The syntax of ‘sluicing’/‘fragmenting’ in Korean: Evidence from the copula -i- ‘be’

박명관 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2014 언어연구 Vol.31 No.1

Building on Park (2001), this paper takes a unified Pseudocleft analysis of the constructions in Korean that apparently correspond to Sluicing and Fragmenting constructions in English. We first bring forth matrix ‘Sluicing’ and ‘Fragmenting’ that require the presence of the copula -i- ‘be’, unlike the instances examined by the previous works. These cases point to the fact that the Pseudocleft analysis of the constructions applies by default. Second, the adnominal adjective (projection) apparently as a survivingexpression is argued not to derive from a clausal source, but base-generated in itsplace like a usual predicate; this is why the adnominal adjective (projection) to beinvestigated here cannot appear together with the copula. Third, the behaviors ofpostposition pied-piping (retention) and postposition stranding (omission) in theconstructions concerned, which have been taken to render compelling evidencesupporting the analysis of the surviving expression as deriving from a clausal source,more effectively follow from the Pseudocleft analysis of them.

Not Voice but Case Match Matters in VP Ellipsis and Pseudogapping of English

박명관,최선주 한국언어학회 2015 언어 Vol.40 No.2

Park, Myung-Kwan & Choi, Sunjoo. 2015. Not Voice but Case Match Matters in VP Ellipsis and Pseudogapping of English. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 40-2, 000-000. This paper develops a Case/case-theoretic account for what Merchant (2008) calls voice mismatch in ellipsis constructions of English. Merchant (ibid.) reports that VP ellipsis as an elision of smaller size VP allows voice mismatch, but Pseudogapping and Sluicing as an elision of bigger size vP/TP do not. However, Tanaka (2011) argues against Merchant's dichotomy in voice mismatch between VP ellipsis and Pseudogapping, reporting that voice mismatch in both types of ellipsis is permissible or not while interacting with what Kehler (2000) calls discourse coherence relations between ellipsis and antecedent clauses. Departing from Kehler's (2000) insight, we suggest that vP undergoes ellipsis in a resemblance discourse relation, but VP does so in a cause/effect discourse relation. Given the asymmetry in the size of ellipsis in tandem with discours relations, we argue that since Accusative as well as Nominative Case is checked outside VP, the VP to be elided can meet the identity condition on ellipsis with its antecedent VP as the object element in the former and the subject one in the latter or vice versus have not been Case-checked yet, thus being identical in terms of Case-feature at the point of derivation building a VP. (Dongguk University)

‘뭘’: 문법화 양상과 놀람/불만-의문문의 의미해석

박명관 현대문법학회 2023 현대문법연구 Vol.118 No.-

This paper investigates mwe-l ‘what’ questions in Korean. As a starting point, we collect mwe-l question sentences from Wulimal Saym (Our Speech Spring). In examining them, we note that on top of its use as an interjection, it can also be used as a questioning word, corresponding to what in English but interpreted as why. We argue that it has developed from mwe-(lo) (because of what) where –(u)lo is a particle expressing reason or cause. Crucially, the lateral -l is inserted between mwe-l and the particle for the sake of phonetic articulation. We move on to note that in Korean both mwe-l and mwue/mwe construct rhetorical-like surprise/disapproval questions. Following Caponigro and Sprouse’s (2007) and Celle’s (2018) pragmatic characterization of rhetorical- like surprise/disapproval questions in general, we show these constructions at issue are not only interpreted as information-seeking ordinary questions but also as expressing a speaker’s surprise and disapproval because of his/her expectation conflicting with the described state-of-affairs. .

