Modality force and syntax in an understudied class of reduced why-questions in English

Abstract

This paper analyzes the syntactic and interpretive components of a frequently used but understudied type of reduced why-question in English, referred to as 'Why-VP', as in 'why take Structure of Japanese'? Using a substantial corpus of naturally occurring examples, it is argued that why in Why-VP is in fact a head which selects a null infinitival head, hosting in its specifier a structural subject, pro, and which in turn selects the familiar verbal projections (Voice/V). Previous work on Why-VP has suggested that it is necessarily elliptical and that it is necessarily rhetorical (conveying a preference). These assumptions led to proposals appealing to special compositional technologies. Analysis of the naturally-occurring examples, however, reveals that Why-VP retains a true interrogative interpretation. The syntactic structure proposed, in which Why-VP is an infinitival wh-question, predicts that it should have a modal interpretation, following Bhatt’s (1999) analysis of covert modality in embedded wh-infinitivals. It is the modal interpretation characteristic of Why-VP that contributes to the rhetorical flavor, but that also allows for the genuine-question reading. Thus, we need rely only on independently available and familiar compositional mechanisms to understand the observed pragmatic effects.

Keywords

• why
• modality
• ellipsis
• clause structure
• rhetorical questions
• extended projection