In M. Feist, S. Fix, J. Hay & J. Moore, eds. 2001. Proceedings of the SCIL 10. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 34. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL, 63-79. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics ??, 000–000 10th Student Conference in Linguistics. © 1999 Kleanthes K. Grohmann Some Concepts and Consequences of DRQ * Kleanthes K. Grohmann, University of Maryland 1. Superiority and the MLC The subject of this study will be multiple interrogatives, in particular questions with two Wh-elements (henceforth, “Multiple Wh”), and the contrast between fronting Wh-elements in these constructions in English and German exemplified in (1-4): 1,2 (1) a. Who kissed whom? b. * Whom did who kiss? (2) a. When did who kiss Maria? b. * How did you kiss Maria why? (3) a. Wer hat wen geküßt? b. Wen hat wer geküßt? (4) a. Wann hat wer Maria geküßt? b. Wie hast du Maria warum geküßt? On a descriptive level, the Superiority Condition (Chomsky 1973) supposedly accounts for possible Multiple Wh: fronting of the lower Wh is blocked and thus prohibited by an intervening, superior Wh. 3 * I am particularly indebted to Juan Carlos Castillo, John Drury, Elena Herburger, Norbert Hornstein, Chris Kennedy, David Lightfoot, Paul Portner, Juan Uriagereka, Gregory Ward for many fruitful discussions, encouraging criticism and helpful advice. I would like to extend my gratitude also to the audiences of my defense—see Grohmann 1998—(University of Maryland, College Park, May 4), the Syntax and Semantics of Quantifiers Seminar (Georgetown University, May 11), SCIL 10 (Northwestern University, Evanston, June 6-7) and WECOL 1998 (Arizona State University, Tempe, October 9-11). Refusal of including any (more) advice was entirely my decision. 1 Unless otherwise noted, I will employ this paradigm throughout: the German examples will appear without glosses as the equivalents of the English examples wherever possible. 2 In order to keep the length of this paper somewhat under control, I will confine myself solely to the discussion of Wh-arguments such as (1) and (3); for discussion of the data concerning the interplay of Wh-adjuncts, see Grohmann 1998, section 3. 3 Chomsky (1973:246) formulates the Superiority Condition as follows: