Case-mismatching versus D-linking of ATB wh-questions in Korean

Abstract This study explores how conjunct locus and D(iscourse)-linking can improve the acceptability of Korean across-the-board (ATB) wh-questions that violate the case-match requirement of wh-fillers. A 2 × 2 design is employed – involving Korean ATB wh-questions with the first-conjunct or second-conjunct case-mismatches and with bare or D-linked wh-phrases. The results show that the first-conjunct case-licensing of a wh-filler is crucial when the wh-filler is bare, as reconstruction into the first conjunct is allowed while reconstruction into the second is not. Meanwhile, the first-conjunct case-licensing of a wh-filler is not crucial when the wh-filler is D-linked. More precisely, D-linking improves the acceptability of syntactically ill-formed ATB wh-questions which violate the first-conjunct case-licensing requirement of a wh-filler, but it does not improve the acceptability of syntactically well-formed ATB wh-questions. These results thus suggest that the amelioration effect of D-linking only occurs as a last resort when the acceptability of ATB wh-questions is degraded due to a violation of certain grammatical principles.