We are happy to announce a talk by Leonie Barabas-Weil (Universität Leipzig) in the Syntax Colloquium.
The talk will take place in person. Room IG 4.301
Date: November 28
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct
Title: Long distance wh-movement in Turkana
Abstract:
In this talk, I will present novel wh-movement data from Turkana, an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in the North of Kenya. Turkana has VSO word order which allows focus and wh-element movement to the preverbal domain. In sentences with two CPs with wh-movement from the lower CP, the lower CP may have a copy of the wh-element in the pre- or postverbal position but the copy is not obligatory. However, as soon as the sentence has three CPs, the sentence becomes ungrammatical unless there is at least one copy of the wh-element in the intermediate or the lowest CP in either the pre- or postverbal position. The sentence is also grammatical if each CP has a copy of the wh-element, however, the sentence becomes ungrammatical if there is more than one copy in one CP. In this talk, I will discuss the implications of this data for theories of long distance movement and successive cyclicity.