2.1 The special status of why-questions (in Italian and German)

In the last decades, several studies showed a variety of particularities of why-questions compared to other wh-questions (e.g., Rizzi 2001; Soare 2021). These particularities concern various domains. In this section, we report the main properties of Italian and German why-questions as well as differences from other wh-questions from a syntactic, prosodic, and semantic perspective. Crucially, these differences are not restricted to Italian or German and are also found in other Romance and Germanic languages. Some of them occur even cross-linguistically (Torrego 1984; Stepanov & Tsai 2008; Irurtzun 2021).

2.2 Negation and its interaction with focus in Italian and German

In this section, we first provide a description of sentential negation in declarative sentences, before we report on previous studies of the interaction between focus and negation. Second, focus and negation are considered separately in Italian and German why-questions, providing some hypotheses for their interaction in this kind of questions.

Sentential negation can be expressed by non ‘not’ in Italian and nicht ‘not’ in German, see (15) and (16). Syntactically, it combines with an entire clause and semantically applies to a proposition, changing its truth value (Lasnik 1975):

According to Belletti (1990), there are at least two different positions for sentential negation: a higher one, the NegP, which is placed to the immediate left of the TP, and a lower one, probably in the low-TP/VP area. In Italian, non ‘not’ occupies the higher position above TP, while in modern German nicht ‘not’ occupies the lower position, as shown in (17).

Concerning focus in declarative sentences, Krifka (2008) distinguishes between two different uses of focus: a semantic use of focus, and a pragmatic one. While the semantic use refers to factual information and has implications regarding the truth conditions of the sentence, the pragmatic use affects the communicative goals of the speaker without changing the truth conditions. In related studies (for a review, see Fălăuş 2020), there is ongoing discussion about the nature of the interaction between negation and the structures that generate alternatives, such as focus, questions, and presuppositions. In particular, it is debated whether this interaction is semantic or pragmatic. Variation of the presence or the absence of a narrow focus in the scope of negation does not change the truth conditions of the proposition. Nevertheless, the set of alternatives might vary, suggesting that this interaction is pragmatic, as illustrated by the example provided in Büring (2016: 265) (see also Beaver & Clark 2009: 45 for a similar example):

Although the truth value expressed by (18a) and (18b) does not change, the meaning implied by the two sentences is different. In fact, (18a) negates that the addressee’s name was mentioned in court and implies that something else was mentioned, whereas (18b) negates that the addressee’s name was mentioned in court and suggests that someone else’s name was. In both (18a) and (18b), there is a positive polarity effect on the focal alternatives. Focus usually elicits a set of alternatives that are negated and in (18a) and (18b), these alternatives are positive. For the presence of focus in negated sentences, Al-Horais (2017) distinguishes between three different focus types in Arabic coming along with different syntactic structures: i) free focus (i.e., a narrow focus outside the scope of negation), ii) bound focus (i.e., a narrow focus in the scope of negation), and iii) wide focus (i.e., a sentential negation). These readings, which Al-Horais attributes to the scope of the negation, involve a different derivation, reflecting how focus interacts in a systematic way with syntax (compare (19) and (20)). Such an interaction can be adopted for Italian. The examples in (20) show the difference between wide focus (see (20a)) and bound focus (see (20b)) in Italian.

In (20a), sentential negation is expressed (Al-Horais 2017). In this kind of sentences, the Neg-operator changes the truth value of the proposition. In (19b) and (20b), where a focal subject occurs in the scope of the negation (bound focus, Al-Horais 2017), the Neg-operator changes the truth values of the proposition, but differently as in the previous example. It further implies that there is someone else instead of Gianni who worked. Interestingly, the alternatives elicited by the focus in (19b) are false or at least denied (i.e., Mark did not work), while the alternatives elicited by the focus in (20b) are true or at least not denied (i.e., Mark did work).

German is more rigid in reordering sentence arguments. Thus, such readings can only be conveyed through prosody and constituent negation (see (21) and (22)). In fact, German can use certain positions for nicht (e.g., immediately preceding the subject) for focus marking, as shown in (22). The operation in (22b), also called contrastive negation (Jacobs 1982; Jacobs 1991), leads to focus or topicalization on the target constituent (Bross 2023).

