Wh-licensing in Korean/Japanese, Chinese, and English

Abstract

The Journal of Studies in Language 00.0, 000-000. This paper compares wh-phrases-in-situ in Korean, Japanese, and Chinese (KJC) with their overly-moved counterparts in English. Recently, Abe (2017) takes an Agree-based Minimal Search approach, while Saito (2017) takes a covert movement approach, revealing how wh-elements in Japanese associate with the corresponding Q-particles. On the other hand, it has been argued that, like those in English, wh-expressions in Chinese undergo phrasal movement to the Spec of CP to be licensed properly (among others, see also Pan 2014). But Chinese differs from English in light of where wh-expressions are actually realized. In this paper, in keeping with the recent proposals on wh-movement and interpretation in these languages we use three newly recruited diagnostics to show that Korean/Japanese argument wh-phrases undergo overt Agree-based licensing, but Chinese and English counterparts undergo overt phrasal movement, with the tail of the wh-chain realized in the former language but its head realized in the latter language.