Optimal Analysis Of Wh-Quantification

This dissertation studies the’form’and’meaning’problems of Wh-quantification under the theoretical framework of Optimality Theory. Three questions are proposed:(1) What is the relationship between OT Syntax and Principles and Parameters Theory (PPT), particularly, Evaluation in OT and Derivation in PPT?(2) What are the constraints that govern the formation and interpretation of wh-quantification?(3) How are the constraints ranked to generate an optimal candidate in English and Chinese, and furthermore, cross-linguistically?The author argues that at least three constraints are involved in determining the forms of Wh-quantification:Q-Marking, Q-Scope and Stay. The former two are Markedness Constraints, and the latter Faithfulness Constraint.We confirm that the Constraint Ranking in Wh-fronted languages such as English is, Q-marking》Stay》Q-scope. By ranking Q-scope higher than Stay, that is, Q-marking》Q-scope》Stay, we get multiple-Wh-fronted languages such as Bulgarian. Re-ranking the constraint hierarchy as Q-scope》Stay》Q-marking, we can solve other multiple-Wh-fronted languages such as Czech. Wh-in-situ in languages such as Chinese and Japanese can be explained by the constraint hierarchy of Stay》Q-scope》Q-marking.OT Syntax mentioned above is a grammar which is based on the speaker. The direction of it is from’meaning’to’form’, that is, the input is’meaning’(argument structure) while the output is’form’(syntactic structure). OT Semantics, on the other hand, is a grammar based on the hearer. Both OT Syntax and OT Semantics require a one-to-one correspondence between the input entity and output candidate. However, it violates the one-to-many property of natural languages. We argue that the concept of constraint tie can be used to resolve this problem. If two constraints in a hierarchy have the same status, two optimal candidates can be selected from the output.Through cross-linguistic study of Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, we propose that at least four constraints are involved in the semantic processing of Wh-quantification:Minimal Distance Principle, Stay, Thematic Fit (TF), Obligatory Wh-Topic (OB WH-TOPIC).Taking WH/QP Interaction as an example, suppose MDP and OB-WH-TOPIC form a constraint tie in English, we can get the two readings (single question reading and pair list reading) by ranking these constraints like, TF》MDP。OB-WH-TOPIC》 Stay. The LF of Chinese is the same as that of English; therefore, they share the same hierarchy and Chinese WH/QP sentence gets two readings just like those in English. A single question reading of Wh-subject/QP-object sentence can be explained by the constraint ranking of TF》Stay》MDP。OB-WH-TOPIC.In Japanese and Korean, Stay and MDP make a constraint tie, and the constraint OB-WH-TOPIC ranked higher than the tie (that is, TF>>OB-WH-TOPIC>>MDP。tay), we can get the ideal result that pair list reading is excluded as optimal candidate.The constraints mentioned above are not by far the only constraints that can be used to solve the problem of wh-quantification. We hope there will be more constraints proposed and more topics discussed, which will surely make further research more deeply and interesting.