This paper explores some consequences of the assumption that the wh-feature of wh-expressions like what and which, traditionally treated in the literature as a positively marked [+wh] specification, may be more felicitously accommodated as an underspecification of a denotational sort. Dispensing with superfluous representations, I argue that the syntactic mechanism of wh-movement actually interfaces between a radically underspecified lexical entry and the universe of discourse. It regulates the ‘openness’ of this underspecification and its subsequent ability to probe into discourse, bearing on the workings of a referential function. Within the context of an operationally unified interplay between lexicon, syntax and discourse, a homomorphism is detected on all the levels of representation of whexpressions, with minimal lexical asymmetries projecting into distinct interpretive outputs, like interrogatives and free relatives.
Ioannou, G. (2012). Wh-features and the lexicon/discourse interface. Lenguas Modernas, (39), Pág. 45–67. Retrieved from https://nuevosfoliosbioetica.uchile.cl/index.php/LM/article/view/30732
