Lexically triggered uniquenes in wh-questions: An argument from Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Recent discussion on the source of uniqueness in English singular which-question has debated whether this is due to a general requirement that questions have a maximally informative true answer (Dayal 1996), or whether uniqueness islexically triggered by which (Hirsch & Schwarz 2020). We present novel data from Brazilian Portuguese which argue that at least some wh-interrogatives are lexical triggers for uniqueness.