FEATURE ATTRACTION OF WH-QUESTIONS IN THE BAMBOO SLIPS OF TAO TE CHING

There are 12 inerrogative sentences in the bamboo slips of Tao Te Ching, and all of them are wh-questions. Different from the traditional ancient classic version, the silk manuscript version of Tao Te Ching, these wh-questions do not carry wh-question particles at the end of the sentences. The LF movement hypothesis and unselective binding cannot hold in wh-interpretation of archaic Chinese wh-questions. Thus the Interrogative Feature Attraction Hypothesis may be applied to the interpretation of wh-questions. The wh-feature of the wh-word is attracted to the spec CP position to check the weak wh-feature of the head. Similar to wh-questions in modern Chinese, when there is no wh-particle at the end of the interrogative sentence, there must be a rising intonation Q at the end of the sentence. The Interrogative Feature Attraction Hypothesis is therefore revised, and the wh-feature in the wh-questions will be appropriately checked, and thus it is of great theoretical significance to the study of linguistic universality.