In sum, Italian and German exhibit syntactic differences in the rearrangement of arguments and the position of negation. This also entails different linguistic strategies for signaling the presence of a focus. Starting from observations made in declarative sentences with respect to the truth value, focal alternatives, and their pragmatic interpretations, four different scenarios are considered: i) sentences that contain neither narrow focus nor negation (see (19a) and (21a)), ii) declaratives with narrow focus, as shown in (19b) and (21b), iii) declaratives with sentential negation (see (20a) and (22a)), and iv) sentences with narrow focus is in the scope of negation, as illustrated in (20b) and (22b).

For why-questions the same four combinations with respect to the presence and absence of narrow focus and negation are considered. Recall, the contrast-class can be described as a set of alternative propositions generated by narrow focus in the scope of the why-operator (see section 2.1.3). The presence of narrow focus on the subject in Italian why-questions is expressed by means of word order and the appropriate prosodic contour, as shown in (12) and (13). However, it is more difficult to test the presence of a contrast-class when prosody and word order do not signal narrow focus. In this case, the presence of a broad focus is assumed and the contrast-class is reduced to the polar set (i.e., {P; ¬P}, see Rooth (1992) for declarative sentences). For example, the contrast-class in the question (23) is the set of only two propositions (she eats; she does not eat).

We also expect similar behavior of alternatives under the presence of negation. In this regard, Shlonsky and Soare (2011) noted that why-questions generally differ from other wh-questions since the wh-element blocks wh-movement as in (24b), while no such blocking is observed for why (24a). The ungrammaticality of a question like (24b) is explained by a relativized minimality violation induced by the intervention of negation (cf. Rizzi 1990):

The same contrast between why-questions and other wh-questions can be observed in German (Catasso 2021) where nicht is assumed to be in a lower position than in English and Italian:

From a semantic perspective, the question in (26) is similar to the question in (23), but with the addition of the Neg-operator non ‘not’ that takes scope over the Tense Phrase (TP) (Zanuttini 1991; Moscati 2010 on declaratives). The contrast class is the same, only the topic proposition changes: in (23) it is P, while in (26) the topic proposition is ¬P.

In sum, previous studies on declarative sentences have shown that under the presence of negation, the truth conditions change, whereas for focus in the scope of negation, the set of alternatives might be different. However, the interaction of focus and negation has so far not been studied for why-questions. Accordingly, the goal of this paper is twofold. First, we aim at deepening our knowledge about the particularities of Italian and German why-questions at the syntax-semantics interface. Second, we want to contribute to a better understanding of the interaction of focus and negation more generally, asking the following research question:

RQ: How do focus and negation interact in Italian and German why-questions?

Given the observations from previous studies on focus and negation in why-questions as well as on their interaction in declarative sentences, we expect that the interaction between negation and focal alternatives is the same at the semantic level, not least because why-questions create alternatives at the propositional level. However, from a pragmatic perspective, the contrast-class may differ in (27a) and (27b), as well as in (28a) and (28b), respectively, and the two questions might be felicitous in different contexts. In other words, the topic proposition is the same in the two questions in (27) and (28), but the set of alternatives is different. In both questions, we expect alternatives with positive polarity but (27a) and (28a) are built on broad focus alternatives (i.e., Johannes worked), while the set of propositions elicited by (27b) and (28b) is built on the DP (i.e., DAVID has worked). This suggests an interaction between negation and alternatives in why-questions similar to the one suggested by Büring in example (18) for declarative sentences.

3.1. Material

The experiment used 2x2 Latin square design and consisted of 24 items, resulting in four conditions and 96 experimental stimuli (why-questions). The two independent variables were focus type and negation. For focus type, we selected two levels: broad focus on the entire sentence and narrow focus on the subject. The respective focus types were elicited in two ways. First, we used word order to differentiate between broad focus and narrow focus. The word order pattern subject-verb (SV) is correlated with a broad focus interpretation, whereas verb-subject (VS) corresponds to a narrow focus reading on the subject, as shown in Table 1. Second, we employed intonation to underline the respective focus types and recorded the sentences, based on the results of Bocci & Cruschina & Rizzi (2021). Accordingly, in why-questions with a broad focus reading, perché ‘why’ bears a high pitch accent (H*) and the boundary tone is high (H%). By contrast, in why-questions with narrow focus on the subject, the pitch falls on the subject and is realized with a rising contour (L+H*) regardless of the presence of negation (Bocci 2013). Intonation is also important to exclude the possibility of participants building the set of alternatives on the VP in why-questions with preverbal subjects. For the independent variable negation, we differentiated between two levels [–Negation] and [+Negation], only focusing on the negation-operator non ‘not’, as shown in Table 1. Both factors were manipulated within items and within participants. A list of all items can be found in the supplementary materials M1.⁵

