On the status of wh-chains with a spelled-out foot

Abstract

The syntax of wh-questions has been largely investigated for several languages, basically focusing on their movement operations. In this paper I resort to wh-questions in Cape Verdean Creole (CVC) to illustrate a further syntactic aspect of these constructions, namely, the formation of resumptive and defective wh-chains. I suggest that these two chains are distinct from one another and, digging into their formal properties and assuming Boeckx’s (2003) theory of resumption, I argue for a movement analysis of defective wh-chains.