On the syntactic position of ‘why’-like ‘what’ in Korean

In Korean, the nominal wh-phrase mwe-l ‘what-ACC’ can be interpreted as a reason/causal wh-adjunct corresponding to 'way' (‘why’). The nominal wh-adjunct 'mwe-l' behaves like 'way', and unlike its ordinary counterpart (i.e., wh-argument), in many respects (e.g., Intervention Effect and Anti-Superiority Effect). This paper investigates whether 'mwe-l' is base-generated in the same position as the ‘high’ wh-adjunct 'way' (Ko 2005, 2006). The paper argues that the nominal wh-adjunct 'mwe-l' in an interrogative clause is directly merged into Spec-C[Att(itude)]P as its licensing position, configured lower than C[Int(errogative)]P where, according to Ko (2006), 'way' is externally merged and licensed.