关键词: 疑问词移位; 局部; 语段; 最简方案

Abstract:

At the earlier stage Chomsky did not propose any movement rules on wh-questions, but he believed that wh-displacement was formed through permutation. In 1977, Chomsky proposed for the first time that the observation and description of linguistic phenomena must be guided by the principles of the universal grammar. Therefore, Chomsky argued that wh-movement must meet three conditions: Cyclic Condition, Subjacency Condition and Island Conditions. In the recent Minimalist Program, Chomsky proposed that movement was operated as the last resort for interface requirement in order to satisfy the principle of economy. There is no free and arbitrarily selected movement as it was supposed in the first stage. Movement is to satisfy the interface requirement, and the operation of movement is never triggered unless the uninterpretable features of the wh-words as well as those of the target head C are erased. The goal of movement is for feature checking. In the third stage of theoretical development, Chomsky followed his bio-linguistic perspective of language studies. According to the recent Strong Minimalist Thesis, the phenomenon of ubiquitous displacement in the wh-questions can be accounted for by the most basic property of language faculty—merge. Merge is a biological object, logically possible through internal merge and external merge. Displacement of wh-words is internal merge, pronounced in one place but interpreted in both places.

Keywords: Wh-movement; locality; phase; the Minimalist Program