The dependent variable was the choice between four options that represented a potential continuation of the why-question which were added by a coordination construction with Italian e ‘and’. The four options differed regarding the constituent on which the set of alternatives was built. For the first and the second options (i) and ii) in Table 1), the set of alternatives was built on the TP level because the option represents an alternative to the whole TP within the why-question. For instance, the TP e non ha riposato ‘and did not rest’ in i) corresponds to an alternative of l’impiegato ha lavorato ‘the employee worked’ in the why-question. The why-questions in i) and ii) differ only with respect to the presence of the negation operator non ‘not’. For the third and the fourth option (iii) and iv) in Table 1), the set of alternatives is built on the subject DP and represents an alternative to the subject in the why-question. For example, il tirocinante ‘the intern’ in iii) and iv) is an alternative to l’impiegato ‘the employee’ in the why-question. Again, the sentences in iii) and iv) vary regarding the presence of negation.

To keep constant as many other factors as possible, we only included unergative verbs and animate common nouns for the subject with a definite article.

Additionally, we created 32 filler sentences, including 12 polar questions (six with and six without negation) as well as 20 wh-questions with other wh-elements that require obligatory subject-verb inversion, including chi ‘who’, cosa ‘what’, dove ‘where’, quando ‘when’, and come ‘how’ (ten with and ten without negation). We also provided four options as a possible continuation of these questions. These continuations were built in line with the experimental stimuli and either presented alternatives to the DP or to the TP. However, in contrast to the experimental stimuli, the options for the fillers were coordinated by Italian o ‘or’. The following examples present a polar question with negation (29) and a wh-question without negation (30):

3.2 Participants & Procedure

44 Italian native speakers took part in the experiment. The participants (mean age = 34.3, range = 18–71, 28 female, 16 male) were recruited in different Italian regions. 29 participants reported speaking a Northern, eight a Central, and seven a Southern Italian variety. They all participated all on a voluntary basis. We did not inform them about the purpose of the study.

Before the data analysis, we checked participants’ choice of the 20 wh-questions (fillers) which only allowed for one of the four options. If participants’ choice deviated in more than four fillers from the expected choice, they were excluded from the final analysis. Based on this criterion, none of the participants had to be eliminated.

The experiment was set up on the online platform offered by the IUSS Pavia, using JSPsych libraries (De Leeuw 2015). At the beginning of the study, participants completed a background questionnaire and completed the consent form. Afterwards, they were asked to select one of the four coordination options that sounded most natural to them. After this short introduction, the participants completed two practice items. One of the practice items was constructed identically to the test stimuli, the other one was identical to the fillers, as in (29). The main part of the task contained the experimental stimuli which were presented in a pseudo-randomized order combined with the filler sentences. The first part of the test and filler sentences were only presented orally to ensure that participants considered word order and intonation for their choice, while the four continuation options were presented in a written form. Participants could listen twice to the recording.⁶ The total duration of the experiment was around 20 minutes.

3.3 Statistical analysis

In our experiment, we elicited unordered categorical data (choice, one out of four options) that we analyzed with a multinomial logistic regression model in R, using the package polytomous, as proposed by Han et al. (2013) and Levshina (2015). We defined choice as the dependent variable which consisted of four categorical continuation options. The main independent variables of interest were focus type (broad focus vs. narrow focus on the subject) and negation ([–Negation]) vs. ([+Negation]). To address potential variance in the data, we further considered participant and item⁷ as independent variables. For an overview of the model specification including interaction terms and fixed effects as well as the results for the main variables of interest, see supplementary materials M2.

