Jarai wh-questions:

Pseudocleing, wh-raising, & clause structure∗

Joshua M. Jensen
e University of Texas at Arlington
jjensen@uta.edu • hp://ling.uta.edu/~josh/

Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America • 07 January 2011

Introduction
ere are three basic structural possibilities for wh-questions:

i. Wh-fronting: e wh-phrase moves out of its subcategorized argument position to the periphery of the clause
(typically assumed to be Spec,CP).

ii. (Pseudo)cle: e remainder—everything other than the wh-phrase—is a relative clause. e wh-phrase and
the remainder are separate constituents in a copular construction.

iii. In situ: e wh-phrase is base-generated in an argument (or adjunct) position and remains there.

Several Austronesian languages—e.g. Tagalog (Kroeger 1993), Malagasy (Potsdam 2006), Malay (Cole et al. 1999),
among others (see Potsdam 2009:745)—have been argued to have a pseudocle structure for at least some wh-questions.
In a question with a pseudocle analysis, the wh-phrase is typically analyzed as a predicate DP, and remainder is a DP
subject, specifically a headless relative clause (HRC). e Malagasy wh-question given in (1a) illustrates this structure,
with a parse sketched in (1b).

(1) M P  (Potsdam 2006)

a. iza no nihomehy?
who  laugh
‘Who laughed?’ (lit. ‘e one that laughed is who?’)
b. [S [DPwh iza ] [DPHRC no nihomehy ] ] ?

(Pseudo)cleing has been argued to be a “fronting” strategy for questioned arguments in in situ languages, i.e., lan-
guages that lack wh-movement (Cheng 1991).

I will be examining wh-questions in Jarai, a western Austronesian language with SVO word order, spoken in Vietnam
and Cambodia.

My claim: Jarai has genuine wh-movement, but it also has pseudocle questions and in situ wh-questions.

∗
anks to Lap Siu, Hendy Siu, Ty Ksor, and Mik Ksor, who have patiently taught me about their language; to Joey Sabbagh, Paul Kroeger,
and Maria Polinsky for helpful discussion; and to the UT Arlington College of Liberal Arts for funding that helped me gather data used in this
paper.

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Outline for the rest of the talk:

i. Preliminaries: A few basics about Jarai

ii. e Phenomena & Claim: A look at a few Jarai wh-questions and my claim about their structure

iii. Arguments: Five arguments that some wh-questions in Jarai have a pseudocle structure, while others involve
straightforward wh-movement from a subcategorized argument position

iv. Structure of Pseudocle estions: A derivation for pseudocle questions in Jarai

v. Conclusion: Wrap-up and some implications

1 Preliminaries
Jarai has SVO word order. ere is no case-marking or other inflectional morphology, and no voice alternations.1

(2) B V C (I  T)

a. Kâo rơbat yơh.
1 walk 
‘I walked.’
b. Kâo kiăng năm ƀĕ gai-rơmôl.
I need six  dibber
‘I need six dibbers.’ (dibbers = pointed stis used in planting)

Clauses whose main predicate is an AP or DP are also subject initial. Such clauses contain the optional copula jing.

(3) C C

a. Kâo [AP rơŏ t biă-mă ] .
1 cold very
‘I’m very cold.’
b. ñu anŭn jing [DP đah-kơmơi tuai ] .
3 .  woman visitor
‘She’s a foreigner.’ (Ruth 2.6, partial)

2 e Phenomena & Claim

(4) T D C
H'He lui Mik (pơ Čeo Reo).
H’He leave Mik ( Cheo Reo)

‘H’He le Mik (in Cheo Reo).’

1
All transcriptions use the Jarai orthography, which is reasonably transparent to the phonology and whose glyphs are close to their IPA
look-alikes. Unfamiliar glyphs are as follows: : ƀ = ʔb, đ = ʔd, V̆# = Vʔ; : Vo = Vw, Vi = Vj; : â = ɑ, o = ɔ, ô = o, ơ = ə,
ư = ɯ.
I use the following abbreviations in glosses: 1,2,3 = person,  = classifier,  = copula,  = demonstrative,  = distal,  = generic,
 = medial, 1 = first element in negation, 2 = second element in negation,  = preposition,  = particle,  = proximal,  = singular,
 = question particle.

