140 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.
(128) a. Wichása ki wóte echúhq, tha-wícu ki mní
man the 3sG.eat while his-wife the water
ikicu he?
3sG.3sG.bring.for
"While the man was eating, did his wife bring him water?"
b. Hiyá, Fred (mní ikicu/ * wóte).
"No, Fred (brought it to him)" (or "she brought it to Fred")/
*"Fred was eating."
There are a number of felicitous answers to (127a), but none of them
involves elements in the relative clause as the focus of the question; that is
unacceptable, as the last response shows. The same is true in (128); there
are several ways to construe the question, but all of them are restricted to
the main clause; material in the subordinate clause cannot be questioned,
as the unacceptability of the last response indicates.
Thus both the etq-test and the response test show that a definite
restrictive relative clause and an adverbial subordinate clause are not within
the PFD of the sentence. Since the WH-word in a WH-question must be the
focus (AFD) of the question and therefore within the PFD, it follows that
it should be possible to have a WH-question with the question word func
tioning as an argument in the subordinate clause in a construction like (124)
but impossible in constructions like (125) and (126), and this is the case.
(129) a. [Tuwá thaló ki manú] iyúkca he?
who meat the 3SG.steal 3SG.think Q
"Who does he think stole the meat?"
b. Wichása ki [[§ wq táku yaxtáke] ki
man the [[dog a *what/something bite] the
le] wqyqka he?
this] saw Q
"*What did the man see the dog which bit ?"
"Did the man see the dog which bit something?"
Wichása ki táku yute echúhq, tha-wícu
man the * what/something 3sG.eat while his-wife
ki mní ikícu he?
the water 3sG.3sG.bring.for Q
"While the man was eating something, did his wife bring him
water?" *"What did his wife bring him water, while the man
was eating ?"