A’ chains.
Related to the contrast in (13) it was observed that wh-arguments can be mar-
ginally extracted only if they have a special interpretation, i.e. if they are presup-
posed or discourse-linked (Pesetsky 1987; see also Comorovski 1989, Cinque
1990). Certain types of wh-phrases like what the hell or what on earth are
incompatible with D-linking (these are Pesetsky’s aggressively non-D-linked
expressions) and thus cannot be extracted:
(14) a. ? Which problem do you wonder how to solve < which problem >?
b. * What the hell do you wonder how to solve < what the hell >?
The importance of D-linking (or the existence of a pre-established range of
variables in the discourse) has also been discussed for English by Frampton (1991),
for Italian by Rizzi (2001b), for French by Obenauer (1994, 1983).5
Another type of asymmetry observed in the literature on French is the one
induced by negation (Ross 1983, Szabolcsi and Zwarts 1993/1997, Kuna and
Takami 1997, a.o.). The asymmetry is exemplified in (15):

5
In order to account for such exceptions to RM, distinct mechanisms have been proposed. Cinque
(1990) and Rizzi (1990) propose a mechanism which makes recourse to referential indices with
D-linked wh-arguments (see also Frampton 1991 for a critical discussion; Manzini (1992) for a
different view on the asymmetries).
A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands 19

(15) a. Combien de problèmes ne sais-tu pas résoudre < combien de problèmes >?
How many of problems can’t you solve?
b. * Combien ne sais-tu pas résoudre < combien > de problèmes?
How many can’t you solve of problems?
It was also noted that certain kinds of quantificational adverbs expressing
measure have a blocking effect on the extraction of the combien ‘how’ part of the
argument combien de livres/films ‘how many of books/films’ (Obenauer 1983,
1994; see also (7) above). This is illustrated in the two pairs of examples below.
(16) a. Combien de livres a-t-il beaucoup consultés < combien de livres >?
How many of books has he a lot consulted?
b. * Combien a-t-il beaucoup consultés < combien > de livres?
How many of books has he a lot consulted?
(17) a. Combien de films a-t-elle peu aimés < combien de films >?
How many of films did she little like?
b. * Combien a-t-elle peu aimé < combien > de films?
How many did she little like of films?
One way to treat such asymmetries is Starke’s (2001) system who proposes to
treat weak islands and extraction out of Weak Islands in terms of RM (1990)
coupled with a feature geometry, which gives rise to the relations already discussed
in (12).
The crucial point is that beyond these well-recognized asymmetries, French
presents a series of cases of subtle extractions from WI (see sections below) and it is
the major aim of this paper to provide an empirical study of these extractions. The
other major goal is to extend the empirical study to other languages (Italian and
Romanian, see Sect. 4). Our working hypothesis is that RM (2004) and a
fine-grained featural analysis (see also Haegeman 2012: chap. 3) can account for
subtle effects cross-linguistically.

3.2 The Argument-Adjunct Asymmetry Revisited

Our preliminary investigation of WI in French has concentrated on some cases of

wh-islands which are discussed in the sections below.
Consider the argument/adjunct asymmetry.6 The important point is that the
judgments below are not absolute (all the examples are deviant to some extent), but
contrastive i.e. relative to each pair of sentences.

6
The use of another interrogative verbal expression like wonder (instead of know) increases the
deviance of extraction cases. The difference between know and wonder is plausibly related to the
fact that only the latter is exclusively an interrogative verb (wonder [+ wh] versus know [+/-wh]
selecting either an interrogative or an indicative clause, see (McCloskey 1992, and also Adger and
Quer 2001 on the unselective property of verbs like know).
20 C. Laenzlinger and G. Soare

(18) a. * Comment ne sais-tu pas qui il va rencontrer?

How don’t you know who he will meet
b. ?? Qui ne sais-tu pas comment il va rencontrer?
Who don’t you know how he will meet
Extraction of the manner wh-adjunct comment across the wh-argument qui leads
to strong ungrammaticality, whereas extraction of this wh-argument past the
wh-adjunct leads to a somewhat better result. Our working hypothesis is that the
contrast is to be sought in the featural make-up of the extractee and of the inter-
vener. The wh-argument is specified [+wh, +Arg], whereas the adjunct has the
feature [+wh]. In keeping with Starke’s system the richer feature specification of
the argument suffices to soften the RM effect. Derivationally, following Rizzi’s
(1997) split-CP hypothesis, the wh-adjunct moves to the specifier of the embedded
FocP, while the wh-argument targets the specifier of the higher FocP.7
Let us compare the extraction case in (18) to (19).
(19) a. * Comment ne sais-tu pas lequel de ces problèmes tu peux résoudre?
How don’t you know which of these problems you can solve
b. ok/? Lequel de ces problèmes ne sais-tu pas comment tu peux résoudre ?
Which of these problems don’t you know how you can solve
RM effects substantially improve in (19b). In other words, the asymmetry
argument-adjunct strengthens. The working hypothesis for the contrast in (19a-b) is
the fact that the wh-argument extractee has a D-linked interpretation. Rizzi (2001a)
considers D-linked wh-elements as being endowed with both wh and top-features
and therefore are associated in some way with both a TopP and a wh operator
position in the left periphery. It is this Top property that makes its extraction across
a wh-element easier.8 What (19b) illustrates is Starke’s relation of inclusion of the
features of the intervener into those of the target. Put differently, the extractee is
more richly specified than the target and extraction is perfect (or almost perfect).

