To begin with, it provides a critical review of the important issues concerning the interpretation of wh-phrases in multiple wh-phrases in English, such as pair-list answer, the semantic features of the first wh-phrase (D-linked and referentially dependent), the compatibility of multiple wh-question and the quantification of wh-phrase and universal quantifier, etc.

An Empirical Study of Chinese Learners' Learnability and Acquisition of Wh-questions

Within the framework of Optimality Theory, through a grammar test on different types of the simple WH-questions in English, we collect the data of interlanguage produced by the junior middle school students whose native language is Chinese, and investigate the constraint hierarchy of the interlanguage of the simple WH-questions in English produced by native Chinese.

This paper gives a detailed analysis of the pragmatic functions of WH-cleft sentence, which is usually considered as containing two components: Given/New or Presupposition/Focus.