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 (5)   O
a. Hlơi pô H'He lui (jing) (lĕ)?
who  H’He leave  
b. Hlơi H'He lui (lĕ)?
who H’He leave 
c. H'He lui hlơi (lĕ)?
H’He leave who 
‘Who did H’He leave?’

Preliminary claim in two parts:

i. Constituent questions in Jarai that have the form Hlơi pô…? (as in 5a) have a pseudocle structure (sketched
in 6a). Specifically, they are copula clauses in which both the wh-phrase and the remainder are DP’s, and the
remainder DP takes the form of a headless relative clause.

ii. Constituent questions with hlơi but lacking pô (as in 5b) do not have a pseudocle structure but involve fronting
of the wh-phrase from a subcategorized argument position (sketched in 6b).

(6) a. S b. CP

DPwh DPHRC DP C′

hlơi hlơii C S
pô H’He lui ‘who’
‘who’ ‘ H’He leave’
H’He lui ti
‘H’He leave’

3 Arguments for Pseudocle Analysis

I develop two lines of argumentation for the claim that questions containing pô have a pseudocle structure:

i. the remainder (pô…, excluding hlơi ‘who’) constitutes a DP;

ii. the clause constitutes a copular construction

3.1 e Remainder is a DP: Evidence from the Distribution of pô

Prediction: If the remainder (pô…) constitutes a headless relative clause (and thus a DP), then we expect to find that
pô can stand at the le edge of relative clauses (and DPs) outside of wh-questions.

As (7) and (8) illustrate, pô can stand at the le edge of headless relative clauses.

(7) Lap jing [DP pô ngă sang anai ].

Lap   make house .
‘Lap is the one who made this house.’

(8) ñu anŭn jing đah-kơmơi tuai, [DP pô rai mơ̆ng lŏn-čar Môab . . . ]
3 .  woman foreign  come from land-country Moab . . .
‘She is a foreigner, who came from the land of Moab. . . ’ (Ruth 2.5)

Pô can also occur at the le edge of DPs with null N heads, as (9) and (10) show.

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 (9) [DP Pô anŭn ] rơngiă hĭ dua-klâo ƀĕ čơđeng tơngan.
 . lose  few  digit hand
‘at person lost a few fingers.’

(10) Kâo ƀuh [DP pô anŭn ].

1 see  .
‘I saw that person.’

Finally, pô can stand at the le edge of a DP with an overt N head, as in (11).

(11) Kâo ƀuh [DP pô čơđai anŭn ] ƀơi sang Je tŏm brơi.
1 see  child . at house Je yesterday
‘I saw that kid at Je’s house yesterday.’

Proposal: pô is a Determiner (D) that selects an NP complement.

Note that pô is in complementary distribution with ƀing, which paerns as a D head that selects a plural complement,
as examples (12), (13), and (14) illustrate.

(12) [DP Ƀing (*pô) ngă sang Je ] pơ adih. (cf. 7)

  make house Je  .
‘e ones making Je’s house are way over there.’

(13) Kâo ƀuh [DP ƀing (⁇pô) anŭn ] . (cf. 10)

1 see   .
‘I see those people.’

(14) Kâo ƀuh [DP ƀing (⁇pô) čơđai anŭn ƀơi sang Je tŏm brơi ] . (cf. 11)
1 see   child . at house Je yesterday
‘I saw those children at Je’s house yesterday.’

Key point: e particle pô implicates the le edge of a headless relative clause (and DPs more generally).

3.2 e Remainder is a DP: DP-Final anŭn

Baground: Noun phrases in Jarai can have (at least) the following elements, in the following order (15). What’s
important for the present discussion is that the demonstrative is always final in the noun phrase.2 e medial demon-
strative anŭn ‘that’ is the typical indicator of definiteness.

