Investigating clausal wh-constructions in Romanian

Ivano Caponigro; Anamaria Falaus

doi:10.5565/rev/isogloss.325

Investigating clausal wh-constructions in Romanian

Authors

Ivano Caponigro
Anamaria Falaus Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Laboratoire de linguistique de Nantes https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5771-9046

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Abstract

Romanian has an articulated system of (non-)interrogative wh-clauses that look morphosyntactically similar or even identical to each other on the surface, while exhibiting striking differences in distribution and interpretation. Using a minimal set of criteria, tests and distinctions, this article presents the first systematic comparative overview of all clausal wh-constructions attested in Romanian. We show that none of these constructions can be reduced to any of the others and flesh out some of the challenges arising for a unified analysis of wh-constructions and wh-expressions.

Keywords

wh-clause, wh-word, Romanian, free relative clause, correlative clause

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Investigating clausal wh-constructions in Romanian

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