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Evidence is presented that Serbo-Croatian, in contrast to other Slavic languages with lexical prosody, is developing a prosodic system in which stressed non-stem material is avoided and surface stress is becoming a property of the word stem. Five case studies are shown in which stress is moving from non-stem material to stems. We analyse the general move towards stem-stressed prosody as the final step in a chain of language changes initiated by the Neo-Štokavian retractions, which were automatic and contrast-preserving, but led to a massive removal of stress from inflectional endings. We discuss the general reasons behind this language change in terms of markedness and, more specifically, the constraints proposed within Optimality Theory. We propose an analysis of the change under consideration in terms of a promotion of the markedness constraint StemStress, which requires stems to be stressed independently of lexical prominence.

This thesis explores the fact that in Slovenian multiple wh-questions not all wh-phrases have to front. This suggests that multiple wh-movement in Slovenian is optional. The majority of the existing literature on multiple wh-fronting focuses on questions in which all wh-phrases have to move to clause initial positions, I, on the other hand, focus on optionality in multiple wh-questions. I show movement in Slovenian is not avoided because of phonological, syntactic or semantic restrictions that influence other languages (cf. Bošković 2002), and that the Principle of Distinctness (Richards 2010) does not account for all cases of optional multiple wh-fronting in Slovenian. Three types of multiple wh-questions in Slovenian are determined and analyzed: (i) questions in which all wh-phrases move to clause initial positions (i.e. questions with multiple wh-fronting), (ii) questions in which one wh-phrase has to be moved to a clause initial position and the rest undergo movement to a clause internal position (multiple wh-questions with short movement), (iii) questions in which at least one wh-phrase has to be moved to a clause initial position and the rest stay in situ (multiple wh-questions with wh-in-situ). Crucially, in all three types at least one wh-phrase has to move to a clause initial position for a question to receive a true question reading. I assume the Cartographic approach and propose an account of multiple wh-fronting in Slovenian in which one wh-phrase has to move to an Interrogative Projection (the clause initial position) in the Left Periphery while the remaining wh-phrases move to Wh-Projections in the Left Periphery, questions in (i), or the Low Periphery, questions in (ii). I propose that wh-phrases with a wh-feature undergo wh-movement, which means that wh-movement is in fact obligatory in Slovenian. In questions of type (iii), wh-phrases that do not undergo movement are in fact bare wh-pronouns, which one also finds in polarity contexts, that are licensed by the interpretable Q+wh-feature located in the Interrogative Projection. Because the bare wh-pronouns do not come with a wh-feature, they do not have to move. I conclude that wh-movement in Slovenian only appears to be optional. V disertaciji je kot primer jezika z večkratnim k-premikom, v katerem k-zveze niso nujno skladenjsko premaknjene, obravnavana slovenščina. To nakazuje, da je k-premik v slovenščini neobvezen. Ker so v preteklosti raziskovalci večino pozornosti namenili večkratnim k-vprašanjem, v katerih se premaknejo vse k-zveze, se ta disertacija osredotoča na neobveznost v večkratnih k-vprašanjih. Pri tem so kot mogoče pojasnilo za odsotnost premika izključene fonološke, skladenjske in semantične omejitve, ki pojasnijo odsotnost k-premika v drugih jezikih (gl. Bošković 2002). Hkrati je pokazano, da ima na k-premik v slovenščini vpliv načelo razlikovanja (Richards 2010), a da to ne pojasni vseh primerov neobveznega k-premika v slovenščini. Določeni in analizirani so trije tipi večkratnih k-vprašanj v slovenščini: (i) vprašanja, v katerih se vse k-zveze premaknejo na začetek stavka (tj. vprašanja z večkratnim k-premikom), (ii) vprašanja, v katerih se vsaj ena k-zveza premakne na začetek stavka, medtem ko se ostale premaknejo na pozicijo znotraj stavka (tj. večkratna k-vprašanja s kratkim premikom), (iii) vprašanja, v katerih se vsaj ena k-zveza premakne na začetek stavka, medtem ko ostale k-zveze ostanejo na mestu (tj. večkratna k-vprašanja s k-zvezo na mestu). V vseh tipih k-vprašanj se vsaj ena k-zveza premakne na prvo mesto v stavku. V nalogi privzemam kartografski pristop. Na podlagi tega je predlagana analiza večkratnega k-premika v slovenščini, v kateri se ena sama k-zveza premakne v vprašalno projekcijo (prvo mesto v stavku, InterP) v levi periferiji, medtem ko se preostale k-zveze premaknejo v k-projekcije (Wh-P), ki so bodisi v levi periferiji, vprašanja v (i), ali v nizki periferiji stavka, vprašanja v (ii). Predlagano je, da se tako premaknejo vprašalne k-zveze, ki imajo k-oznake, kar pomeni, da je k-premik v slovenščini dejansko obvezen. Na mestu ostanejo zgolj goli k-zaimki, ki jih lahko zasledimo tudi v pogojnih stavkih ali odločevalnih vprašanjih. Tovrstni zaimki so v vprašanjih v (iii) dovoljeni zaradi interpretabilne Q+k-oznake, ki se nahaja v vprašalni projekciji. Ker goli k-zaimki nimajo k-oznake, se ne premaknejo, kar ponovno kaže na to, da k-premik v slovenščini dejansko ni neobvezen.