A Short Note on Wh-in-situ in Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian

초록

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the properties of wh-in-situ constructions in Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian (CJI). Unlike Standard Indonesian and Malay, which exhibit both wh-movement and partial wh-movement, CJI content questions are obligatorily wh-in-situ. The core observation we examine involves an asymmetry between nominal wh-phrases (who, what, etc.) and adverbial wh-phrases (why, how). The former are immune to islands, while the latter are sensitive to them. We review previous analyses on related varieties and conclude that they cannot account for the fact in CJI. Instead, we propose an analysis involving unselective binding and covert movement. We end with some tentative remarks on why wh-movement is not observed in CJI in light of the fact that feature strength is no longer a viable option.

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