Basic English Syntax with Exercises

echo question

7.3.2 Wh-movement

B’s response involves what is known as an echo question, in which a previously uttered sentence is more or less repeated and a part of it that was either not heard or not believed replaced by a wh-element. The meaning is quite clear: it is a request for someone to repeat or confirm the previous statement. This is very different from the meaning of a wh-question which is asking for information about a particular aspect of the sentence. Compare:

7.3.2 Wh-movement

If the wh-element is moved to the specifier of CP then the result is a wh-interrogative interpretation. If not then the sentence is interpreted as an echo question. We might think of this in terms of the interpretation of the wh-element itself. A wh-element interpreted in an echo question simply has the role of a pointer to the missing information. In a sense it is a ‘place filler’ that does little more than indicate what needs to be repeated. A wh-element that is moved into a the specifier of the CP is a little more complex in terms of its interpretation. The semantics of a moved wh-element is similar to that of a quantifier such as everyone or someone. These are called operators as they indicate a process that is needed to work out the meaning of the sentence that contains them. For example, consider the difference between the following: