Semantic Selection of Interrogatives as Syntactic Dependencies

Abstract

This paper investigates patterns of finite interrogative clauses in the context of s(emantic)-selection, with the empirical focus on Korean and Japanese. While s-selection of interrogatives is satisfied non-locally in these languages, it is blocked across the DP domain in nominalized contexts. Further, the languages must opt for an interrogative variant of nominalizer to locally satisfy s-selection. In order to account for these patterns, I propose that s-selection of interrogatives involves a type of syntactic dependencies, which is subject to phase-based locality and involves the valuation of a selection feature. This claim, in a broader context, suggests that certain types of s-selection may as well be motivated as a syntactic requirement rather than a lexical constraint.