Syntax of why - in - situ : Merge into [ Spec , CP ] in the overt syntax

1 Syntax of why-in-situ: Merge into [Spec,CP] in the overt syntax Heejeong Ko, MIT Abstract. This paper investigates the syntactic properties of ‘why’ in in-situ languages (why-in-situ) and proposes that why-in-situ, unlike other wh-phrases, is initially merged into [Spec,CP] in the overt syntax, whether or not the relevant CP is declarative or interrogative (cf. Lin 1992; Rizzi 1990, 1999). This proposal not only captures the peculiarity of why-in-situ, as opposed to other whphrases, but also accounts for previously unnoticed asymmetries between why-in-situ constructions. In particular, it is shown that ‘why’ in an interrogative clause is licensed by External-Merge into [Spec,CP], circumventing the LF-Intervention Effect (cf. Beck and Kim 1997). ‘Why’ in a declarative clause, in contrast, undergoes LF-movement, manifesting the Intervention Effect. Under this proposal, puzzling convergence and divergence between Chinese and Korean/Japanese (K/J) in why-constructions are reduced to the fact that Chinese, unlike K/J, does not allow Scrambling across CP. This proposal has theoretical consequences that a subject may undergo Scrambling (contra Saito 1985), and that Scrambling over ‘why’ is obligatorily A’Scrambling (cf. Mahajan 1990). The paper demonstrates that these consequences are independently supported by converging evidence from child Korean acquisition data, distributional restrictions on the left-periphery of why-in-situ, and the syntactic/semantic differences between ‘why’ and ‘for what reason’ in Korean.