Peripheries in Kashmiri and Hindi-Urdu: The syntax of discourse-driven movement

This research monograph is an investigation of wh-movement and wh-expletive constructions in the Indic languages Kashmiri and Hindi-Urdu. It advances a novel theory of the periphery, or the clausal positions that mediate A-bar movement. In particular, a detailed study of wh-expletives and wh-expletive constructions reveals an underlying similarity of design between the A and A-bar systems, and indicates that the two can be understood as driven by the same basic set of mechanisms. The monograph offers an account of wh-movement and the clausal periphery in the two languages, informed by the latest strands of research on the syntax and semantics of A-bar movement. This micro-comparative analytical method yields an important result: we can understand a set of systematic contrasts between the two languages in terms of the properties of specifically the phase-defining heads C and v. Empirically, this work explores the lesser-studied language Kashmiri, bringing to the fore linguistic data not yet discussed in formal syntactic literature. The significance of these data for the development of the wider theoretical framework is stressed throughout, making the book of substantial interest for general linguistic research.