Halliday, M. A. K. (1967). Notes on transitivity and theme in English, Part 2. Journal of Linguistics, 3, 199–244.

Kiss, K. É. (1998). Identificational focus versus information focus. Language, 74, 245–273.

Kratzer, A., & Selkirk, E. (2020). Deconstructing information structure. Glossa: A journal of general linguistics, 5(1), 113.

Mathesius, V. (1961). A functional analysis of present day English on a general linguistic basis [1975]. The Hague, Paris: Mouton.

Philippaki-Warburton, I. (1985). Word order in Modern Greek. Transactions of the Philological Society, 113–143.

Rizzi, L. (1997). The fine structure of the left periphery. In L. Haegeman (Ed.), Elements of grammar (pp. 281–337). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Truckenbrodt, H. (1995). Phonological phrases: Their relation to syntax, focus, and prominence [PhD thesis]. MIT.

Φιλιππάκη-Warburton, Eι. (1982). Η σημασία της σειράς Ρήμα Υποκείμενο Αντικείμενο στα Νέα Ελληνικά. Μελέτες για την Ελληνική Γλώσσα, 3, 135–158.

Vallduvi, E. (1993). The informational component [PhD thesis]. University of Pennsylvania.

Wedgwood, D. (2005). Shifting the focus. From static structures to the dynamics of interpretation. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Nikos Angelopoulos¹ & Dimitris Michelioudakis^2
1Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης, ²Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
n.angelopouloss1@gmail.com, dmichel@lit.auth.gr

Suggestions that nominals may include TopP and FocP in their extended projection (see Alexiadou et al., 2007 for an overview) have not been uncontroversial and have received considerable criticism (see e.g. Szendrői, 2010). In this talk we argue that such positions do exist and are criterial in Rizzi’s (2006) sense, i.e. they give rise to criterial freezing effects. This in turn suggests that movement into such projections satisfies discourse-related criteria. We first show that such positions are indispensable for the analysis of a number of facts and restrictions (e.g. DP-internal fronting and subextraction) and then discuss the precise nature of the relevant information-structure-related effects.

Angelopoulos & Michelioudakis (2023) show that possessor extraction from DPs does not proceed through a Spec-D position which serves as an escape hatch (contra Horrocks & Stavrou, 1987), as this approach wrongly predicts a number of unattested patterns, such as successive-cyclic movement possibilities:

• {[Tis petheras pjanu]/[Pjanui ?(tis) petheras ti]}k idhes [DP t’k to spiti tk]?

1. *Pjanui idhes [DP t’’i to spiti [DP t’i tis petheras ti]]?

Instead, this and other effects can be captured if the first step of the derivation is movement of the wh-possessor into a criterial position X higher than D. The remnant of the nominal may either (i) stay in situ, allowing for fronting of a “possessor-possessum” sequence (2a) or (ii) move into a still higher position, allowing for wh-fronting of the remnant XP.

• [XP Pjanui X [DP to spiti pjanui]k idhes [XP pjanui X [DP to spiti pjanui]k ?

1. [TP … idhesT [ZP [DP to spiti pjanui] … [XP pjanui [DP to spiti pjanui] ] ] ®(XP-remnant fronting):

[CP [XP Pjanui X [DP to spiti pjanui]j]m [TP idhes … . (copies noted with strikethrough here)

Angelopoulos & Michelioudakis (2023) argued that ZP is a vP-peripheral projection hosting e.g. object DPs in VOS constructions, while XP is a DP-internal Focus position. In this talk we better motivate the claim that X is Focus-related and also show that intermediate movement into a Z-like position may also involve a DP-internal Topic-like position.

Typically, when focus-fronting applies, the part which is separated from the fronted XP is interpreted as a presupposition. In our case, this is the DP-remnant, which is however not propositional and cannot be a presupposition. We argue that the criterion satisfied by a DP- internal Focus position is instead the unambiguous marking of partitivity (Alexiadou & Gengel, 2011), which also licenses NP-ellipsis (3a). When such partitivity is interpretively impossible, focus-fronting (and ellipsis) is not licensed (3b). A moving XP cannot satisfy the same criterion twice, but focus-marked/emphatically stressed DPs can be fronted DP-internally and then pied- pipe a bigger constituent satisfying a clausal focus criterion, thus suggesting that DP-internal focus and CP-focus correspond to distinct criteria (4).

