Why is ‘Why’ Unique?

Why is ‘Why’ Unique? Its Syntactic and Semantic Properties considers the behaviour of this peculiar wh -element across many different languages, including Ewe, Trevisan, Italian, Basque, German, Dutch, Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Hebrew. In ten original chapters, the authors explore various aspects of why -questions, such as the way why interacts with V2 constructions in Basque, with a subject clitic in Trevisan or how its morpho-syntactic make-up determines its merge position in Ewe, to mention but a few. Furthermore, a clear-cut distinction is established between high and low reason adverbials which are subsequently examined in why -stripping environments in Dutch.

Beyond why proper, the book explores a special class of wh -expressions in some in-situ languages which give rise to unexpected why -construals with a touch of whining force. The objective is to explain the unusual syntactic position of these wh -expressions as well as their association with peculiar pragmatics. The questions are addressed for Cantonese: are what -initial sentences genuine questions? To what extent are Cantonese what -initial sentences similar to how -initial sentences in Mandarin? Beside these what -as- why questions, a special class of rhetorical questions, the doubly-marked interrogatives in Hebrew, come under scrutiny.

Why is ‘why’ unique also concerns the interface with prosody and several experimental studies investigate precisely this aspect.