Complementizers and Complementation in English and Korean: Successive Cyclic WH-Movement

This paper investigates complementizers and complementation in English and Korean. I argue that a sentence is ultimately a projection of C because the clausal types must be present for interpretation and that the clausal typing feature in C must be checked off. It is shown that the superficial difference between English-type languages and Korean-type languages with regard to wh-movement is due to different modes of checking off the clausal typing feature in C. Some theoretical consequences of this proposal are that successive cyclic wh-movement can be naturally accounted for in a derivational approach to syntax and that the strength of C is always strong both in English and Korean-type languages.