Conjoined Multiple WH-Questions in Persian: Typo-syntactic analysis

Abstract

This paper examines the typological aspects of coordinated WH-Questions in Persian language. Coordination is one of the syntactic operations that makes a compound or complex phrase or sentence. It is widely assumed that two conjuncts have to be alike in their grammatical and semantic functions. Williams (1981) proposed the Law of Coordination of Likes; that is, the coordinated constituents must be the same in terms of their syntactic category; 1) a. John ate the apple and the orange. b.* John ate the apple and yesterday. In example (1b) the constituents the apple (NP) and yesterday (ADVP) differ in their syntactic categories. So, this violates the Law of Coordination of Likes. Despite the above description, the coordination of WH-words with different functions is possible in languages such as Hungarian: 2) a.Ki es mikor latta Marit? (pre verbal coordination in Hungarian) who-nom and when saw-3Sg Mary-acc “Who saw Mary and when?” b. Mikor es hol lattad Marit? when and where saw-2Sg Mary-Acc “When and where did you see Mary?” 3) a. Ki latta Marit es mikor? (post verbal coordination) who-Nom saw-3Sg Mary-Acc and when “Who saw Mary and when?” b. Mikor lattad Marit es hol? when saw-2Sg Mary-Acc and where “When and where did you see Mary?” (Lipták, 2003, p. 143) In these coordinated WHs (e.g. 2a & 3a), an argument WH-word and an adjunct WH-word are coordinated; where the Law of Coordination of Likes does not seem to be held and the sentences are, yet grammatical. She classified the strategies of WH-coordination into four types. Adjunct CMWQ, only adjuncts can be coordinated like Dutch; Free CMWQ, any type of constituents can be coordinated, like Hungarian; Mixed CMWQ, only optional materials can be coordinated, like German and NO CMWQ, the coordination of WH-words is not permitted, like Chinese (Lipták, 2011). These cases have not been afforded due to consideration in the previous studies in Persian language. Thus, this paper attempts to find out what types of WH-words can be coordinated; whether Persian type is mixed, free or adjunct type and finally, which coordinated WH-words are permitted in sluicing. In Persian, two adjunct-WH-words; one argument WH-word (obligatory or optional) and one adjunct WH-word are coordinated. However, the coordination of two argument WH-words has not been observed in the data gathered for this research. So, this language has its own properties which are different from the types (adjunct, mixed and free) proposed by Lipták (2011). Its properties are given in Table (1). Furthermore, the Persian coordinated WH-words are used in two types: sequential and split. 4) a. key va kojâ be donyâ âmadi? (sequential) When & where were born. Sg.3. “When and where were you born?” b. Če kasâni va čerâ dar Tehrân be xiâbân âmadand? Who & why in Tehran to street came. Pl. “ ??Who and why did they come to the street? ” c. * Ki va či xarid? Who & what buy. Sg.Past. “Who and what did she buy?” 5) a. key be donyâ âmadi va kojâ? (split) When were born. Sg.3. & where “When and where were you born?” b. Če kasâni dar Tehrân be xiâbân âmadand va čerâ? Who in Tehran to street came. Pl. & why “ ??Who and why did they come to the street? ” c. * Ki xarid va či? Who buy.Sg.Past. & what In this language, one WH-fronting is permitted; that is Persian does not have multiple WH-fronting like Bolgarian language. It was supposed if a language does not have wh-fronting, it cannot have CMWQ either. The movement of one WH-word is permitted in Persian, so it has the coordination of WH-questions in Persian. Each clause only has one focus constituent (Rizzi, 2004). Eventually, it has been hypothesized that the coordinated constructions are probably bi-clausal, because it was supposed that if a language does not have multiple WH-fronting, it can have bi-clausal CMWQs only. As mentioned above, Persian has two types of sequential and Split types of WH-coordination. In sluicing constructions, the sequential type of coordinated WH-words has just been observed. All these sentences showed the sluicing without any antecedent for WH-words. 6) Šenidim tasâdof karde amâ nemidunim bâ ki va key. (without antecedent) Heard accident but not- know with who & when “I heard she had an accident but I don’t know with whom and when.”