Syntactic variation in German wh-questions

Empirical investigations of weak crossover violations and long wh-movement

Gisbert Fanselow | University of Potsdam / University of Marburg

Reinhold Kliegl | University of Potsdam / University of Marburg

Matthias Schlesewsky | University of Potsdam / University of Marburg

This paper reports three experiments concerning variation in the grammar of German wh-questions. We found much variation but no clear dialects in the acceptability ratings of sentences violating the weak crossover condition. We attribute this variation to extra-grammatical factors. With a sentence completion task, we were able to show that there is regional variation concerning the scope of wh-movement. In a training experiment, we were also able to make speakers of the restrictive dialect behave like speakers of the liberal dialect with respect to wh-movement. We argue that this suggests an extragrammatical explanation of the dialectal difference.

Keywords: German, Bavarian, Long wh-movement, weak crossover, sentence completion task, acceptability rating, training effects

Published online: 11 May 2006
https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.5.03fan

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