Interrogative Phrase (IntP)

♦ Evidence from Italian indicates that complementizers such as se 'if' must be kept distinct from the highest ForceP or the lowest FinP, since se can precede (1a), follow (1b) or be sorrounded by Topics:

(1)        a.         Mi domando se, la macchina, potrò comprarla quest’anno

                        ‘I wonder if, the car, I will buy this year’

            b.         Mi domando, la macchina, se potrò comprarla quest’anno

                        ‘I wonder, the car, if I will manage to buy it this year’

            c.         Mi domando, a mio figlio, se, la macchina, gliela compreremo quest’anno

                        ‘I wonder, to my son, if, the car, we will buy it to him this year’

(Italian, Rizzi & Bocci forthcoming)

♦ IntP is rigidly ordered with respect to Focus. Complementizer se must precede the focalized element, as in (2):

(2)        a.         Mi domando se LA MACCHINA gli potremmo regalare (non la moto)

                        'I wonder if THE CAR we could give to him (not the motorbike)’

            b.         *Mi domando LA MACCHINA se gli potremmo regalare (non la moto)

                        ‘I wonder THE CAR if we could give to him, not the motorbike’

(Italian, Rizzi & Bocci forthcoming)

♦ Crosslinguistic evidence shows that IntP can co-occur with ForceP, e.g. in Spanish (see co-occurrence of complementizers).

♦ Not only does IntP host complementizers such as if, but it also harbours wh-elements like perché 'why' and “other reason adverbials in its specifier, both in main and in embedded questions'' (Rizzi & Bocci forthcoming). Items like perché can be directly merged in IntP (Rizzi 2001) or they may land in IntP from a lower CP position (Shlonsky & Soare 2011).

♦ Not only does IntP host complementizers such as if, but it also harbours wh-elements like perché 'why' and “other reason adverbials in its specifier, both in main and in embedded questions'' (Rizzi & Bocci forthcoming). Items like perché can be directly merged in IntP (Rizzi 2001) or they may land in IntP from a lower CP position (Shlonsky & Soare 2011).

♦ "Int should not be confused with the marker of interrogative Force, which plausibly appears in the highest position of the C-system (Force" (Rizzi 2013: 206).

Main References: Rizzi L. (2001, 2013), Rizzi L. & Bocci G. (2016), Shlonsky & Soare (2011)