Remarks on Turkish interrogative complement clauses and verb subcategorization

This chapter examines the interpretations of interrogative complement clauses in Turkish, with a focus on the embedded wh-words. Verbs such as unut- (forget) and hatırla- (remember) do not constitute an interrogative environment for the embedded wh-words, and the embedded wh-words are non-interrogative. Interestingly, the two verbs can yield either an interrogative or an indefinite reading. Meanwhile, san- (assume) and şüphelen- (suspect), behaving like desiderative and jussive verbs, do not license an embedded wh-word in their complement clauses. In contrast, düşün- (think), karar ver- (decide) and anla- (understand) yield ambiguous readings for embedded wh-words. Moreover, unlike the English counterparts, the embedded wh-words in complement clauses of sor- (ask) and merak et- (wonder) can obtain different scopes, but their interpretations remain interrogative in Turkish. The evidence suggests that the interpretations of wh-words depend on the embedding environments, and this suggests reevaluating the verb subcategorization frame based on the observation that wh-words are not consistently interrogative but also indefinite conditionally (Kratzer & Shimoyama, 2002). The problem relates to the syntax-semantics interface. In conclusion, there are three different types of verbs based on their attitudes towards the interpretations of the embedded wh-words.

 Keywords: Turkish, Verb subcategorization, Wh-words, Interrogative complement clauses, Syntax-semantics interface