Syntax and Semantics of Complex and Ambiguous Wh-questions

In this paper, we present a new approach to the syntax and semantics of wh-questions. On the basis of an appropriate type hierarchy whose members model contributions of lexical items to sentence mood, we introduce a head-interrogative schema that licences wh-sentences syntactically and contributes the semantic interrogative operator. This syntactic basis allows the compositional construction of the semantics of multiple wh-questions and the representation of the interaction of universal quantiiers with wh-elements. In addition, an underspeciied representation of the latter case, where systematic scope ambiguities between universal quantiiers and wh-elements are observed, is proposed. As a semantic representation language for this task we use UMRS (Underspeciied Minimal Recursion Semantics), a computable metalanguage that represents structural ambiguities in terms of underspeciication.