7
Since long-distance wh-movement must respect phases given Chomsky’s (2008) Phase Impen-
etrability Condition, the higher wh-element must move through Spec-ForceP (Spec-ForceP being
the edge of the CP-phase), an escape hatch. Our analysis is consistent with the phase-based
approach, but we will not spell out the consequence of phrasing things in phase theoretic terms.
8
Topics in Romance CLLD (French in (i) below) can extract from wh-islands, since Top is a
RM-feature distinct from Q/wh, as in (i).
(i) Cet homme, je ne sais pas qui va l’inviter.
This man I don’t know who is going to invite (him).
A Feature-Based Account of Weak Islands 21

3.3 Extraction from Infinitive Weak Islands

It is interesting to test the RM effects observed in the asymmetry in (18) in

non-finite infinitive WI. This is shown below.
(20) a. * Comment ne sais-tu pas qui contacter?
How don’t you know who to contact?
b. ? Qui ne sais-tu pas comment contacter?
Who don’t you know how to contact
The observation is that RM effects improve in (20b). In (20b) extraction takes
place across an infinitival sentence in French. One explanation for this improvement
is to be sought in the ‘reduced’ or ‘truncated’ structure of the infinitival clause
(Haegeman 2006; Rizzi 1993/4; Hooper and Thompson 1973). As proposed by
Shlonsky (2006), the infinitival CP is a defective structure containing only FinP
(allowing neither topicalization, nor focalization) and/or a mood projection given
that the interpretation in (20b) is “Who don’t you know how you can/should
contact?” (hidden modal reading). The configuration in (20c) shows that the two
Wh reach a different landing site:
c. [FocP Wh1 [… [FinP/MoodP Wh2 […]]]
Who don’t you know how to contact?
As a consequence, the featural make-up of the two wh-elements is different:
Wh1[wh, foc] and Wh2[wh, fin/mood]. This difference in feature composition weakens
RM-effects (i.e. improves extraction) in infinitival wh-contexts.
The next question to ask is whether the same RM effect obtains with the
extraction of another wh-argument, quoi ‘what’ and its ‘lighter’ form, which is a
clitic, que. Our preliminary investigation suggests that there is a contrast between
the two wh-arguments.
(21) a. ? Quoi, habituellement, /??Que ne sais-tu pas comment faire?
What don’t you know how to do
b. * Comment ne sais-tu pas quoi faire?
How don’t you know what to do
The differential RM effects between quoi and que can be attributed to the clitic nature
of que (see discussion of the properties of que in Kayne 1975, Friedemann 1990).

3.4 Wh-Adjunct Extraction Across Another Wh-Adjunct

The examples below are illustrative of wh locative adjunct extraction across the
manner adjunct.
(22) a. ? Où ne sais-tu pas comment te comporter?
Where don’t you know how to behave?
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Romer, 155

