Restrictions on wh-in situ in Kavalan and Amis

This paper investigates the grammatical properties of wh-in situ constructions in Kavalan and Amis, two Austronesian languages in Taiwan. In Kavalan, wh-phrases cannot stay in situ in the absolutive subject position, except for mayni 'which'. However, all Amis wh-phrases, regardless of their case marking or grammatical function, can stay in situ. The paper discusses the implications of the wh-in situ patterns in the two languages for two different analyses proposed to account for Austronesian wh-in situ constructions: the semantic/pragmatic approach and the formal-marking approach. The absolutive subject in Kavalan is assigned a definite interpretation and exhibits topic properties. A non-D-linked wh-phrase is inherently non-topical and thus cannot occupy the absolutive subject position. In contrast, the Amis absolutive subject is not always associated with a definite interpretation. A wh-phrase in Amis can thus stay in situ in the subject position without inducing any semantic incongruence. The formal-marking approach captures the empirical pattern of Amis wh-in situ but fails to explain the Kavalan pattern, whereas the semantic/pragmatic approach is both theoretically and typologically a more promising analysis of wh-in situ in Austronesian languages.