Asymmetries in Fragments

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This paper discusses the asymmetries with respect to island-sensitivity between two types of fragment answers : fragment answers to wh-questions, on the one hand, and fragments that derive from stripping, which in turn involves focus-movement, on the other. Fragment answers to wh-questions are insensitive to island constraints such as the relative-clause island constraint, on a par with sluicing, while fragments from stripping are sensitive to island constraints.We attempt to account for the asymmetries in terms of the difference in relevant constituent structures: while focus-movement encompasses Focus Phrase(FocP), answers to wh-questions are placed in SpecCP, a smaller structural unit than the former. This entails that the constituent that corresponds to the answer has to occupy the same structural position as the wh-operator in the corresponding question sentence.
2010-03-21