whmovement

Wh movement, or wh-movement, is a syntactic operation found in many languages in which a wh-word such as who, what, where, when, why, or how is displaced to the left edge of a clause. This movement creates a long-distance dependency that links an interrogative or relative clause with its interrogated or antecedent position. Wh movement is a central concept in generative syntax and helps explain how questions and relative clauses are formed across multiple embedded clauses.

Mechanism: In many theories, the wh element originates within a lower clause and moves to the top of the clause, typically into Spec-CP. The movement is often successive cyclic: it proceeds step by step through intermediate CPs until it reaches the left-peripheral position. The original position leaves a trace or a null operator. The operation often requires some form of feature checking (the wh-feature) on the C head and is accompanied by phenomena such as pied-piping (the prepositional phrase moves with the wh word) and island constraints (movement cannot cross certain bounding domains).

Examples: English uses wh movement in questions: What did you see? Who are you talking to? The preposition to fronting is allowed in both What did you talk to? and To whom did you talk? In relative clauses, wh words can move to the left edge of the relative clause: The book that you read. In languages with wh-in-situ, such as Mandarin, the wh word often remains in place, and questions are marked by intonation or particles rather than overt fronting.

Cross-linguistic variation and constraints: The exact licensing conditions for wh movement vary by language. Some languages routinely front wh-phrases and require pied-piping in prepositional phrases; others show limited or no movement, instead using in-situ wh words. Cross-linguistic data have shaped theories about the architecture of the grammar, the status of movement operations, and the nature of islands and extraction.