localitywhether

Localitywhether is a theoretical term in linguistics and formal semantics describing how locality constraints interact with the semantic and syntactic behavior of the word whether in embedded interrogatives and conditional clauses. The concept treats whether as an operator whose scope and binding are constrained by locality domains such as vP, CP, or higher projections. In this view, the interpretation of sentences containing a whether-clause depends on whether the local domain can host the relevant operators and share information with the main clause. Localitywhether extends standard locality theories by explicitly modeling how extraction, binding, and scope interact with the ambiguous interrogative operator, distinguishing cases where the embedded whether can be overtly or covertly interpreted within a local domain versus needing crossing boundaries.

The term is used to analyze sentences like I wondered whether the report that the editor approved was accurate, where the locality determines whether the embedded clause can influence the overall truth-conditions, and to predict cross-linguistic variation in the acceptability of long-distance whether phrases. In computational linguistics, localitywhether can inform parsing algorithms and semantic interpretation pipelines by encoding local-domain constraints for whether operators.

Criticism centers on the added complexity and whether it offers independent predictive power beyond existing theories of interrogation, scope, and locality. Proponents argue it provides a compact way to capture observed patterns of locality effects in embedded interrogatives and conditionals. Localitywhether remains a topic within theoretical debates and is not universally adopted, but it contributes to discussions of how locality and interrogative semantics interact in natural language.