The acquisition of wh-questions in English and Korean

Chapter 2 addresses the issue of pied-piping in the acquisition of Wh questions in English and Korean. Nishigauchi (1990) argues that the Subjacency Principle applies at LF and that pied-piping should take place to avoid a Subjacency violation when a Wh-phrase is embedded in a complex NP. Based on the results from the experiment, it is concluded that Nishigauchi's claim is not correct and that the Subjacency Principle does not hold at LF.;Chapter 3 discusses the issue of the subject-object asymmetry in the acquisition of Wh questions. The subject preference in the acquisition of Wh questions is attributed to the depth of embedding account proposed by William O'Grady (1994).;Chapter 4 examines the acquisition of multiple Wh questions in English and Korean. The results from the experiment show that the first correct responses to multiple Wh question pattern (although at a very low rate) emerge earlier in English than in Korean by a factor of three years (age 2 vs. age 5). This difference between English and Korean is tentatively attributed to input difference between the two languages. Chapter 4 also examines whether there is any difference in terms of degree of difficulty among various types of multiple Wh questions in English and Korean. The results from the experiment show that the who-when type and the who-how type questions are the hardest among the six types of multiple Wh questions in English, but not in Korean. This is ascribed to the ungrammaticality of the who-when type and the who-how type questions in English, but not in Korean.;Chapter 5 investigates the scope interaction between a Wh-phrase and a QP. Specifically, the issue is whether What is everyone eating? is ambiguous to English- and Korean-speaking children whereas Who is eating everything? is not, as in adult English and Korean. The results from the experiment show that Who is eating everything? is ambiguous to the Korean-speaking children unlike in adult Korean, but that this pattern was not ambiguous to the English-speaking children. The unambiguity of Who is eating everything? in English is attributed to Aoun and Li's (1991) Scope Principle.