Who is where: Deriving right edge WH phrases in Ikalanga WH constructions

Earlier literature on Bantu languages claimed that interrogative WH constructions in Bantu languages involve no WH movement (see Bokamba, 1976; Kimenyi, 1980). Using data from Ikalanga (an understudied Bantu language spoken in Botswana), this paper challenges this view and argues that although this language has WH in situ, WH constructions with left edge and right edge WH phrases prefixed with ndi- involve movement. Three island tests (the NP island test, the WH island test and the Adjunct island test) are used as movement diagnostics. Further evidence that WH phrases prefixed with ndi- involve movement comes from morphological facts. Once it is established that these WH constructions involve movement, the seemingly unusual position occupied by right edge WH phrases (including subject WH phrases) is explained in a principled and straight forward way; that is, Ikalanga is (at least partially) a discourse configurational language and thus the discourse properties of the language induce movement of a remnant TopP to a high position stranding the WH phrase. This discovery situates Ikalanga in the same language typology as languages like Hungarian, for example. The analysis adopted in this paper lends support to the much discussed remnant movement analysis (see among others Müller, 1998; Epstein, 2001; Mahajan, 1997, 2000; Culicover and Rochement, 1997), showing that remnant movement is a phenomenon permitted by universal principles of grammar.