-W-

Wackernagel's law
MORPHOLOGY/SYNTAX: generalization proposed by the 19th century philologist Wackernagel concerning the position of °clitics. This law says that a certain class of clitics must be the second constituent of a clause.
LIT. Spencer (1991).

Wanna-contraction
Phonological contraction of want and to to wanna, going to to gonna, etc. In syntax this phenomenon is used in an argument to make a distinction between wh-trace and other empty elements, such as NP-trace or PRO.

(i)  Why do you want PRO to go	  -> ... wanna go
(ii) Whoi do you want ti to go  -> *... wanna go
The intervening °PRO subject in (i) does not block wanna-contraction, but the wh-trace in (ii) does.
LIT. Lasnik & Saito (1984), Van Riemsdijk & Williams (1986).

Weak
°Strength.

Weak crossover
SYNTAX: one kind of °crossover:

(i)   *whoi did hisi mother see ti
Who is moved across his in (i). The fact that who is moved across his is referred to as 'weak crossover', because the ungrammaticality is not due to a °condition C violation as in the case of °strong crossover. °Binding theory has nothing to say on the possibility of coreference between who and his. Who is moved to an A'-position, therefore, his cannot be A-bound by who. Moreover, since his does not c-command the wh-trace, his cannot bind it (which would be a condition C violation). Still, coreference between who and his is ungrammatical. A wide range of analyses have been proposed, including Chomsky's (1976) °Leftness Condition, Higginbotham's (1980) °Accessibility Condition, Safir's (1984) PCOB, Reinhart's (1983) S-Structure c-command requirement. Best-known among these is Koopman & Sportiche's (1982) °Bijection Principle. Weak crossover also occurs at LF, in cases such as (ii) containing the quantified expression everyone.
(ii)  *Hisi mother loves everyonei
(iii) *everyonei hisi mother loves ti
In the °LF (iii), derived by °Quantifier Raising, the interpretation of his as a bound variable is also ruled out by the Bijection Principle.
LIT. Chomsky (1976), Higginbotham (1980), Koopman & Sportiche (1982), May (1985), Reinhart (1983), Safir (1984), Ruys (1992, 1994).

Weak feature
SYNTAX: (minimalist theory) feature which must be checked in covert syntax (due to °Procrastinate)
LIT. Chomsky (1992).

Weak Lexicalist Hypothesis
°Lexicalist Hypothesis.

Weak noun phrase
SEMANTICS: a noun phrase that can be used as the subject of a °there-insertion sentence:

(i) There was NP in the room
The term was introduced by Milsark (1977) as a more general term for indefinite noun phrases. Besides traditional indefinites like a boy and boys, noun phrases like one boy, some boys, two boys or many boys are also weak. Milsark (1977) characterizes weak noun phrases as noun phrases that are not quantified, although they may contain indications of cardinality (like two, some and many). Being not quantified inherently, they can be existentially quantified by there.
LIT. Milsark (1977).

Well-Formedness Condition (WFC)
PHONOLOGY: a condition which governs the way the CV skeleton has to be associated with the °melody tier. In a simplified form the WFC says that

(a) Every CV skeletal slot must be associated with at least one melody 
    element and every melody element must be associated with at least 
    one appropriate C or V slot.
(b) Association lines must not cross.
The (b) clause of the WFC is also known as the °No-Crossing Constraint.
LIT. Goldsmith (1976), McCarthy (1981), Spencer (1991).

Weather-verb
A verb expressing a meteorological condition, such as rain or snow, which is a predicate either without an argument or with a °quasi-argument (cf. it rains).
LIT. Chomsky (1981).

Wh-in-situ
SYNTAX: a wh-element which has not been moved at °S-structure, because its °landing site is occupied by another wh-element. EXAMPLE: what in (i) cannot move because its landing site is taken by who.

(i)  I wonder who has bought what?
It is generally assumed that what in (i) is fronted and adjoined to the embedded clause at °LF. This operation is called Wh-raising (in contradistinction to °wh-movement, or °QR (of non-wh operators)). Cases of wh-in-situ are not to be confused with echo-questions like John bought whó?: here who's landing site has not been taken by another wh-element.
LIT. Chomsky (1981, 1986b), May (1985), Lasnik & Saito (1991).

Wh-island
SYNTAX: the extraction island created by an embedded sentence which is introduced by a wh-word. EXAMPLE: the complement of wonder in (i)b is a wh-island. The contrast with (i)a serves to show that it is the wh-element to whom which blocks the extraction of what.

