WH-Less WH-Questions and the Syntax of WHY

This study is concerned with a very peculiar phenomenon in Korean in which WH-questions do not apparently have any WH-phrases but show typical WH-prosodies. This phenomenon has first been reported in Y.-H. Kim (2020), who provides a plausible analysis based on Ko’s (2006) CMH (CP-Modifier Hypothesis). This study is a kind of sequel to his (2020) research, which has the problem of poor experimental data. We, thus, carried out a neatly designed experiment with a number of subjects, and have found out that Y.-H. Kim’s (2020) analysis is indeed verified and can be said to be on the right track. We discuss the results of the experiment and their implications.