Doubly filled COMP in Czech and Slovenian interrogatives

This article investigates the syntax of doubly filled COMP patterns in Czech and Slovenian interrogatives from a cross-linguistic perspective, concentrating on the differences between Germanic and Slavic doubly Filled COMP. In Germanic, dialects that allow the doubly filled COMP pattern do so to lexicalise a C head specified as [fin] with overt material, which is regularly carried out by verb movement in main clauses (e.g. V2 in German, T-to-C in English interrogatives) and by the interrogative complementiser in embedded polar questions. The insertion of the complementiser has no interpretive effect on the clause and is restricted to embedded clauses. By contrast, in Czech and Slovenian a complementiser can be inserted even in main clauses, and while its presence is optional, its insertion triggers an interpretive difference, resulting in an echo reading. I argue that while in Germanic, the C head is specified as [wh] and is checked off by the wh-element, in Slavic the C is not specified as [wh] and the type of the clause hence matches the properties of the inserted declarative head. In turn, the wh-element moves because it is focused: echo questions are closer to focus constructions than to ordinary questions.