On the semantics of multiple wh-exclamatives in Bangla

Abstract

The scope of this paper addresses multiple wh-exclamative structures in Bangla (a.k.a. Bengali; Eastern Indo-Aryan). Though exclamatives are widely studied, the phenomenon of multiple wh-exclamatives is rarely cited. At the onset of analysing multiple wh-exclamatives, this paper revisits the proposition-set theory approach (D’Avis 2002; Zanuttini and Portner 2003; Chernilovskaya 2010) that views wh-exclamatives as having a question-basedsemantics, and the degree approach (Miró 2006; Rett 2008a, 2011) that claims wh-exclamatives bear a degree component in their domain which is responsible for the surprising element of the clause. However, the degree approach rejects the idea of exclamatives with multiple wh-words (Rett 2008a, 2011). This paper proposes a new unified framework that accounts for the syntax-semantics of Bangla multiple wh-exclamatives and wh-exclamatives in general.