Wh-Movement by Fadi Sukkari

1. A comparative study of
Question Formation: Wh-movement
in English and Arabic
Prepared by:
Fadi Sukkari

2. Asking questions and looking for
information under the form of
answers is a natural human activity;
thus, questions are found in all
languages.
The interrogative form is part of
every language grammar, whatever
its syntax or degree of complexity.

3. By definition, the illocutionary act,
associated with the interrogative, is
seeking information from the listener
to a question.
However, other social meanings,
such as exclamation or the issuing of
orders might also be possible.

4. The passage from the
declarative/assertive form to the
interrogative form, or what we refer
to in linguistics by “question
formation” can be very different
from one language to another.

5. To form questions, interrogative
words are used. These words are
called wh-words because
in English most of them start with wh-
(how is the only exception to the rule).
They may be used in both direct
questions and in indirect questions.

6. More recently, wh-questions have been
referred to as A’-questions since wh-
words are exclusive to English.
In French, questions are rather formed
by adding Qu-words such as (que, qui,
quoi, quel, quand).
Yet, the term wh-questions is still largely
used where it is used to study the
phenomenon in languages other than
English.

7. The formation of wh-questions is a
complex phenomenon that most EFL
learners find very difficult, especially
when their mother tongues do not
present the same type of restrictions.
If we consider the case of Arabic and
English, the normal sentence structure
of the former is V-S-O, whereas the
latter’s structure is S-V-O. This has an
influence question formation.

8. In this paper we will contrast the wh-
movement in English to the wh-
movement in Arabic; we will try to
show that English has an overt wh-
movement, whereas Arabic is more
favorable to in-situ wh-movement, yet,
subject questions remain simpler to
form than object questions in both
languages.

9. The Interrogative Form

10. Interrogative structures in English are
of two types- “polar” and “non-polar”.
Polar structures are more known as
“Yes/No” questions, whereas non-
polar ones are “Wh-” questions since
wh-words are specific to English, or
A’-questions as they are more
generally known in generative
grammar.

11. In polar interrogatives, it is simply the
polarity that is in question, where the
answer could only be either “Yes” or
“No”. The person who is using polar
interrogation does not expect any
information of any kind on the
questioned component of the
interrogative sentence; thus we
frequently hear utterances like “I am
asking you, is it YES, or NO?”

12. On the other hand, Wh-questions are
non-polar and are also known as
“information questions” since they elicit
from the interlocutor information and
not a mere “yes” or “no;” in a non-polar
interrogative, there is an additional
element embedded in the wh-word that
the speaker is looking forward to
knowing.

13. The “wh-phenomenon”
or non-polar interrogative structure

14. The structural order of non-polar
interrogatives or wh-questions will
generally vary based on the element of
the sentence the question is about: it
will have a different structure whether
the “Subject” or the “Predicate” of the
sentence is the questioned
component.

15. If the identity of the Subject is
questioned, the same order, as the
declarative sentence will prevail, which
is an exception to the formation rule;
thus, the order SVO is kept. The
answer to the question “Who wants an
ice-cream?” would be “Sami wants an
ice-cream.”

16. In other cases, where the predicate, is
being questioned, the wh-word will still
come in the beginning of the question,
a phenomenon known as “fronting,” but
the rest of the sentence will not keep
the same order, as in “What did you
eat?”, “Whom did you invite?”, or “How
is it made?”, where the SVO order is
inverted to VSO.

17. Wh-question formation, as a phenomenon,
has always interested linguists as it appears
to violate some of the language linguistic
rules. Among these rules, for instance, is
that certain verbs are ditransitive so they
necessitate two objects- one direct and the
other indirect.
Sami put the dictionary in a drawer (S-V-O 1-O2).
*Sami put the dictionary1___ (S-V-O1-___).
*Sami put ___ in a drawer2 (S-V-___-O2).

18. Although S-V-O is the habitual English structure,
but the ditransitive nature of the verb “put” doesn’t
allow the empty slots in (b) and (c). However, this
empty slot is allowed in:
d- Where did Sami put the dictionary ___?
Here, the empty slot shows the expected location
of the PP that is required in the case of a
ditransitive verb, as though the question should
have been:
e- *Where did Sami put the dictionary in a drawer?

19. Languages with SVO structure, such as English,
have an overt wh-movement.
1. If the questioned component is the subject the
question is formed by insert who or what.
2. If the questioned component is anything in the
predicate or any sub-part of a noun phrase in
the subject, the question shall be formed by
- inserting the correct wh- word,
- fronting that word,
- moving the operator (V or Aux) in front of the
S,
- adding “do” if the sentence has no operator.

20. p. 8
From the examples in the table, we
can conclude that to make a question
using the predicate pattern, it is easier
for the learners first to form a yes/no
question by inverting the subject and
verb, and then, add the appropriate
wh- word to the beginning of the
sentence.

21. What generalizations can we formulate in English?
1. Wh-questions focus on particular parts of
sentences and not on the whole sentence the way
that yes-no questions do.
2. Wh-questions are formed by inserting a wh-
word into a sentence in the place of missing
information.
3. Wh-questions about the subject of a sentence
have simpler grammar than wh-questions about
anything in the predicate.

22. 4. If Wh-questions are about the S of a sentence
just insert who or what and keep the same word
order S-V-O.
5. If Wh-questions are about anything in the
predicate insert a wh-word and then manipulate
the word order by moving that wh-word to the
beginning and then moving the operator in front of
the subject.
6. If there's no operator in the verb phrase, then
one has to be added. Like Yes/No questions and
negatives with not in the verb phrase, wh-
questions that need to add an operator use do.

23. Wh-questions in Arabic
According to Joseph
Greenberg's linguistic universal number
12, “If a language has dominant
order VSO in declarative sentences, it
always puts interrogative words or
phrases first in interrogative word
questions.”
p. 10

24. It is clear from the examples, that Arabic
has a simpler structure when it comes to
question formation than English.
In all cases, without exception, the wh-word
is added at the beginning of the question
and the structure V-S-O is kept unchanged.
The only exception to this rule is when the
questioned component is the possessive
form of the object as in number (7), where
the wh-word “‫ ”من‬is projected at the end of
the question.

25. As for the movement within the question of
the empty slot, number (1) is different from
the other examples, yet, it is not an
exception to the rule. The questioned
component here is the subject itself, and
since in the habitual Arabic sentence
structure V-S-O, the subject should
immediately follow the verb, which applies
even in this case.