Operator movement and verb second phenomena in basque

Abstract

This article presents an anlysis of wh-formation and focalization in Basque, framed within Chomsky's 'Barriers' system. In language like Basque and Hungarian, both foci and wh-words have to appear in a position immediately preceding the inflected verb. Rather than allowing, as a parametric option, such operators to move to a special pre-verbal FOCUS position, it is claimed that the correct parameter involved is the level of operator movement. In much the same way as wh-words may move to SPEC at LF (Chinese) or at S-structure (English, Basque), foci may also move at LF (English) or at S-structure (Basque). The fact that both types of operators have to precede the verb is interpreted as another instance of the well-known V2 (verb-secont) phenomenon, whereby inflected verbs move to the COMP position  when SPEC is occupied by an operator, as observed in English wh-formation. An extension of ths anlysis to the negative operator ez 'not' is also examined, attempting to explain inversion phenomena in negative clauses.