LINGUIST List 12.1420

Wed May 23 2001

Qs: Questions/Typology, Correction Software/French

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Ralf Vogel, Typology of multiple questions
2. Michael D. Kliffer, French correction software

Dear co-linguists,

I'm interested in the typology of the syntax of questions
and would be very happy, if anybody could help me in
answering the following question:

The syntax of interrogative clauses varies in several ways
among languages. First, there are languages that have
wh-movement, like Engish, and languages that don't have it,
like Korean (for ease of reading, I'm only giving glosses):

1 a English: What did John eat _?
 b Korean: John what ate?

Second, many languages can have multiple wh-elements within
one clause, but there are also some that cannot, Italian is
supposed to be such a language. However, Italian is a
wh-movement language. I haven't found yet information about
*wh-in-situ languages that cannot form multiple questions*,
however:

2 a English: What did you do _ where?
 b Italian: *What did you _ where?

3 a Korean: you what where did?
 b ??????: *you what where did?

Does anybody know a language like 3b, i.e., a wh-in-situ
language that has no multiple questions? I would also be
very happy about hints to work dealing with this question. I
will post a summary of the answers to the list, if there are
any interesting results. Thanks in advance.



Dr. Ralf Vogel
mailto:rvogelling.uni-potsdam.de
Institute of Linguistics
University of Potsdam
http://ling.uni-potsdam.de/~rvogel

Does anyone have information on reviews of French grammar/spelling
correction software like Hugo, Le Correcteur, and Grammatik?

Thanks very much,
Mike Kliffer

- 
Michael D. Kliffer
Dept. of French Phone: 905-525-9140, ext. 23748

McMaster University E-mail: kliffermcmaster.ca
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M2