(i) a   what did you think [Bert gave t to Bobje]
    b  *what did you wonder [to whom Bert gave t t]
The ill-formedness of (i)b is usually explained as a °Subjacency violation. See °bounding theory.
LIT. Chomsky (1964, 1981, 1986b), Ross (1967).

Wh-movement
SYNTAX: movement of a °wh-phrase. Wh-movement always moves the moved element to an °A-bar position, in particular the specifier position of CP. Languages differ with respect to whether this movement is overt or not; while wh-movement is overt in English (°wh-in-situ) it appears to be covert in Chinese, and may be overt or covert in French. °Movement.
LIT. Chomsky (1973, 1977b, 1986b, 1992), Huang (1982), Lasnik & Saito (1984, 1991).

Wh-phrase
SYNTAX: constituent that is somehow characterized as a question operator. A wh-phrase can be a word, what in (i)a, or an entire phrase, which books on quantum physics in (i)b.

(i) a  What have they bought?
    b  Which books on quantum physics have they bought?

Wh-question
SYNTAX: in a language with overt wh-movement, a question introduced by a °wh-phrase: what have they bought? Otherwise, a question containing a wh-element. Distinguished from °yes-no question.

Wh-trace
SYNTAX: °trace of °wh-movement. If the moved element is an °argument, its trace will be °case-marked. Since wh-movement is °A-bar movement, a wh-trace behaves as a °variable and is subject to °Principle C of °binding theory.

Wide scope
°Narrow scope.

Word
MORPHOLOGY: words are morphological objects which may but need not be the output of processes of affixation and compounding.
SYNTAX: words are generally considered atomic elements: they are the indivisible building blocks of syntax, which may be the input but not the output of syntactic processes, their parts presumably being inaccessible for syntactic rules. See °lexical integrity.
PHONOLOGY: words are phonological objects which consitute the domain for lexical phonological rules. It is particularly striking that these three uses of the notion 'word' are not co-extensive. EXAMPLE: a group consisting of a free morpheme and a clitic may function as a phonological word, although morphologically it is a clitic group consisting of a morphological word and a clitic.
LIT. Sapir (1921), Aronoff (1976), Selkirk (1982), Di Sciullo & Williams (1987), Spencer (1991).

Word-based morphology
MORPHOLOGY: a hypothesis proposed in Aronoff (1976) which says that all regular word-formation processes are word-based. A new word is formed by applying a regular rule to a single already existing word. Both the new word and the existing one are members of major lexical categories. This hypothesis entails the claim that English words such as deceive, receive and conceive are not formed by regular °prefixation processes, since the base ceive is not an existing word which belongs to a major lexical category.
LIT. Aronoff (1976), Scalise (1984), Spencer (1991).

Word boundary
PHONOLOGY: °boundary indicated with #.

Word form
°Lexeme.

Word formation
MORPHOLOGY: a process by which new words are formed out of °words or °morphemes by means of °affixation or °compounding. EXAMPLE: the English form unhappy is formed out of the °prefix un- the adjective happy.

Word Formation Rule (WFR)
MORPHOLOGY: a rule of grammar by which morphologically complex words are formed out of (free and/or bound) morphemes. Word formation rules are necessary in theories which assume that the °lexicon only contains a set of underived words, and that complex words are derived from these listed forms.
LIT. Halle (1973), Aronoff (1976), Spencer (1991).

Word Structure Autonomy Condition
MORPHOLOGY: a condition proposed in Selkirk (1982) which says that no deletion or movement transformation may involve categories of both W(ord)-structure and S(entence)-structure. This condition rules out a syntactic analysis of inflection, such as (a) the Affix Hopping analysis of English inflection (Chomsky (1957)), (b) °head movement analyses (Pollock (1989)), and (c) °incorporation analyses (Baker (1988)).

Word Syntax
MORPHOLOGY: a hypothesis proposed by Selkirk (1982) which entails the claim that word structure has to be accounted for by a context free phrase structure grammar. She proposes a variant of so-called X-bar syntax. The maximal projection of W(ord)-structure is identical to the zero level projection in S(sentence)-structure. Furthermore, she proposes the lower-level categories Root and Affix. Affixation rules take the form in (i) and compound rules the one in (ii):

(i)  Xn -> Yn Xaf	where n stands for Word or Root
(ii) Xw -> Yw Xw