Romert Wagenaer, 269

Romke, 132, 233

Romke Holtsnyder, 269

Romkes, 236

Romkje, 208, 217, 227, 234, 250

Rommert, Rombrecht, 233

Ronse, 73, 77

de Roo, 141

Roodbierdrinkers van Harelbeke, Roodbierdrynckers van Haerlebeke, 7, 51, 72,

77

Roodjes van Schagen, 63

Rooibaaitjie, 83

Rooinek, 83

Room-eters van Moerbeke, 77, 79

Roosje, 132

Ropeinen van Ooster-Littens, 36

Ropke, Robke, Robbert, Rodbrecht, 274

Rotten van Midlum, 34

Rotten van Stiens, 35

Rotterdam, 66, 67

de Rottevalle, 36

Rothger Schriver, 269

Rotsaert, 144

Rottumeroog, 98

de Rouck, 143

Rouke Scroer, 266

Roulaert, 144

Rousquebrune, 118

Rousselare, 78

Roverke, 191

Roverke Juttensoen van Bakel, 185

Rovert, Rodfred, 191

Royaert, 144

Roymans, 193

de Rudder, 140

Rudekikkers van Genemuiden, 59

Rudhart, 233

Rudolf, 233

Ruelken, 191

Ruelken dien Scoemeker Lambrecht Ruelkenssoen, 179, 191

Ruetens, 155

Ruisbroek, 72

Ruit, 155

Ruitema, 155
Ruiten, 155

Ruitenhuizen, 155

Ruitenveen, 155

Ruitinga, Ruitenga, 155

Ruitje, 155

Ruminghem, 97

Ruschebrune, 118

de Russcher, 141

Rut, Ruth, 155

Rút, Rute, 155

Rutenbeck, Rutenbecke, 155

Rutenbroek, 155

Rutens, 155

Rutesheim, 155

Rutger, 155

Ruting, 155

Rutje, 155

Rutjens, 155

Rutsaert, 144

Rutse, 155

Rútsje, 155

Rutske, 155
Rutskema, 155

Rutskema-sate, 155

Rutten, 155

Ruttens, 155

Ruurd, 233

Ruurle, 77

Ruusvorens van Genemuiden, 59

Ruutse, 155

de Ruysscher, 141

Ruyten, 155

de Ruyter, 140

Ruytinckx, Ruytinck, Ruytincx, Ruytinx, 146, 154, 155

Ruytse, 155

de Ruywe, 134

Ryckaert, 100, 132

de Rycke, 142

Ryken, Rikwin, 201

Rykle, 221

Rymbout, 189

Rymbout Henrixsoen van den Berge, 175, 189

Ryngaert, 134

Rynths, 252
Rynths Sypt Unama wedue, 265

Rynthye, 273

Ryoerdt Smidt, 267

Ryperd, 274

Ryssel, 76

Saaiwevers van Hondschoten, Saeywevers van Hontscote, 71, 77, 78

Sack Dekennaister, 270

Saco, Sake, Sakele, 229, 230

Saeckle, 273

de Saegher, 139

Saepke (Saapke), 220

Salverda, Salwerd, 236

Samaritanen van Suameer, 36, 46

Sanctingeveld, 120

Sandgate, 128

Sangatte, 119, 128

Sape Bakster, 270

Sapskuhle, 289, 291

Sasko op de Dick, 273

Sassenheim, 108

Sassetot, 110

Saudeniers van Grevelynghe, 77

Sauwert, 56

Scalle, Scalrewoghe, 120 [321]

