A multidominance account for conjoined questions in Romanian
Dafina Ratiu · Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series 4, Current issues in linguistic theory · 2011
This paper discusses conjoined questions in Romanian, where two selected WHs (i.e. a subject WH phrase and an object WH phrase) appear coordinated in clause-initial position. By comparing conjoined questions with selected WHs with conjoined questions with non-selected WHs, I argue for a bi-clausal analysis for both types, where one single IP is pronounced. I show that conjoined questions with selected WHs, as opposed to conjoined questions with non-selected WHs, raise two problems: (i) the shared IP can only be pronounced once and (ii) the shared IP has to be pronounced in the second conjunct. I argue that while an ellipsis/sluicing analysis fails, the multidominance analysis provides a straightforward account for these two problems. In particular, linearization algorithms for multidominance structure (all) correctly predict that the shared IP appears only once in the second conjunct.