Basic English Syntax with Exercises

yes-no question

3.2.1 Move α

In (50b) we have what is termed a yes–no question, as it may be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. These questions typically involve subject–auxiliary inversion, in which the auxiliary verb and the subject appear to switch places. A more current view of the inversion process is that the auxiliary moves to a position to the left of the subject:

7.3.1 Basic positions within the CP

So far we have looked mainly at declarative CPs. In this section we will turn our attention to interrogatives. There are a number of different types of interrogatives and most of them seem to make use of the CP in one way or another. The two most obvious ones are wh-questions and yes–no questions.

7.3.1 Basic positions within the CP

In yes–no questions, there is no interrogative pronoun and the question is interpreted as asking about the truth of the proposition that it expresses. Hence they may be answered by “yes” (that’s true) or “no” (that’s not true):

7.3.1 Basic positions within the CP

It makes perfect sense that wh-questions and yes–no questions involve the complementiser system as complementisers contribute the semantics of force to the sentence, but there is independent evidence for the validity of these analyses. To start, that inverted auxiliaries occupy the C position is supported by the observation that inverted auxiliaries and complementisers are in complementary distribution. The best evidence for this involves not interrogative clauses, though it is also true that we never get inverted auxiliaries and complementisers together in an interrogative, but conditional clauses. In English there are two types of conditional clause, one formed with an if complementiser and one formed with an inverted auxiliary:

7.3.3 Inversion

As we can see, a yes–no question involving a main verb moving to the C position is ungrammatical and instead of the main verb moving to C what happens is that the dummy auxiliary do is inserted into the tense position, and from there it moves to C, via I. Of course, this is readily accounted for if main verbs do not move to I, as is the standard assumption. If they are never in I they cannot move to C without violating the head movement constraint. But we argued that main verbs can move to I and so it is not readily apparent why they cannot move to C. We will put this issue to one side until we have discussed the facts about I-to-C movement more fully. For the time being, then, we will concentrate on I-to-C movement as it involves auxiliary verbs.

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

We know that the complementiser is the head of the CP and that this provides the relevant features for the force interpretation of the sentence. Some complementisers are interrogative and some are declarative. Thus, when the clause is interrogative, presumably it has an interrogative complementiser and vice versa if the clause is declarative. In yes–no questions, therefore, we might expect the clause to have an interrogative complementiser. As we can see no complementiser in such sentences, we must assume it to be abstract. The assumption of such an element is supported by the fact that in some languages a morpheme with exactly these properties appears overtly. For example, in Japanese, a yes–no question is marked by the appearance of the morpheme ka at the end of the clause. Thus, the difference between (43a) and (43b) is that the first is declarative and the second interrogative:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

While this analysis seems less ad hoc than the assumption of different interrogative complementisers in main and embedded clauses, there are still a number of questions left unanswered. For example, how are we to analyse yes–no questions under the assumption that complementisers are not allowed in main clause complementiser positions? What triggers the inversion in this case if there is no wh-element to agree with? The answer might be that there is a wh-like element in yes–no questions. Although we do not get inversion type yes–no questions in embedded clauses, for obvious reasons, it is still possible to have an embedded yes–no question. These are typically expressed by the element whether:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

If we were to put the content of this embedded clause into a main clause it would be should I bring some wine, i.e. a yes–no question. Thus, (54) contains an embedded yes–no question. The wh-element whether is quite strange. In many ways it looks like a complementiser, being a word that appears at the front of an interrogative clause, rather like if. However, there are a number of reasons to believe that whether is not a complementiser. For one thing, it can introduce both finite and non-finite clauses:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

Finally consider the fact that the word whether was used in Old English to introduce yes–no questions in main clauses:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

But whether is not linked to any position inside the IP from which it has moved. This, I think, is understandable in terms of the functions of wh-elements. Most wh-elements are used in wh-questions and their function is to mark the clause as an interrogative and to indicate what the focus of the question is. (60a), for example is a question about the object, which is the position from which the wh-element derives. As we said, the function of whether is to mark a yes–no question and these questions focus on the truth of the sentence rather than on any particular piece of information it may carry. For this reason, then, whether does not need to hold a position in the clause, it merely indicates the clause’s question status. We may assume therefore that whether is a wh-element that is generated directly in the specifier of CP as a general interrogative operator. As it appears in embedded contexts, it will be accompanied by an interrogative complementiser Q with which it agrees:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

What about main clause yes–no questions? Obviously in Modern English, whether is not allowed to appear in main clauses. But we might suppose that something appears in the same position in main clause interrogatives. This is clearly an operator like whether, only phonologically null. Standardly, null operators are denoted by Op:

7.4.2 A comparison between relative and interrogative clauses

If this is true, then the same must be true of all relatives, including that and zero ones. The fact that we cannot detect a wh-element in these relatives suggests that they should be analysed as containing an empty wh-element, similar to the empty operator in yes–no questions, but this time behaving like the type of wh-element that originates inside the IP and moves to the spec of CP:

7.4.2 A comparison between relative and interrogative clauses

Again this may be entirely due to differences in the use of these constructions. As a relative clause modifies a noun making use of an anaphoric operator, there must be an antecedent for the operator to take its reference from. This antecedent, i.e. the modified noun, can provide us with the content of the operator and hence this is recoverable even if we cannot see the operator itself. With a question, however, as there is no antecedent, the content of the operator has to be visible on the operator itself and hence the null operator cannot be used in this way. The null operator used in yes–no questions is clearly non-referential and hence has no specific content to be recovered. In this situation then the null operator can suffice.