On the interplay between syntax and statistical learning on errors in argument structure

박명관,김유희 대한언어학회 2013 언어학 Vol.21 No.3

It has often been reported (cf. Bowerman, 1974) that L1 children or L2 learners tend to make errors in the use of verbs or predicates. They over-passivize, over-causativize, or over-intransitivize verbs or predicates when they have insufficient or incorrect knowledge of the language they try to acquire or learn. We examine these three types of errors, investigating what part of syntax is responsible for these errors, and how language development or learning proceeds on the basis of the language input available to L1 children or L2 learners to overcome these errors. We propose that all three cases of over-generalization are ascribed to the functional category, i.e. the little v, which is responsible for argument structure alternations. L1 children or L2 learners are presumably lacking or deficient in this functional category. However, they capitalize on statistical learning to learn the exact category of a verb or predicate on the basis of its distributional properties, identifying what verb or predicate can combine with a right kind of little v.

The syntax of RC extraposition in Korean: Economy and repair

박명관 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2017 언어연구 Vol.34 No.1

This paper investigates the syntax of relative clauses (RCs) in sentence-final position in Korean, which have been analyzed as RC right dislocation (RD)/afterthought by Park and Kim (2009) and Kim and Park (2010), Ko (2014, 2015), and Chung (2016). In this paper we argue that the construction in question is not RC RD but RC Extraposition, which behaves in the similar fashion as English or German RC/AP Extraposition. We propose, following the lead of Koster (2000), that ‘extraposed’ RCs in Korean are derived by moving out of the second conjunct minimally constructed and then elided after the comma as a specifying coordinator. To capture the local/proximate association between the ‘extraposed’ RC and its host, we suggest that structure building for both the first and the second conjuncts containing them is regulated by the economy principle on specifying coordination: the two conjuncts are constructed in a bottom-up mode as minimally as possible only up to the need of specifying coordination. However, there are cases where the economy principle on structure building in RC Extraposition is violated, and thus the apparently non-local dependency between the ‘extraposed’ RC and its host holds. We submit that these cases point to the fact that grammar entertains a strategy of repairing the grammatically-illicit derivation/representation.

2자유도 병렬 기구의 비교 연구: 작업영역 최적화 및 기구학적 성능

박명관,남윤주,이육형 대한기계학회 2006 大韓機械學會論文集A Vol.30 No.12

Some Remarks on the Licensing Condition on the Null Argument in Korean (and Japanese)

박명관 한국생성문법학회 2014 생성문법연구 Vol.24 No.2

This squib examines Oku's (1998) and Takahashi's (2011, in press)ellipsis analysis of the null argument in Japanese and Korean, and theaccompanying licensing condition on it. Oku proposed that the ellipticalnull argument in these languages is literally unrealized in overt syntax,but is reconstructed in covert syntax to meet the 'weak' selectionalfeature of a verb. Takahashi also proposed to attribute the delaying ofthe structure building for the null argument to the absence ofagreement/phi-features. Despite their brilliant endeavors to account forthe parametric differences in the availability of the null argument, theyare shown to confront some non-trivial problems. We explore analternative analysis of the null argument, proposing that it is not aDP-substitute but an NP-substitute. Based on this proposal, we providean account not only of the reason for the phonologically null form ofargument and the lack of verbal agreement in Korean and Japanese, butalso of the parametric variation in the availability of the null argument.

The Syntax of Conjoined Wh-elements in English: A Preliminary Study

박명관 한국생성문법학회 2006 생성문법연구 Vol.16 No.3

비전형적 일치의 구조/통사: 영어의 자동격 표시 및 주어-동사 불일치

박명관 대한언어학회 2006 언어학 Vol.14 No.2

Case in 'ECM' Resultatives

박명관 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2011 언어연구 Vol.28 No.1

This paper investigates into the so-called fake or 'ECM' type of resultatives in Korean. We note that in English, an intransitive verb takes a small clause complement in the formation of the ECM type of resultatives, but this ECM type is entirely lacking in Korean. Rather, Korean employs an adjunct clause corresponding to the small clause complement for this ECM type of resultatives in English. We show that Case marking of the subject of the resultative clause provides reliable evidence for determining this ECM type of resultative clause in Korean, but neither the distribution of NPI nor cancellability of the proposition expressed by the resultative clause can. We suggest that Korean and English differ in the availability of fake resultatives, because only the latter language has a functional feature [RESULT] which enables the intransitive matrix verb to select a resultative small clause as its complement.