French wh in-situ: Where are we and where do we go from here?

• Lena Baunaz ^[1] ; Giuliano Bocci ^[2] ; Ur Shlonsky ^[3]
  1. [1] Université Côte d'Azur

     Université Côte d'Azur

     Arrondissement de Grasse, Francia

     
  2. [2] Università degli Studi di Siena

     Università degli Studi di Siena

     Siena, Italia

     
  3. [3] Université de Genève

     Université de Genève

     Genève, Suiza

     

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• Localización: Isogloss: Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, ISSN-e 2385-4138, Vol. 10, Vol. 7, 2024 (Ejemplar dedicado a: RLLT23, Selected papers from LSRL 53, Paris)
• Idioma: inglés
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  • This paper investigates the acceptability of wh in-situ expressions in embedded contexts in French. We report on two experiments that tested the acceptability of wh in-situ and ex-situ in embedded clauses of biclausal direct wh-questions and in indirect questions, and how their acceptability is modulated by the presence of the negation in the embedded clause. In Experiment 1, the contexts favored a D-linked interpretation of the wh-element (in the sense of Pesetsky 1987), while the contexts in Experiment 2 disfavored it. Our results show that the in-situ strategy is generally more acceptable (or at least equally acceptable) than the ex-situ strategy in direct questions with long construal, regardless of D-linking and negation. By contrast, the in-situ strategy is significantly less acceptable than the ex-situ one in indirect questions, regardless of D-linking and negation. Our findings indicate that in long construal direct wh-questions, negation fails to selectively block wh in-situ. In this respect, French differs from many other languages (see e.g., Beck & Kim 1997, a.o.). We show that D-linking is not a necessary condition for in-situ in French. We discuss how our findings relate to the current debate between alternative formal analyses of wh in-situ in French.