Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Cambridge Handbooks In Language And Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Comparative Syntactic Enterprise
- Part I Comparative Syntax: Theory, Methodology, and Data Collection
- Part II Comparative Syntax: Building Blocks and Combinatorial Properties
- Part III Comparative Syntax: Dependency Relations and Dependency Marking
- Part IV Comparative Syntax: Interfaces
- 26 Syntax Semantics
- 27 Comparative Syntax, Morphology, and “Externalization”
- 28 Syntax and Externalization
- 29 Cross-Modal Comparative Syntax
- 30 Syntax and Information Structure
- 31 Syntactic Dependency Formation in Sentence Processing
- Index
- References
26 - Syntax Semantics
from Part IV - Comparative Syntax: Interfaces
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2026
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Cambridge Handbooks In Language And Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 The Comparative Syntactic Enterprise
- Part I Comparative Syntax: Theory, Methodology, and Data Collection
- Part II Comparative Syntax: Building Blocks and Combinatorial Properties
- Part III Comparative Syntax: Dependency Relations and Dependency Marking
- Part IV Comparative Syntax: Interfaces
- 26 Syntax Semantics
- 27 Comparative Syntax, Morphology, and “Externalization”
- 28 Syntax and Externalization
- 29 Cross-Modal Comparative Syntax
- 30 Syntax and Information Structure
- 31 Syntactic Dependency Formation in Sentence Processing
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter examines two phenomena whose syntax and semantics reflect some of the key developments in modern linguistic theory: question formation and quantifier scope. Both of these require that the relevant expression, be it a wh-phrase or a QP, be interpreted at the level of the clause. We first discuss several ways in which one can derive the relevant meanings for basic questions (clauses with one wh-phrase) and basic quantificational structures (clauses with one quantifier, be it a universal or an existential) before moving on to more complicated structures that have more than one such expression: multiple wh-questions, sentences with more than one quantifier, questions with a quantifier and a wh-phrase. Finally, we consider sentences with ellipsis and note certain differences between the full version and the elliptical version. We connect these differences to the results from our earlier discussions. The general point we emphasize is the existence of distinct scope-taking mechanisms that govern question formation as well as quantifier scope.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Syntax , pp. 869 - 905Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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