Issues in the morphosyntax of wh-elements

The present study investigates the distribution of wh-elements in different languagesand across different constructions, with a focus on Romance and Germanic languages.The main theoretical goal of this work is to provide analyses for the lexical andmorphosyntactic properties of wh-elements under a minimalist framework of generative syntax. On the assumption that wh-elements uniformly behave as semantic variables, the issue arises of their cross-constructional morphosyntactic asymmetries (e.g., with respect to their syncretisms/allomorphies in their functions as pronouns and complementizers). In line with minimalist postulates, it is argued that such asymmetries arise at the Sensory-Motor interface as a facet of idiosyncratic externalization requirements. A chapter is also devoted to ‘doubling/copying interrogative constructions in Northern Italian and Germanic dialects, which are examined under the lens of the labeling algorithm and Chomsky’s (2021) recent analysis of chain-formation as involving FormCopy.