On the Nature of the Antiagreement Effect: Evidence from Wh-in-Situ in Ibibio

The Ibibio language displays an antiagreement effect (AAE), in which φ-feature agreement on the verb is suppressed in subject questions, even when the wh-phrase remains in situ. I discuss why this fact is problematic for existing theories of the AAE. I then suggest that the AAE arises when the deletion process that applies to copies in a movement chain removes the φ-features of a copy along with its semantic features. This formulation applies equally well to overt and covert wh-movement. It also generalizes to explain why quantified subjects do not trigger an AAE in Ibibio, whereas subjects in negative clauses do.