(15) DP C
ant – [Num – Cl] – Gnrc – N – Adj – Pos – Dem

(16) J DP
abih-bang klâo ƀĕ phŭn pơtơi mơda Tre anŭn
all three   banana young Tre .

‘all three of those young banana trees of Tre’s’

Predictions:
i. If the remainder (pô…) constitutes a DP, then it should be possible to have a demonstrative at the right edge of
the remainder.
2
ere are cases when the Numeral–Classifier phrase and/or the antifier can postpose to the right of the Demonstrative, but these cases
do not affect the analysis of wh-questions.

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 ii. A demonstrative should not be possible at the right edge of the remainder in questions lacking pô.

e first prediction is borne out by (17a), where the subject is questioned, and (18a), where the object is questioned.
e second prediction—that the demonstrative is (comparatively) bad in non-pô questions—is confirmed by (17b) and
(18b).

(17)   

a. Hlơi [ pô wŏt glaĭ anŭn ]?
who  swing return .
b. Hlơi wŏt glaĭ (⁇anŭn)?
who swing return .
‘Who returned?’

(18)   

a. Hlơi [ pô Je ƀuh anŭn ]?
who  Je see .
b. Hlơi Je ƀuh (?anŭn)?
who Je see .
‘Who did Je see?’

Key point: e demonstrative anŭn implicates the right edge of DPs.

3.3 e Remainder is a DP: Negating the Remainder

Baground: Jarai has a special form of the negator for DP’s.

i. e negator ƀu negates VP’s (19).

ii. e negator ƀu-djơ̆ negates DP’s (20).

(19) N  VP
a. Yă kâo ƀu [VP klao ] ôh.
g’mother 1 1() smile 2
b. * Yă kâo ƀu-djơ̆ [VP klao ] ôh.
g’mother 1 1() smile 2
‘My grandmother doesn’t smile.’

(20) N  DP
a. H'Ƀlač ƀu-djơ̆ [DP amĭ kâo ] ôh.
H’Blach 1() mother 1 2
b. * H'Ƀlač ƀu [DP amĭ kâo ] ôh.
H’Blach 1() mother 1 2
‘H’Blach is not my mother.’

Predictions:

i. If the remainder (pô…) constitutes a DP, then it should be possible to negate it with ƀu-djơ̆.

ii. e DP negator ƀu-djơ̆ should not be possible before the remainder in questions lacking pô.

e contrast in judgments between (21a) and (21b) bears out this prediction.

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 (21) a. ? Hlơi ƀu-djơ̆ [ pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ôh ] ?
who 1()  swing return  Cheo Reo 2
‘Who didn’t return from Cheo Reo?’
b. * Hlơi ƀu-djơ̆ wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ôh?
who 1() swing return  Cheo Reo 2
(‘Who didn’t return from Cheo Reo?’)

Key point: e negator ƀu-djơ̆ indicates the presence of a subsequent DP.

3.4 e Remainder is a DP: Evidence from Constituency

Prediction: If the remainder (pô…) constitutes a DP to the exclusion of hlơi ‘who’, then the remainder and hlơi ‘who’
should behave as separate constituents.

As (22a) and (23a) show, hlơi ‘who’ can occur clause-finally (in a non-argument position), leaving pô in a clause initial
position, suggesting that the remainder (starting with pô) is a syntactic constituent.

(22) a. [ Pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ] hlơi?

 swing return  Cheo Reo who
‘Who returned to Cheo Reo?’
b. * Wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo hlơi?
swing return  Cheo Reo who
(‘Who returned to Cheo Reo?’)

(23) a. [ Pô Je bưp tŏm brơi ] hlơi lĕ?

 Je meet yesterday who 
‘Who did Je meet yesterday?’
b. * Je bưp tŏm brơi hlơi lĕ?
Je meet yesterday who 
(‘Who did Je meet yesterday?’)

In (22b) and (23b), which have no pô, hlơi ‘who’ cannot occur clause-finally, suggesting that the pseudocle analysis
is not available for wh-questions lacking pô.

