Italian wh-questions and the low periphery

Abstract

Abstract This article deals with Italian questions with a post-verbal wh-element, which are generally defined as in situ. We show that post-verbal wh-questions can be interpreted as information-seeking questions, and provide syntactic arguments supporting the hypothesis that the post-verbal wh-element is only apparently in situ. We claim that, in certain contexts, the post-verbal wh-element undergoes a syntactic movement targeting a low-peripheral focus position dedicated to the expression of informational focus. We integrate our analysis with the examination of a number of cases of low-peripheral wh-elements from the CLIPS and LIP corpora of spoken Italian. As for prosody, the available data show that a sentence-final wh-element carries the nuclear accent of the utterance. Moreover, low-peripheral wh-questions seem pragmatically more restricted compared to their counterparts with a fronted wh-. Although further investigation may reveal additional contexts for the questions at stake, low-peripheral wh-questions need to be linked to the preceding discourse context and can be used to add emphasis to the missing piece of information represented by the wh-element. Our low-peripheral analysis complements the current left-peripheral analysis of Italian wh-questions: wh-elements in left and low periphery display different interpretive and prosodic properties, indicating that they are involved in different phenomena. The results of this study also support the view that the low periphery is more subject to pragmatic restrictions compared to the left periphery.