From obligatory wh-movement to optional wh-in-situ in Labourdin Basque

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the nature and origin of a new wh-question strategy employed by young speakers of Labourdin Basque. We argue that this new strategy implies a parametric change: while Basque has always been a bona fide wh-movement language, these new constructions are instances of wh-in-situ and display the syntactic and semantic properties and patterns of in-situ wh-questions in French. We analyze the emergence of this new strategy as being due to the combination of three factors: (i) the abundance of structurally ambiguous wh-questions in the primary linguistic data, (ii) the change in the sociolinguistic profile of bilingual Basque-French speakers, and (iii) an economy bias for movementless derivations.