Interim Summary: e preceding arguments—(i) the distribution of pô, (ii) the (im)possibility of placing the demon-
strative anŭn at the end of the remainder, (iii) certain facts about negation, and (iv) clause-final hlơi —have focused
on the remainder (everything in the clause excluding the wh-phrase), showing that for wh-questions containing pô
the remainder is a DP, but not for wh-questions without pô.

3.5 estions with pô constitute a copular construction

Prediction: We should find that questions with pô behave like unambiguous copular wh-questions.

In the following copular wh-questions, hlơi originates aer the (optional) copula (24a) and can then front via wh-
movement to clause-initial position, leaving the copula behind (24b).

(24) a. Ih (jing) hlơi?

2  who
b. Hlơi ih (jing) ?
who 2 
‘Who are you?’

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e questions in (25) match this paern exactly. In (25a), hlơi ‘who’ is clause-final, and the copula may optionally
occur before it. (25b) is essentially the same structure, except that hlơi has fronted, leaving the (optional) copula
clause-final.

(25) a. [ Pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ] (jing) hlơi?

 swing return  Cheo Reo  who
b. Hlơi [ pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ] (jing) ?
who  swing return  Cheo Reo 
‘Who came back to Cheo Reo?’

In contrast, including the copula when no pô is present is degraded (26a) or ungrammatical (26b).

(26) a. ? Wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo jing hlơi?

swing return  Cheo Reo  who
b. * Hlơi wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo jing?
who swing return  Cheo Reo 
(‘Who came back to Cheo Reo?’)

Key point: ese data suggest that for questions with pô, the hlơi ‘who’ is not a subcategorized argument but a DP
in a copular construction.

estion: If the remainder and the wh-phrase are elements in a copular construction, which is the subject and which
the predicate? In other Austronesian languages with pseudocle questions, the wh-phrase is analyzed as a predicate
and the headless relative clause as the subject. e next section addresses this question.

4 Structure of Pseudocle estions

4.1 Analytical Problem
My claim about pseudocle questions in Jarai is that they are copular constructions with two primary elements: a
wh-phrase and a headless relative clause (HRC). When the copula is present, it typically follows the HRC, as in (25).
is word order suggests that the HRC is the subject and the wh-phrase part of the predicate.

However, semantically the HRC is the predicative element: it denotes a property (in (25), roughly the property of
coming ba from Cheo Reo). Which DP, then, is the subject, and which the predicate?

4.2 Mikkelsen (2004) on Copular Clauses

Mikkelsen (2004) examines two types of copular constructions: Predicational, where the predicative DP is part of the
predicate (27a), and Specificational, where the predicative DP is the subject (27b).

(27) a. P C

[John]DPref is [the winner]DPpred .
b. S C
[e winner]DPpred is [John]DPref .

Mikkelsen proposes that both (27a) and (27b) have the same structure when the DP’s first merge:

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 (28) PredP

DPref Pred′

John Pred DPpred

the winner

e PredP is then embedded under an IP,3 and one or the other of the DP’s must move to Spec,IP, yielding either a
Predicational clause or a Specificational clause. Which DP moves is determined by two potentially competing factors:

i. which is more referential

ii. which is more topical

In Specificational clauses, the second factor overrules the first, and the DPpred moves into Spec,IP—but only if that
DP is topical (meaning, at the least, that it is discourse-familiar ). us, the Specificational clause (27b) is a felicitous
answer to Who is the winner? (because the winner is topical by virtue of the question), but it is infelicitous as an
answer to Who is John?.

Key points:

i. In Specificational clauses, the predicative DP is in subject position.

ii. is movement of DPpred to Spec,IP is related to information structure (topicality)

4.3 Jarai pseudocle questions as Specificational clauses

A predication structure like that in Mikkelsen is possible for Jarai pseudocle questions,4 with the wh-phrase (DPwh )
replacing the DPref that would correspond to it. Consider (29), where pô is initial and hlơi ‘who’ is final, preceded
by an optional jing ‘’.

(29) [DPpred Pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ] (jing) [DPwh hlơi ] ? (repeated from 25a)
 swing return  Cheo Reo  who
‘Who came back to Cheo Reo?’

