ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a long-standing issue in Chinese linguistics with regard to the argument–adjunct asymmetry in wh-questions, or the nominal–adverbial asymmetry, to be more accurate. In light of the new account of the phonology–semantics interface proposed in this book, it is shown that there is a correlation between the different interpretative possibilities of wh-nominals and wh-adverbials, on the one hand, and the morphological make-up of the wh-words, on the other hand. Theoretically, there is no semantic reason for any island sensitivity, but causal wh-adverbs, like “weishenme” (“why”), have to be adjoined at its scope position due to the fact that the wh-pronoun “shenme” in “weishenme” cannot be phonologically emphasized. Such adjunctions at surface scope positions lead to semantic interpretation problems, which is the reason for island sensitivity. This account in terms of scope-marking is also applied to the island sensitivity of other types of questions such as A-not-A questions.
