Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

This paper deals with Italian echo wh-questions in situ at prosody syntax interface.

 

Firstly, through two prosodic experiments, we show that a focalized wh-word in echo

 

wh-questions has its own peculiar properties, different from informative and

 

corrective focus, so that we label it as echo focus. In a framework that explores the

 

interplay between prosodic and syntactic properties, we have demonstrate that the wh-

 

word in echo wh-questions is not in situ, but occupies a focus position within the low

 

periphery à la Belletti (2001, 2004). Crucially, the focus position within the low

 

periphery activated in an echo wh-questions, has different syntactic, prosodic and

 

interpretive properties with respect to the low focus proposed by Belletti for the

 

subject, i.e. an informational focus, and with respect to the corrective focus in the left

 

periphery. Therefore, at a general level, our analysis strengthens the idea advanced by

 

Belletti (2004:17) that partly different intonations and interpretations are associated to

 

positions within the low periphery, as opposed to the positions in the left periphery.