• apo oles tis polis protimo {tin poli tu Jani/TU JANI tin poli/TU JANI tin poli

1. …{tin poli ton Athinon/tin poli ton ATHINON/*TON ATHINON tin poli/*TON ATHINON}

• [FocP [TU JANI tin polii]k [TP protimo (tin polii) [TU JANI tin polii]k … ]]

Finally, this line of analysis also leads us to postulate a non-focal DP-internal position. As we saw in (2), for apparent subextraction, the remnant DP must move into an intermediate position. In (5) the remnant DP must be lower than the position of a postverbal subject. As this cannot be a vP-peripheral position, it must be a Topic-like position above Focpart.

• Otan ([FocP-remn TU JANI]) idha ([FocP-remn TU JANI]) eγo [TopicP [DP-remnant to spiti] FocPremn]

We argue that this ties in well with analyses of polydefiniteness as fronting of post-nominal reduced relatives (cf. Alexiadou, 2014) into DP-peripheral positions. Depending on their Focus/non-focus interpretation, they are subject to ordering restrictions which are compatible with a Topic>Focus ordering of the respective projections:

• idha [TopP tu Jani [FocP TO MEGHALO [DP to spiti]]]/^?*idha TO MEGHALO tu Jani to

References

Alexiadou, A. (2014). Multiple determiners and the structure of DPs (pp. 1–145). John Benjamins.

Alexiadou, A., & Gengel, K. (2011). Classifiers as morphosyntactic licensors of NP ellipsis: English vs. Romance. In S. Lima, K. Mullin, & B. Smith (Eds.), Proceedings of NELS (Vol. 39, pp. 15–28). ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Alexiadou, A., Haegeman, L., & Stavrou, M. (2007). Noun phrase in the generative perspective. Mouton de Gruyter.

Angelopoulos, N., & Michelioudakis, D. (2023/to appear). Extraction without an escape hatch: The case of Greek possessor extraction. To appear in Proceedings of NELS 53.

Horrocks, G., & Stavrou, M. (1987). Bounding theory and Greek syntax: Evidence for wh-movement in NP. Journal of linguistics, 23(1), 79–108.

Rizzi, L. (2006). On the form of chains: Criterial positions and ECP effects. In L. L.-S. Cheng & N. Corver (Eds.), Wh-movement: Moving on (Current Studies in Linguistics No 42, pp. 97–134). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Szendrői, K. (2010). A flexible approach to discourse-related word order variations in the DP. Lingua, 120(4), 864–878.

Kata Balogh¹ & Stavros Skopeteas^2
1University of Düsseldorf, ²University of Göttingen
kbalogh@kpnmail.nl, stavros.skopeteas@uni-goettingen.de

Phrases with the additive particle (henceforth, also-phrases) offer a diagnostic of non-exhaustive identification, since they entail that the complement of the additive particle is not the only individual at issue. Hence, these phrases are expected to be barred from constructions that involve exhaustive identification, such as the matrix clause of a cleft construction in English or the focus position in Hungarian (Kiss, 1998, p. 251). This property of additive phrases leads to an obvious conflict: what happens when the additive phrase is the domain of the utterance at issue, i.e., in the case that the also-phrase must be focused? This is a case of narrow focus that does not involve exhaustive identification.

Hungarian and Greek offer an informative minimal pair to tackle this question. Both languages share various properties in the clause structure, especially having a left periphery with a sentence-initial topic position and a preverbal focus position. These are also reflected in morphosyntactic cues: postverbal placement of verbal particles in Hungarian (Kiss, 1998) and pronominal resumption of object topics in Greek (Tsimpli, 1995). At the prosodic level, foci form a single intonational phrase with their complement, while topics are prosodically separated from it (see Szendrői, 2001 for Hungarian and Baltazani & Jun, 1999 for Greek). Crucially, these languages differ regarding the interpretation of the focus construction: Hungarian narrow focus is interpreted as ‘exhaustive’ (see Kiss, 1998, while the source of exhaustivity differs between accounts), while Greek foci certainly do not do so (Gryllia, 2008, p. 27).