3.4 Results

The results of our task are summarized in Figure 1 which plots the percentage of selected options for non-negated and negated why-questions under broad focus and narrow focus on the subject. The results indicate that option ‘not TP’ was highly preferred in non-negated why-questions under a broad focus interpretation (see the top left part of the figure). In this context, ‘not DP’ was also chosen by participants to a low extent, while the percentage of options ‘TP’ and ‘DP’ was close to zero. For negated why-questions with a broad focus reading, participants favored the ‘DP’ option for which the percentage was only slightly higher than for the ‘TP’ option. A closer look at the individual level revealed that around 52% of participants chose both options ‘TP’ and ‘DP’ to a similar degree, while 21% showed a clear preference for ‘TP’ and 27% for ‘DP’. The option ‘not TP’ was selected around 10% of the time, whereas no one selected the option ‘not DP’ in this context (see top right part of the figure). For non-negated why-questions with a narrow focus interpretation of the subject, participants clearly preferred the option ‘not DP’, followed by ‘not TP’ which was chosen around 15% of the time. For both options, ‘TP’ and ‘DP’, the rate of selection was close to zero (see bottom left in the figure). For negated why-questions under a narrow focus reading on the subject, the ‘DP’ option was highly favored over the other options. Participants selected the ‘TP’ option around 20% of the time, while both ‘not TP’ and ‘not DP’ were chosen less than 10% of the time (see bottom right in the figure). In sum, the results suggest a clear pattern of preference for the option ‘not TP’ and ‘not DP’ in the case of non-negated why-questions, whereas the opposite pattern is found in negated why-questions in which the options ‘TP’ and ‘DP’ received a higher percentage.

Figure 1: Percentage of selected options for why-questions across the negation und focus type conditions in Italian.

We ran a multinomial logistic regression model to test how focus type and negation modify the set of alternatives in Italian matrix why-questions. The statistical results are summarized in Table 2. Note that the results reported for this model always compare one option against all other three options. For the sake of simplicity, we do not repeat this below for each comparison.

The findings revealed that the ‘not TP’ option was chosen significantly less often under a narrow focus reading for both non-negated (–3.184, p < 0.001) and negated why-questions (–1.091, p < 0.01). The likelihood for the selection of ‘not TP’ was smaller under the presence of negation with a broad focus interpretation (–3.639, p < 0.001) and narrow focus reading (–1.546, p < 0.01).

The chance that participants selected the ‘TP’ option increased significantly under [+Neg] for both a broad (3.485, p < 0.001) and a narrow focus interpretation (2.487, p < 0.001) in comparison to [–Neg]. A comparison of both focus types shows that the chance for the ‘TP’ option decreases for the narrow focus interpretation under [+Neg] (–1.331, p < 0.001), while it does not differ significantly under [–Neg] (–0.3337, p = 0.576).

The results show that the ‘not DP’ option was selected more often under a narrow focus interpretation in why-questions without negation than under broad focus (3.268, p < 0.001). An effect of focus type was not observed in negated why-questions (16.73, p = 0.979). For why-questions with a broad focus interpretation, negation does not have an effect on the choice of the option ‘not DP’ (–18.06, p = 0.978), while why-questions with a narrow focus reading reveal a lower chance for option ‘not DP’ under negation (–4.599, p > 0.001).

The ‘DP’ option was chosen more often in negated why-questions under both focus types (broad focus: 5.751, p < 0.001; narrow focus: 5.891, p < 0.001). Focus type only affected the choice of ‘DP’ option in negated why-questions. In negated why-questions, the ‘DP’ option was selected more often under narrow focus than under broad focus (1.235, p < 0.001), whereas there was no effect of focus type in why-questions without negation (1.096, p = 0.345).

In sum, the results show that the chance of selecting ‘not TP’ was driven by both factors, focus type and negation. By contrast, the chances for the other three options were mainly driven by only one factor. For the option ‘not DP’, focus type was the driving factor, whereas negation was the driving factor for the options ‘TP’ and ‘DP’.

4.1. Material

The materials for the German task were constructed in line with the Italian experiment, that is, 24 items were used with 4 conditions each. The independent variables of interest were the same as in the Italian version: focus type and negation. For negation, two levels were distinguished: [–Negation] and [+Negation], considering the negation-operator nicht ‘not’ in compliance with the Italian task, as shown in Table 3. Concerning focus type, the elicitation of broad focus and narrow focus crucially differed from Italian because word order cannot be employed to express a certain focus interpretation. Instead, intonation and the position of the negation operator were manipulated, respectively. For both broad focus conditions, the why-questions were recorded with the intonational contour L+H* L–% with the nuclear pitch accent on the wh-element (e.g., Braun et al. (2019) for the intonation of German wh-questions). For the narrow focus conditions, the same nuclear contour was produced but with the NPA on the subject as it also marks contrastive focus (e.g., German Tones and Break Indices, Grice & Baumann 2002). In addition to intonation, we employed the relation between negation positioning and focus in German to reinforce the narrow focus reading of the subject (Blühdorn 2012: chap. 5). Therefore, the negation operator preceded the subject (see supplementary materials M2 for a list of all items).