Scapshout, 120

Scardic, 121

Scelto, 230

Schaafsma, 237, 238, 243, 245

Schaapdefe van Sengwarden, 57

Schaapstra, 245

Schaepelinck, 146

Schagen, 63

van Schaik, van Schayck, van Schayk, 169

Schalk, 169

Schalken van ’t Ameland, 27, 88

Schalkesteeg, 169

Schalkwijk, Schaik, 169

Schapekoppen van Lier, 72

Schapen van Wieringen, 63, 83

Schauwvlieger, 141

Schavotbranders van Middelburg, 67

de Scheemaecker, 139

Scheepma, 240

Scheewei-eters van Winkel-Sint-Kruis, 71, 73

de Scheirder, 140

ter Schelling, Schellingerland, 89

Schelte, 230, 239

Scheltinga, 239

Schepens, 146

de Schepper, 139

Schermerhorn, 6, 63

Scherp, Scharp, Scarp, 179

Schiedam, 66, 67

Schiermonnikoog, 88

Schijndel, 67

Schijters van Gierle, 71, 72

Schink-eters van Sinaai, 73

Schipgaernemaeckers van Oudenburgh, 77

de Schodt, 134

de Schoenmaker, 140

Schokkers van Hauwert, 63

Schollaert, 144

Schoondijke, 86

Schoonheere, 134

Schortens, 57

Schotsaert, 144
Schotten van Douay, 76

Schraagsma, 237, 238, 245

Schrijfsma, 245

de Schrijver, 140

Schuermans, 182

Schuurman, Schuurmans, 194

de Schuyter, 141

Scipheeren van der Sluus, 81

Scipper Eeme, 270

Scipper Hommo, 270

Scipper Oenthie, 270

Scipper Sybren, 270

Seakele, 221, 229, 230

Seegersma, 159

de Seeldraeyer, 140

Seerp, 202

Sefke, 210

Segaert, 144, 145

Segehard, Sieghart, 145

Seger, 159

Segerik, Zegerijk, 204

Segers, 159
Segersma, 159

Segertje, 159

Segher, 158

Seghers, 146, 158

Sengwarden, 57

Serbruyns, 147

Serdobbel, 147

Sergeant, 140

Sergeys, 147

Sergiewevers van Zele, 73

Serniclaes, 147

Serreyns, 163

Servaes, 147

’s-Gravenhage, 193

’s-Heerenberg, 193

Sherrington, 103

’s-Hertogenbosch, 193

Sibbe, 230

Sibbel, 274

Sibbele, Sibble, 214, 221, 227, 230

Sibbeltsje (Sibbeltje), 207, 210, 217, 250

Sibe, Sibo, 210, 229, 231, 235, 253

Sibet Kistemaker, 269

Sibinga, Sibenga, 235

Sibout, Sigbald, 201

Sibrand, Sigebrand, Sigbrand, 201, 210, 233, 235

Sibrechta, Sigbrechta, 233

Sibrechtje, 250

Sibren, Sybren, Sigbern, 201, 202, 233, 249, 251, 252, 253

Sibrich, Sigburg, 203, 277

Sibrichje, 203, 250

Sieger, Siger, 159

Siegerke, 159

Siegersdiep, 159

Siegersleben, 159

Siegersma, 159

Siegerswâlde (Siegerswoude), 159

Siegfert, Segevert, 206

Siegfried, 206

Siegrich, 204

Sierk, Sjirk, Sigrik, 133, 202, 204, 226, 233

Sieuwertsz, 206, 209

Sievert, Sieuwert, 206

Siewerts, Siewertz, 206, 209

Siger, Sieger, 159

Sigera, 159

Sigera-state, 159

Sigerik, 133, 204

Sigurd, 206, 233

Sigurda, 206, 233

Sigwald, 160

Siike ierdapels van Koudum, 37

Sijmen van Neele Kee’n Pieters Dirk, 176

Sikken van Moerzeke, 73

Sillenstede, 57

Simoens, 146, 147

Sinaai, 73

Sine, 235

Sinia, Sininga, 235

Sinjoren van Antwerpen, 5, 72

Sint-Amands, 73

Sint-Anna-Parochie, 36

Sint-Anna ter Mude, 77

Sint-Anthonius, 73 [322]

