Interrogative CPsinterpreted as an operator, clearly has not undergone movement and so seems to
violate the interpretative principle in (35). One thing is clear, however: the
interpretation of this non-moved wh-element as an operator is dependent on there
being a moved wh-element in the same sentence. If this were not a multiple wh-
question, the wh-element would have to move. What we need then is to somehow tie
the non-moved wh-element to the moved one. One possibility would be to claim that at
some level of representation of the sentence which is relevant for semantic
interpretation, multiple instances of wh-elements are interpreted as a single complex
wh-element. Let us simply say that we indicate the interpretation of multiple wh-
elements as a complex operator by coindexing them:
(37) who 1 does Bill think likes what 1
We can then alter our statement of the interpretative principle to fit this situation:(38) interpret a wh-element as an operator if it is in spec CP or is coindexed with a
wh-element in spec CP
The movement of the wh-element to spec CP therefore seems to have an interpretative
motivation, which contrasts with the grammatical motivation of the movement to spec
IP. There are other differences between the movements, which we will look at in the
next chapter. We may, for now, simply identify the kind of Case filter/grammatically
motivated movement as A-movement (A stands for ‘argument’ as it is only argument
DPs which undergo it) and the kind of semantically motivated movement, such as wh-
movement, as -movement ( means ‘not argument’).
3.3 Inversion
Looking at inverted auxiliaries, we see that they all have one thing in common: they
are all finite. An inverted auxiliary may be a modal, which is inherently finite, or an
aspectual auxiliary which bears tense and we never get a non-finite form of the
auxiliary in the inverted position:
(39) a could they be finished?
b have they finished?
c are they starting again?
d *having him been seen
This suggests that the auxiliary moves to the C position from the inflection position. This
is straightforward with modals as they are generated in the inflection position at D-
structure. Thus they undergo a movement from I to C in certain interrogative structures:
(40) CP
C'
C IP
DP I'
I VP