LINGUIST List 7.65

Mon Jan 15 1996

Qs: Optional wh-movement, Web page for CLP, Trivial Pursuit

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Kristin Denham, Optional wh-movement
2. Paul Kenneth Roser, Q: Web page for CLP
3. Dorothy Disterheft, Trivial Pursuit

I am soliciting information on languages which have truly optional
wh-movement. For example, in the Athabaskan language
Babine-Witsuwit'en, wh-phrases may either occur in situ or fronted.
Pragmatic context has no apparent effect and the same speaker will
produce both versions in practically the same breath. Non-wh-phrases
do not share this freedom of position. Are there other langauges like
this?

Also, Babine-Witsuwit'en prohibits more than one wh-phrase per clause.
So "Who likes which book?" gets changed to something like "Who likes
that book?" And when asked for "Who is sitting where/in which chair?",
speakers produce the equivalent of "Where will they all sit?" Do you
know of other languages with this restriction?

I'll post a summary if there's sufficient interest.

 Perhaps someone out there can help me. I know that there is a web
site out there with the contents of past issues of CLINICAL
LINGUISTICS & PHONETICS, but I have lost the http address to access
it. Can anyone tell me how I might access it?

Many thanks,
Paul Roser <pkrosercsd.uwm.edu>

I have a question which perhaps belongs to a game like Trivial
Pursuit. However, this seems the best forum in which to ask
it. Someone here in South Carolina has asked me whether, in any
language in the world, the word _premier_ has any meaning or
connotation aside from the one usually associated with it. That is,
does it resemble any sequence of morphemes which might have a meaning
different from that of the Latin form from which it derives?
Furthermore, could it be slightly altered to have any other meaning? A
textbook example of what we're looking for is the American car made by
Chevrolet which is called _Nova_. After this model was marketed,
Spanish speakers took delight in calling it the _no va_ 'it doesn't
go'.

Can anybody help me with this question? Thanks in advance.

Dorothy Disterheft