In accordance with the Italian task, choice was the dependent variable, again with four options that represent a possible ending of the why-question. They were also added by a coordination construction with German und ‘and’. These four options make reference to the constituent on which the set of alternatives is built, resulting in the same four possibilities as in the Italian experiment: for the options ‘TP’ and ‘not TP’ (see i) and ii) in Table 3), the set of alternatives was created on the TP level. For the options ‘DP’ and ‘not DP’ (see iii) and iv) in Table 3), the subject DP was the basis for the creation of the set of alternatives. Again, only unergative verbs and animate common nouns for the subject with a definite article were included in the German task.

In addition to the experimental items, 32 filler sentences were included that were constructed equivalently to the Italian ones (see section 3.1 for further details).

4.2 Participants & Procedure

41 native speakers of German completed the task (mean age = 29.2, range = 19–62, 36 female, 5 male). They participated on a voluntary basis and were not informed about the purpose of the study in advance. We used the same procedure for the German data collection and the same data preparation as for the Italian experiment. Based on the 20 wh-questions, which served as controls to check participants’ attention, one participant was excluded from the final analysis.

4.3 Statistical analysis

We followed the same statistical analysis as in the Italian task (for further details see section 3.3 and supplementary materials M1).

4.4 Results

Figure 2 presents the German results showing percentage frequency of the chosen options for non-negated and negated why-questions with a broad and a narrow focus interpretation. We found that the option ‘not TP’ was clearly favored by the participants (upper left part of the figure). In this condition, ‘not DP’ was also selected to some extent, while the percentage of the other two options were close to zero. Why-questions with negation and a broad focus reading (upper right part of the figure) showed the highest degree of variation. The option ‘DP’ was chosen for half of the stimuli, followed by ‘TP’ and ‘not TP’. A detailed analysis revealed that 32.5% of participants selected the options ‘TP’ and ‘DP’ to a similar extent, whereas 40% clearly preferred the option ‘DP’ and 27.5% the option ‘TP’. Concerning non-negated why-questions with a narrow focus interpretation of the subject (lower left part of the figure), participants clearly preferred the option ‘not DP’, but ‘not TP’ was also selected to a small extent. For why-questions with negation and a narrow focus reading (lower right part of the figure), ‘DP’ was highly preferred by the participants over the remaining options which were chosen for less than 10% of the presented stimuli.

Summarizing, the findings indicate a clear preference for non-negated why-questions as well as negated ones with a narrow focus interpretation of the subject, while more variation was found for the broad focus condition with negation.

Figure 2: Percentage of selected options for why-questions across the negation und focus type conditions in German.

A multinomial logistic regression model was run to investigate how focus type and negation modify the set of alternatives in German why-questions. The statistical results are summarized in Table 4. The results show that the option ‘not TP’ was chosen significantly more frequently under a broad focus reading and in combination with (–3098, p < 0.001) and without negation (–1.892, p < 0.001). The presence of negation affected the choice of the option ‘not TP’ negatively in the broad (–3.061, p < 0.001) and narrow focus condition (–1.855, p < 0.001).

The probability of participants selecting the option ‘TP’ was increased under [+Neg] for both a broad (2.394, p < 0.001) and a narrow focus interpretation (2.184, p < 0.01) compared to [–Neg]. Concerning focus types, the probability of selection of the option ‘TP’ was lower for a narrow focus interpretation with negation (–1.784, p < 0.001) and without negation (–1.574, p = 0.05).

The option ‘not DP’ was chosen more often under a narrow than under a broad focus reading in why-questions with and without negation ([–Neg]: 3.248, p < 0.001; [+Neg]: 1.259, p < 0.01). For both focus interpretations, the presence of negation affected the selection of the option ‘not DP’ negatively (broad focus: –2.386; p < 0.001, narrow focus: –4.374; p < 0.001).

Participants selected the option ‘DP’ more frequently in why-questions with negation under both focus interpretations (broad focus: 4.802, p < 0.001; narrow focus: 5.917, p < 0.001). Focus type had an impact on the choice of the ‘DP’ option in negated why-questions. In why-questions with negation, the option ‘DP’ was chosen to a greater extent in the narrow focus condition than in the broad focus condition (1.638, p < 0.001), while there was no effect of focus type in why-questions without negation (–0.523, p = 0.48).

Taken together, the findings indicate that the selection of the option ‘not TP’ was conditioned by focus type and negation, similarly as in Italian. In contrast to Italian, the selection of the options ‘TP’ and ‘not DP’ were also driven by both factors in German. For the option ‘DP’, negation had a greater impact in comparison to focus type, as in Italian.