Sint-Bonifacius-bron, -fontein, 290

Sinte-Orsele-kleaster, -poel, 281, 282

Sint-Gilles, 73

Sint-Jacobi-Parochie, 36

Sint-Jans Steen, 77

Sint-Maartensmannen van Utrecht, 62

Sint-Marie-kerke, 116

Sint-Nicolaas, 73

Sint-Oeden Rode, 67

Sint-Quintens Lennik, 73

Sint-Winoks Bergen, 6, 95

Sippe, Sipke, 220, 230

Sirck, Zierck, Syrick (Sierk, Sjirk), 274

Site, 241

Sittard, 67

Siudts, 209

Siurtz, 209

Siut, 207

Siuts, Siutz, 209

Siwrdesma, Siwrdisma, Siwrdsma, 209

Sjaard, 205, 233

Sjef, 150

Sjerp, 226

Sjoerd, Sigurd, 202, 226, 233, 265

Sjoerda, 209

Sjoerdema, 209

Sjoerdina, 208, 227

Sjoerdinga, 209

Sjoerds, 207, 209

Sjoerdsma, 209

Sjoerdtsje (Sjoerdtje, Sjoerdje, Sjoertje), 205, 208, 217, 226, 227, 233

Sjoers, 209

Sjolle, 212

Sjoorda, 209

Sjouke, 215

Sjoukje, Sjouk, 184, 220, 250

Sjuk, 202, 273

Sjûrd, 207

Sjutte, Sjutsje, Sjuttsje, Sjute, 208, 217, 233

Skepen van Wieringen 63, 83

Skermestic, 120

Skiepebingels van Hyum, 35, 37

Skiepekoppen van Birdaard, 36, 49

Skiepeloarten van Warns, 8, 37

Skierroeken van Balk, 36, 37

Skilingen, 89
Skraerder Hol, Scraerdera Hol, 287

Skytstoelen van Akkrum, 36, 42

Slapers van Veurne, Slaepers van Vuerne, 76

Sleedingen, Sleidinge, 81

Sleepsloffen van Dronrijp, 36

Sleeswijk, 271

Slekkentrekkers van Ronse, 73, 79

Sleuteldragers van Leiden, 66

Slijkneuzen van Weert in Klein-Brabant, 73

Slooten, 32

de Sloover, 141

Slotsma, 245

Sluis, Sluus, in Vlaanderen, 67, 81

Smalruggen van Grijpskerk, 56

Smedema, 237

Smeerkoek-eters van Moerbeke, 71, 73, 79

de Smedt, de Smet, 139

Smertens, 193

Smeuninckx, 193

de Smidt, 134

Smolders, 140

Smousen van West-Malle, 73

Smulders, 193

de Smyttere, 134

Sneek, 7, 8, 14, 15

Snirt van de Rijp, 63

Snoeck, 143

Snoeken van de Rijp, 63

Snoek-eters van Aksel, Snouck-eters van Acxele, 77, 78

Soepweikers van Mol, 72

Soepzakken van Hever, 73

Soetaert, 144

Solke, Solco, 215, 231

Sondel, Sendel, Sindel, 285

Sophie van Geldorp Dircs Sjoncheren soens dochter, 184, 194

Span, 102

Spanga, 102

Spanghem, 97, 101

Spanheim, 102

Spanhemius, 102

Spanjaarden van Assendelft, 63

Spanninga, 102

Spannum, 36, 102

Spanoghe, 141
Spans, 102

Speeckaert, 144

Speelman, 140

Speelmakkers van Benningbroek, 63

Speelzakken van Hoogstraten, 73

Speerebrekers van Ryssel, 76

Speknekken van Leeuwarden, 8

de Spiegelaere, 140

Spillemaker, 134

Spinsekken van Winsum, 36, 37

Spikeroog, 88

Spreeuwen van Winkel, 63

Staelens, 146

de Staercke, 141

Stallinga, 240

Stampaert, 144

Stapele, 121

Stappaert, 144

Stark, Sterk, Sterck, 182

Statema, 239, 246

de Staute, 141

Stavart, 122
Staveren, 14, 30

Steenbeek, Steenbeke, 118

Steengooiers van Wormer, 63

Steenekwakkers van Alkmaar, 63

Steenkoopers van Zierikzee, 67 [323]

Steenuffel, 73

Steenvoorde, 95

Stekene, 71, 77

Sterks, Sterckx, Sterken, 182

Steuren, Steurvangers van Kampen, 5, 59, 60

Stevens, 146, 147

Steyaert, 144

Stienrokkes, 121, 124

Stiens, 35

Stienstraet, 120

Stienvelt, 120

Stiermans van Wendune, 77, 78

Stijfkoppen (Friesche), 83

Stippers van Lollum, 36, 46

Stoffels, 146

Stokvisschen van Deventer, 59

Strânjutten van Makkum, 36, 44

Stridaker, 120

Stridland, 120

Stripe, 121

Strobbel, 134

Strontboeren van Hoboken, 72

Stroobossen van de Zijp, 63

Stroobranders van Sint-Quintens-Lennik, 73

Strooplikkers van Zaamslag, 67

Stroppedragers van Gent, 72

Struiven van Brecht, 73

Stuurlieden van Wenduine, 78

de Stuynder, 134

Styn Reinerts wedue, 264

Suameer, 36, 46

Suffridus, Suffried, 207, 265

de Surgeloose, 141

Suster Ansck, 265

Swaantina, 228

Swaantje, 227

Swaentje, 132

Swanelt, 201

Swanhilde, 190, 201

de Swarte, 134

Swenelt, 183, 190, 201

Swenelt wilen Henrics Mortels dochter, 183, 190

Sweitse, 220, 223, 224

Swithburga, 201

Swobke, 220

Swobkje, 223, 224

Swyngedauw, 134

Syard upper Wasa, Sjaerd oppe Weaze, 261

Sybe van Hallum, 271

Sybet Wagener, 269

Sybilla, 207

Sybillus, 227

Sybout, Sibout, 224

Sybrand, Sibrand, 227

Sybren, 212

Sybren Wever, 267

Sybren Wielmaker, 269

Sybrichje, 233

Syds Wybez, 258

Sygersma, 159

Symen, Sigman, 201

Symon Lambrechts Langsmeedssoen, 179

Symon Zweertslager, Symon Swertfeger, 268

Syoucke, 273

Syoucke Metzeler, 266

Sypt Unama, Sibalt Oenama, 265

Syrick Scomaker, 267

Systelmans, 193

Sytse, 215, 221, 223, 224, 241

Sytsema, Sytsma, 236, 241

Sytske, 220, 227

Sywert Molner, 269

Sywert van Holwert, 271

Syword Scutemaker, 267

Sywrd Sickez, 258

Sywrd, Syord, Syword, 274

Taartebakkers van Meenen, 74

Taco, 227

Tade, Tado, 230

de Taeye, 141

Take Tymerman, 266

Tamme, 212

Tancmar, 201, 202