Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Program

Linguistics

Advisor

Jason Kandybowicz

Committee Members

Daniel Kaufman

Subject Categories

Syntax

Keywords

Wh- in-situ, Tibeto-Burman

Abstract

This thesis investigates the syntactic derivation of wh- in-situ constructions in Tshangla, an understudied Tibeto-Burman language of Bhutan. Argument wh-items can remain in-situ in islands—including sentential subjects, adjunct clauses, relative clauses, and coordinate structures—while projecting their scope to the matrix level. This island-insensitivity for certain wh-items suggests a lack of movement in the narrow syntax, yet diagnostic tests, including crossover effects, reconstruction effects, and parasitic gap licensing, provide compelling evidence for a movement-based account. I propose an analysis involving covert LF scrambling to the left edge of an island clause. This movement is driven by semantic requirements to type-shift the clause from a proposition to a set of propositions. Once at the edge, the wh-item establishes an indirect dependency with the Q particle ya in the matrix clause, which functions as a scope marker. I also explore possible explanations for the asymmetry in kinds of wh-phrases that demonstrate island sensitivity. Beyond the analytic objectives, this thesis contributes to the typology of question formation by demonstrating a scope-taking strategy that differs from those in other well-studied wh-in-situ languages.

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