In either language, the also-phrase has special properties with respect of structural focus marking. In Hungarian, it does not trigger the postverbal placement of the verbal particle (1a), hence it does not occupy the preverbal focus position, and in Greek, it is compatible with a co-indexed resumptive (1b), which is a construction expected for topics, not for foci. In both languages, the also-phrase displays the prosodic properties of narrow focus: it is not phrased separately and bears the nuclear stress. Furthermore, in both languages, sentential adverbials (e.g., fortunately) cannot follow the also-phrase. This indicates that the also-phrase is outside of the topic position, since before the verb, the right-most possible position of the sentential adverbial indicates the right boundary of the topic field (see Kiss, 2002). The behavior of the also-phrases contributes to our understanding of the properties of the left-peripheral positions. The incompatibility of the also-phrase with the focus position in (1a) and not in (1b), reveals a difference between Hungarian and Greek (presumably, the requirement of exhaustive identification of the former language). The possibility to map these constructions to a single intonation phrase in either language, as well as the intervention facts from sentential adverbs have repercussions for our understanding of the syntax-prosody mapping. They show that the information structural domains are straightforwardly reflected in prosody and are orthogonal to the involved syntactic configurations.

References

Baltazani, M., & Jun, S.-A. (1999). Focus and topic intonation in Greek. In J. J. Ohala, Y. Hasegawa, M. Ohala, D, Granville, & A. C. Bailey (Eds.), Proceedings of ICPhS-14 (pp. 1305–1308). University of California.

Gryllia, S. (2008). On the nature of preverbal focus in Greek [PhD Thesis]. Utrecht: LOT.

Kiss, K. É. (1998). Identificational focus versus information focus. Language, 74(2), 245–273.

Kiss, K. É. (2002). The syntax of Hungarian. Cambridge University Press.

Szendrői, K. (2001). Focus and the syntax-phonology interface [PhD Thesis]. London: UCL.

Tsimpli, I. M. (1995). Focusing in Modern Greek. In É. Kiss (Ed.), Discourse configurational languages (pp. 176–206). Oxford University Press.

Mary Baltazani¹, Michalis Georgiafentis², Anna Sfakianaki³ & Angeliki Tsokoglou^4
1University of Oxford, ^2,4National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, ³University of Ioannina
mary.baltazani@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk, michgeo@enl.uoa.gr, asfakianaki@uoi.gr, angtsok@gs.uoa.gr

Languages differ in the mechanisms they employ with respect to information packaging. In this study we examine different types of contrastive structures in Greek, aiming at describing the contexts in which they appear, their intonational characteristics and the mechanisms involved in the realisation of each type.

In particular, after referring to the basic distinction between information and contrastive focus, we draw our attention to structures which have a contrastive meaning, namely structures with a contrastive topic or a (mere) contrastive, corrective, confirmative, or mirative focus (see Georgiafentis & Tsokoglou, 2023 for Greek, and Bianchi & Bocci, 2012; Bianchi, 2013; Bianchi et al., 2015; Bianchi et al., 2016 for other languages), as in the examples [1] – [5] below:

[1] contrastive topic
Ποιος έφαγε τα γλυκά;
α. Την ΤΟΥΡΤΑ[1], την έφαγε ο Γιάννης.
β. # Την έφαγε ο Γιάννης, την ΤΟΥΡΤΑ.

[2] (mere) contrastive focus
Α: Χθες επικράτησε χάος από την κακοκαιρία.
Β: Ουσιαστικά, ο χιονιάς έπληξε την ΑΘΗΝΑ, (ο Πειραιάς τη γλύτωσε).
Β': Την ΑΘΗΝΑ έπληξε ουσιαστικά ο χιονιάς, (ο Πειραιάς τη γλύτωσε).

