Experimenting with wh-movement in Spanish

Abstract

This paper provides evidence for an analysis of subject inversion in wh-questions in Spanish and demonstrates that techniques of experimental syntax play an important role in developing such analyses. The techniques used show that there is gradience in judgments of wh-questions depending on the nature of the filler and of the intervening subject. The facts fall out from the interplay of straightforward properties of the syntax (e.g. wh-movement, preverbal or postverbal placement of the subject) with straightforward properties of the processor (a common pool of limited resources to process wh-dependencies and establish discourse referents). The analysis predicts a correlation between the Overt Pronoun Rate in any given variety and the ability of a wh-dependency to tolerate an intervening subject, and the difference between Caribbean and mainland Latin American Spanish confirms this.

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