(30) PredP

DPwh Pred′

hlơi
Pred DPpred

pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo

e resulting PredP will be selected as the complement of I, with the copula taken to be a semantically empty I-head.
Because Jarai has a subject requirement, Spec,IP must be filled. Neither DP is referential; thus, the more topical DP
should move to Spec,IP. Assuming (i) wh-words are focus items (Bresnan & Mchombo 1987; Lambrecht 1994) and thus
non-topical (Bresnan & Mchombo 1987; Kroeger 2004), and (ii) the remainder of wh-questions is discourse-familiar
(Lambrecht 1994), the obvious candidate for movement to Spec,IP is the HRC because it is more topical.
3
is summary ignores a functional layer headed by the copula.
4
See Potsdam (2007) for a similar proposal for pseudocle wh-questions in Malagasy.

8
 (31) IP

DPpred I′

pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo I PredP

(jing)
DPwh Pred′

hlơi
Pred 〈 DPpred 〉

pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo

At this point, the structure is complete, and we have the word order in (29): the HRC is initial, followed by the optional
copula, followed by the wh-phrase, which remains in the predicate (PredP). e resulting clause is a Specificational
clause: the predicative DP (the HRC) has moved to subject position for information structural reasons.

However, more work is needed to derive the word order in (32), where the wh-phrase is initial, followed by the
headless relative clause, followed (optionally) by the copula.

(32) [DPwh Hlơi ] [DPpred pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo ] (jing)? (repeated from 25b)
who  swing return  Cheo Reo 
‘Who came back to Cheo Reo?’

is word order receives a straightforward account under the assumption that the wh-phrase undergoes fronting via
wh-movement to a projection above IP. is movement is shown in (33).

(33) CP

DPwh C′

hlơi
C IP

DPpred I′

pô wŏt glaĭ pơ Čeo Reo I PredP

(jing)
〈 DPwh 〉 Pred′

hlơi Pred 〈 DPpred 〉

We can now account for both aested word orders using operations that are independently aested in the language:
movement to Spec,TP (which presumably every subject undergoes) and wh-movement to Spec,CP (which wh-phrases
optionally undergo in other wh-questions).

We see that in Jarai pseudocle questions, two factors are in competition to determine the word order:

i. a topic-first tendency, instantiated in movement of the HRC to Spec,IP

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 ii. a focus-first tendency, instantiated in wh-fronting

e first of these tendencies is almost always in play, because something must move to Spec,IP, and the HRC is the
best candidate. However, the second tendency typically undoes the linear effect of the first, giving wh-initial word
order.

5 Conclusions
Descriptive Generalization and Implications
• Jarai has two strategies for realizing a wh-phrase somewhere other than a subcategorized argument position:
pseudocleing (base generation of the wh-phrase as Spec,PredP) and wh-movement from an argument posi-
tion.

• Jarai pseudocle questions allow the wh-phrase to remain in-situ in the PredP or to front via wh-movement.

• Pseudocle questions in Jarai are not an alternative to wh-movement, and Jarai seems to counterexemplify the
claim that if wh-movement is possible in a language, it is obligatory.

• Pseudocle questions present an option in terms of information structure that is not always present for standard
wh-moved or in situ questions: namely, topic–focus word order.

estions
• Why would Jarai have so many options for wh-questions?

• Why is the pseudocle structure not available for adjunct questions and strongly D-linked questions?

References
Bresnan, Joan, & Sam A. McHombo. 1987. Topic, pronoun, and agreement in Chicheŵa. Language 63.741-782.
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen. 1991. On the Typology of Wh-estions. Cambridge, MA: MIT doctoral dissertation. [Reprinted as: Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen.
1997. On the Typology of Wh-estions. New York: Garland.]
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon, & Norhaida Aman. 1999. Cleed questions in Malay. Ms. online: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/
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Kroeger, Paul R. 2004. Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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Malagasypseudoclefts.pdf [Published as: Potsdam, Eric. 2006. e cle structure of Malagasy wh-questions. Clause structure and
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