[3] corrective focus
Α: Κάλεσαν στο πάρτι τη ΜΑΡΙΝΑ.
Β: Την ΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΑ κάλεσαν, όχι τη Μαρίνα.
Β’: Κάλεσαν την ΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΑ, όχι τη Μαρίνα.

[4] confirmative focus
Α: Τι άκουσα; Αποκλείστηκαν και στην Κατεχάκη;
Β: Ναι, στην ΚΑΤΕΧΑΚΗ έμειναν ώρες κολλημένοι.
Β: Έμειναν ώρες κολλημένοι και στην ΚΑΤΕΧΑΚΗ.

[5] mirative focus
Α: Ο Γιάννης δεν έχει λεφτά. Μου ζήτησε δανεικά χθες.
Β: Τι λες; τρία ΚΙΝΗΤΑ έχει αγοράσει φέτος!

In the present paper we examine the intonational properties of contrastive structures in Greek (cf. Stavropoulou & Baltazani, 2021) in an attempt to investigate whether these structures have different or similar prosodical patterns apart from the fact that in the majority of them the contrastive element can appear both in a ‘high’ and a ‘low’ syntactic position in the structure, as shown in the examples above. In particular, the study comprises a production experiment addressing two main research questions: (a) Which is the preferred position of appearance (‘high’, ‘low’ or both) for the contrastive constituent, according to the type of contrastive structure? and (b) What are the main prosodic features (e.g. pitch accent type, tonal and segmental characteristics) observed in different contrastive structures? The results of the experiment are expected to provide essential evidence on the syntactic and prosodic realization of different types of contrastive structures in Greek.

References

Bianchi, V. (2013). On ‘focus movement’ in Italian. Ιn V. Camacho-Taboada, A. L. Jiménez-Fernández, J. Martín-González, & M. Reyes-Tejedor (Εds.), Information structure and agreement (pp. 193–215). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Bianchi, V., & Bocci, G. (2012). Should I stay or should I go? Optional focus movement in Italian. In C. Piñon (Ed.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 9 (pp. 1-16). Paris: EISS.

Bianchi, V., Bocci, G., & Cruschina, S. (2015). Focus fronting and its implicatures. In E. Aboh, J. Schaeffer, & P. Sleeman (Eds.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2013. Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Amsterdam 2013 (pp. 1-20). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Bianchi, V., Bocci, G., & Cruschina, S. (2016). Focus fronting, unexpectedness, and evaluative implicatures. Semantics & Pragmatics, 9(3), 1–54.

Georgiafentis, M., & Tsokoglou, A. (2023). Εστίαση και αντίθεση στην Ελληνική. In A. Revithiadou, I. Konta, G. Fotiadou, & A. Loukas (Eds.), Studies in Greek Linguistics, 42, 75–85. Thessaloniki: Institute for Modern Greek Studies (Manolis Triandaphyllidis Foundation).

Stavropoulou, P. & Baltazani, M. (2021). The prosody of correction and contrast. Journal of Pragmatics, 171, 76–100.

[1] Contrastive elements appear in caps.

Vasiliki Erotokritou
University of Cyprus
erotokritou.vasiliki@ucy.ac.cy

As Steven Pinker in The Language Instinct nicely puts it, as human species we have the unique ability to “communicate information about who did what to whom by modulating the sounds we make when we exhale” (Pinker, 1995, p. 19). Nevertheless, there is little consensus on the exact role of prosody in meaning and specifically on how these two components are mapped, with many scholars denying a direct association between information structural categories and prosodic characteristics (see Büring, 2016, p. 146). This talk contributes to the discussion on how some information structure distinctions are realized prosodically in Greek. In particular, it reports the results of a qualitative prosodic analysis of spontaneous speech data in Cypriot Greek (henceforth CG) and in Standard Modern Greek (henceforth SMG) obtained from semi-structured interviews conducted by the researcher and open access video files.

