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In:Signs and Structures: Formal Approaches to Sign Language Syntax
Edited by Paweł Rutkowski
[Benjamins Current Topics 71] 2015
► pp. 39–70

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WH-duplication in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

 | Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
 | Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
 | Laboratoire de linguistique formelle, Université Paris Diderot
 | Institut Jean-Nicod CNRS Paris
Published online: 17 September 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.71.03bra
This paper focuses on those WH-questions in Italian Sign Language (LIS) featuring two lexically identical WH-signs. We show that WH1 (the first WH in linear order) is shorter than WH2 (the second WH in liner order). However, there is evidence that this different duration is due to a phrase final lengthening, as WH2 occupies a sentence-final position. We therefore conclude that the two WH-signs are identical full copies: one sitting in Spec,CP on the right in LIS and the other one sitting in Spec,FocusP on the left. We show that this construction yields a (focused) cleft question interpretation and we speculate that both copies are phonologically realized because the WH-signs in Spec,CP and Spec,FocusP are the heads of two distinct chains. Finally, we distinguish identical WH-duplication from improper WH-duplication, namely cases where one of the two WH-elements is what we call Qartichoke, an underspecified interrogative sign only surfacing in WH-questions.
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