Wh-island Effects of Wh-in-situ in Two Types of Wh-in-situ Languages - A Processing Account

Wh-in-situ in Korean are known to show wh-island effects while those in Chinese do not. In this paper, I show that a simple explanation for this difference can be found if we recognize that wh-in-situ questions with a non-local wh-Q association are garden path sentences and that what we call the wh-island effects of wh-in-situ in Korean is not the unacceptability of wh-in-situ questions with a non-local wh-Q association but the high likelihood of misinterpreting such sentences as having the local scope. If so, the question why wh-in-situ in Chinese do not show wh-island effects can be recast as why wh-in-situ questions with a non-local wh-Q association in Chinese are not or less prone to such a misinterpretation, and an answer for this question can be found in some trivial differences in the use of Q-particles between the two languages. As further support, I show that some of the intra-linguistic variations in wh-island in Korean can be explained in the same ways the absence of wh-island effects in Chinese is explained. I also explore the possibility that this account can be extended to other wh-in-situ languages.