The existing literature on Information Structure and Prosody in Greek focuses on describing phonologically certain types of sentences, such as polar questions, wh-questions, and declaratives (e.g., Baltazani, 2003; Baltazani, 2006; Baltazani & Jun, 1999) or certain type of information structural categories, such as focus versus topic. Comparative studies between Standard Modern Greek and Cypriot Greek showed that the two varieties differ mostly in respect of the alignment of the accents and the final lengthening of the phonological phrases, with the prosodic contours of the basic sentence types (i.e., questions, declaratives) being the same (see Themistocleous, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2016; Themistocleous & Kyriacou, 2010). Nevertheless, when declarative sentences are mentioned, it is taken for granted that they are predicative sentences. The existing literature provides inadequate discussion on thetic sentences, or does not acknowledge their existence at all.

This talk aims to describe the phonological characteristics (focusing on intonation contours) along with the syntactic manifestation of four declarative sentence types (predication, minimal structure, existential and identification sentences) in both varieties under investigation. The terms predication and minimal structure clauses are borrowed from Agouraki (2019) and correspond to the fundamental semantic difference between thetic and categorical judgments (see Kuroda, 1972; Sasse, 1987). Thetic sentences are used to report perception of a situation of a certain type, while categorical sentences draw attention first to an entity and then a property is attributed to that entity (Kuroda, 1992). Existential sentences express “the recognition of the existence of an entity or a situation” (Kuroda, 1992, p. 21). Identification sentences serve “to assign a denotation to a variable which ranges over potential denotations for what corresponds to a syntactic argument or adjunct in a contextually salient open proposition” (Breul, 2004, p. 1–2). Examples of the structures under investigation are given in (1) for CG and in (2) for SMG. The preliminary results showed that in both varieties predication sentences with S[VO] and [VO]S word order exhibit a canonical broad focus at the end of the intonational phrase (L*+H !H* L-L%) and a canonical narrow focus at the beginning of the intonational phrase (L+H* L-L%), respectively, indicating a prominence on the last element of the verb phrase. Additionally, there are pitch accents on both constituents and an optional break between the constituents, supporting the bipartite semantic division of the sentence. On the other hand, minimal structure clauses, with [VS(O)] order exhibit phonological integration with a canonical narrow focus at the end of the intonational phrase (L*+H L+!H* L-L%). Existential sentences follow the same prosodic pattern as minimal structure clauses. In identification clauses in CG (expressed by preverbal stressed items or cleft constructions) the focused element bears the prominence (narrow focus). SMG lacks clefts. Nevertheless, the phonological cue of marking the focused element is the same as in CG.


References

Agouraki, Y. (2019). Description of Cypriot Greek [Class notes]. Nicosia: University of Cyprus, LAS248.

Baltazani, M. (2003). Broad focus across sentence types in Greek. Proceedings of Eurospeech-2003, Geneva, Switzerland.

Baltazani, M. (2006). Effects of Stress on Intonational Structure in Greek [Paper presentation]. Speech Prosody 2006, Dresden, Germany, 2–5 May 2006.

Baltazani, M., & Jun S.A. (1999). Focus and topic intonation in Greek. In J. J. Ohala, Y. Hasegawa, M. Ohala, D. Granville, & A. C. Bailey (Eds.), Proceedings of ICPhS-14 (pp. 1305–1308). University of California.

Breul, C. (2004). Focus structure in generative grammar: An Integrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach (Vol. 68). John Benjamins Publishing.

Büring, D. (2016). Intonation and Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kuroda, S.-Y. (1972). The categorical and the thetic judgment: Evidence from Japanese syntax. Foundations of Language, 9(2), 153–185.

Kuroda, S.-Y. (1992). Japanese syntax and semantics: Collected papers. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Pinker, S. (1995). The language instinct: The new science of language and mind (Vol. 7529). UK: Penguin.

Sasse, H. J. (1987). The thetic/categorical distinction revisited. Linguistics, 25, 511–80.

