Lecture: Ur Shlonsky

Cartography and selection

On the assumption that a head syntactically selects the head of its sister phrase, the following question arises: How is selection satisfied in a left periphery with a rich functional sequence (Rizzi 1997, etc.)? In many languages, left-dislocated topics can precede wh words in indirect questions: “You asked me this book  to whom I should give” (ok in Hebrew, Italian, Spanish and some people’s English). If the Topic sits in Spec/Top how can the interrogative-selecting V ‘ask’ “see” the wh word?