Themistocleous, C. (2008). Focus effects on syllable duration in Cypriot Greek. In A. Botinis (Ed.), ExLing 2008: Proceedings of 2nd Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics (pp. 241–244). Athens: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Themistocleous, C. (2011). Prosodia kai plirophoriaki domi stin Atheniaki kai kypriaki Ellinici (Prosody and information structure in Athenian and Cypriot Greek). Athens: National and Kapodistrian University of Cyprus.

Themistocleous, C. (2012). Cypriot Greek nuclear pitch accents (Ta pirinika tonika ipsi tis kypriakis ellinikis). In Z. Gavriilidou, A. Efthymiou, E. Thomadaki, & P. Kambakis- Vougiouklis (Eds.), Selected papers of the 10th ICGL (pp. 796–805). Komotini: Democritus University of Thrace.

Themistocleous, C. (2014). Edge-tone effects and prosodic domain effects on final lengthening. Linguistic Variation, 14(1), 129–160. https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.14.1.06the

Themistocleous, C. (2016). Seeking an anchorage. Stability and variability in tonal alignment of rising prenuclear pitch accents in Cypriot Greek. Language and Speech, 59(4), 433–461. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830915614602

Themistocleous, C., & Kyriacou S. (2010). Effects of tonal environment on the alignment of boundary tone in Cypriot Greek (Epidraseis tou tonikou perivallontos stin efthigrammisi tou tonou oriou stin Kypriaki Elliniki). In E. Vrynioti, A. Georgakopoulos, Ch. Themistocleous, Ch. Kontonikolis, V. Kousoulini, A. Papadopoulou, N. Stamatelopoulos, G. Fragaki, & N. Fragouli (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th Athens Postgraduate Conference of the Department of Philology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 29-31 May 2009.

Stavroula Tsiplakou
Open University of Cyprus
stavroula.tsiplakou@ouc.ac.cy

It is almost univocally claimed that in Standard Greek ex situ focusing involves syntactic focus  movement to a syntactic Focus position below C, while Cypriot Greek is claimed to be the only Greek dialect which has genuine focus (and wh-) clefts (Agouraki, 2010; Grohmann, 2009; Gryllia & Lekakou, 2007, among others). Recent research (Tsiplakou, 2017) suggests that focus clefts are ungrammatical in Standard Greek; in that study, which explored the acceptability of focus clefts in Standard Greek by Cypriot Greek speakers, the 12 speakers of Standard Greek who acted as controls found clefts such as (1) or (2) below uniformly ungrammatical.

The controls were also asked to correct the sentences they found ungrammatical; all opted for focus movement or for a structure involving an inflected copula and a relative clause, e.g.,

The structure in (4) is cleft-like, but it differs from a bona fide cleft as it involves an inflected copula and number and person agreement between the copula and the focused item, which, crucially, has been changed to a subject. Interestingly, such cleft-like structures may not be uncommon in Standard Greek:

In this paper we present results from a questionnaire survey in which we test for the acceptability of it-clefts in Standard Greek. The study replicates the one in Tsiplakou (2017). The questionnaire, which was administered electronically, tested for the acceptability of clefts of the following types (a) clefted adverbials/PPs (b) clefted first and second person pronominal subjects, (c) clefted third person subjects, pronominal and non- pronominal, (d) clefted direct objects, (e) clefted indirect object PPs and (f) clefted indirect objects in genitive, all with and without further movement of the focused constituent to the left of the cleft and also with the copula both uninflected and inflected for agreement and tense. Preliminary results indicate a significant preference for clefted third person subjects, while the rates of acceptance of clefted first and second person subjects improves if the copula displays subject agreement; interestingly, rates of acceptance also improve if the copula displays tense features matching the tense of the verb in the pu clause. These findings suggest that Standard Greek quasi-clefts may in fact be best analyzed as some other type of copular clause (e.g. equative).

References

Agouraki, Y. (2010). It-clefts and stressed operators in the preverbal field of Cypriot Greek. Lingua, 120(3), 527–554.

Grohmann, K. K. (2009). Focus on clefts: A perspective from Cypriot Greek. In A. Tsangalides (Ed.), Selected Papers from the 18th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (pp. 157–165). Thessaloniki: Monochromia.

Gryllia, S., & Lekakou, M. (2007). Clefts in Cypriot Greek. Studies in Greek Linguistics, 27,  136–148.

Tsiplakou, S. (2017). Imperfect acquisition of a related variety? Residual clefting and what it reveals about (gradient) bilectalism. Frontiers in Communication, 2, 17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2017.00017

Christos Vlachos
University of Patras
cvlachos@upatras.gr

A standard assumption in the literature on wh-clauses is that a wh-clause may be embedded under certain classes of predicates, as in (1) (see, e.g., Grimshaw, 1979; Lahiri 2002; Pesetsky, 1982).

A wh-clause may serve as the complement of either a rogative (wonder) or a responsive (know) predicate (see (1a) and (1b)), but not of an antirogative (believe) predicate, as the ungrammaticality of (1c) seems to suggest.

Within the minimalist approach to the formation of wh-clauses (Chomsky, 2001, onwards), it is argued that, in (1a-b), the embedded C bears a Q(uestion)-feature and probes for the wh-phrase which acts as a goal. After Agree between C and the wh-phrase, the latter internally merges (‘moves’) to Spec-C (due to the ‘edge’ feature of C). The two wh-copies are indistinguishable (or non-distinct), under FormCopy (Chomsky, 2021). At PF, the lower copy is deleted, while at LF, the higher copy translates to an Op(erator) binding the wh-variable discharged by the lower copy (at the position of external merge, or the ‘base-generation’ position). The ugrammaticality of (1c) follows from the incompatibility between the feature specification of the embedded C (which bears Q) and the selectional restrictions of the matrix predicate, which may combine only with a declarative clause (e.g., I believe that Mary left). In short, the information structure of an embedded wh-clause maps to a ‘Question’, which is why (1a-b) are grammatical while (1c) is not.

However, the picture with antirogative predicates does not seem to be so simple. Consider the Greek data in (2) (for an extensive discussion of Greek facts, see Vlachos & Balasi (2022 )and Roussou & Vlachos (2023); for similar results in English, see Dayal (2016), Roberts (2019) and White (2019)).

In (2), the wh-clause is embedded under the predicate pistevo (‘believe’) yielding an exclamative reading, and the result is grammatical. Capitalizing on evidence like (2), Roussou & Vlachos (2023) argue that the information structure of an embedded wh-clause is partly determined by the feature specification of C introducing the wh-clause, and partly by the grammatical context under which the wh-clause is embedded, including but not limited to the matrix predicate. Specifically, in (2), embedded C carries a generalized Op-feature which is enough to Agree with the wh-phrase and turn the latter to an operator, while the matrix grammatical context, which includes the predicate in conjunction with the modal and negative operators, is responsible for the exclamative reading.

In this talk, I want to push the argument made by Roussou & Vlachos (2023) even further by elaborating on a pattern of wh-clausal embedding represented in (3) (to the best of my knowledge, this pattern has not been discussed so far in the literature on wh-clauses).

In (3), the wh-clause is embedded under the ‘deictic’ (or presentative) na (meaning ‘here it is’), yielding a factive (i.e., non-question) reading, where the speaker knows exactly what the value of the wh-phrase is (on the ‘deictic’ na, see Joseph (1981), Christidis (1990), and Tsoulas (2017), a.o.; notice that the ‘deictic’ na, unlike the subordinating na, which in (3) heads the most embedded clause, is typically stressed; hence, the accent on the former). It is worth mentioning that the pattern in (3) is attested with any wh-phrase, be it an argument or adjunct. So, (3) corroborates the argument made above that the syntax of a wh-clause does not fully determine the relevant information structure. Time permitting, I will consider the way the internal structure of ‘deictic’ na (building on Tsoulas, 2017) facilitates merger with a wh-clausal complement (a topic with interesting implications not only about wh-clauses per se, but also about the status of ‘deictic’ na in the grammar of Greek).