Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Browse subjects
  3. Language and Linguistics
  4. Grammar and Syntax
  5. Content listing

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

6247 results in Grammar and Syntax

Page 109 of 313

  • Preface

  • Andrew Radford
  • Book:
    Analysing English Sentences
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    04 August 2016, pp xi-xvi

  • Summary

    Overview

    This book has grown out of a substantial reworking of my Analysing English Sentences book published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, which itself was a reworking of my Minimalist Syntax book published in 2004. Feedback from teachers, students and reviewers led me to make substantial changes to numerous parts of the text and exercises, and to add new chapters, exercises and references: details of the most substantial revisions are given below. This new book has three main aims. The first is to provide an intensive introduction to key background assumptions in syntactic theory, to how the syntactic component of a grammar works, and to the argumentation and critical evaluation skills which underlie contemporary work in syntax. The second is to provide a description of a range of phenomena in English syntax, making use of the theoretical concepts and constructs introduced in the book. The third is (through the extensive exercise material in the book) to enable readers to gain experience in devising analyses of specific phenomena, and in critically evaluating the theoretical and descriptive strengths and weaknesses of competing analyses.

    Key features

    The book is intended to be suitable for people with little (if any) grammatical knowledge and/or experience of linguistics; it is aimed at intermediate undergraduates, or graduates in the first year of a Masters programme. It is not historicist or comparative in orientation and does not presuppose knowledge of earlier or alternative models of grammar. It is written in an approachable style, avoiding unnecessary complexity and unexplained jargon. Each chapter contains

  • • a core text (divided up into ten sections or so) focusing on a specific topic

  • • a summary recapitulating the main points in the chapter

  • • a list of key concepts/principles introduced in the chapter

  • • a bibliographical section providing extensive references to original source material

  • • a workbook section containing two (or more) different kinds of exercise

  • • a set of model answers accompanying the exercises, together with extensive helpful hints designed to eliminate common errors students make and to help students whose native language is not English

  • • an extensive glossary and integral list of abbreviations.

Analysing English Sentences
  • 2nd edition
  • Andrew Radford
  • Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    04 August 2016
  • Andrew Radford has acquired an unrivalled reputation over the past thirty years for writing syntax textbooks in which difficult concepts are clearly explained without the excessive use of technical jargon. Analysing English Sentences continues in this tradition, offering a well-structured introduction to English syntax and contemporary syntactic theory which is supported throughout with learning aids such as summaries, lists of key hypotheses and principles, extensive references, handy hints and exercises. Instructors will also benefit from the book's free online resources, which include PowerPoint slides of chapter key points and analyses of exercise material, as well as an answer key for all the in-book exercises. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated throughout, including additional exercises and an entirely new chapter on exclamative and relative clauses. Assuming no prior knowledge of grammar, this is an approachable introduction to the subject for undergraduate and graduate students.

  • 7 - A-bar Movement

  • Andrew Radford
  • Book:
    Analysing English Sentences
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    04 August 2016, pp 386-477

  • Summary

    Overview

    syntax of Wh-Movement in interrogative clauses. In this chapter we will see that there are other types of clause which can be argued to involve Wh-Movement, including exclamative and relative clauses. In addition, we will look briefly at a number of other movement operations (including Neg-Movement, Deg-Movement, Top-Movement and Foc-Movement) which have in common with Wh-Movement that they move a constituent into spec-CP. We will see that these different kinds of movement operation are specific instances of a more general type of movement operation known as A-bar Movement (because it moves a constituent into an A-bar position like spec-CP – i.e. a position which is opaque/invisible to agreement and anaphor binding). This chapter also serves a second function of exposing you to alternative analyses that have been proposed for the syntax of relative clauses, and you'll become familiar with the ways in which analyses are refined in the light of new data, and with the kinds of argumentation which linguists use to evaluate alternative analyses. In the exercises, you'll have a chance to practise your analysis, argumentation and evaluation skills in relation to competing analyses of a range of types of relative clause.

    Wh-exclamatives

    In addition to wh-questions like those discussed in the previous chapter, English also has wh-exclamatives (i.e. wh-clauses used as exclamations). In the same way as wh-questions begin with an interrogative wh-word or wh-phrase, so too wh-exclamatives begin with an exclamative wh-word (like how in 1a below, or what in 1c) or an exclamative wh-phrase (like how very strange in 1b and what big feet in 1d):

    (1)

  • (a) How he longed to see her again!

  • (b) How very strange her behaviour was!

  • (c) What I would give for a drink!

  • (d) What big feet you have!

    • Like their wh-question counterparts, wh-exclamatives can also serve as embedded clauses – as in the case of the clauses bracketed below:

    (2)

  • (a) You wouldn't believe [what a great time we had]

  • (b) It's amazing [how very fond of his grandmother he is]

    • However, wh-exclamatives have a number of characteristic properties which differentiate them from wh-questions. Let's look at some of these.

  • 2 - Words

  • Andrew Radford
  • Book:
    Analysing English Sentences
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    04 August 2016, pp 60-110

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter provides a more in-depth look at the grammatical properties of words than was possible in the brief sketch provided in §1.3. It begins by recapitulating (and exploring in more detail) what was said about the categorial properties of words in §1.3, and goes on to explore how we determine what grammatical category a given word belongs to in a given use. In the course of the discussion, some new categories will be introduced which are not familiar from traditional grammar. We will see that categorial information alone is not sufficient to describe the grammatical properties of words and that a more fine-grained analysis requires the use of grammatical features.

    Grammatical categories

    In §1.3, we saw that words are assigned to grammatical categories in traditional grammar on the basis of their shared semantic, morphological and syntactic properties. The kind of semantic criteria (sometimes called ‘notional’ criteria) used to categorise words in traditional grammar are illustrated in much simplified form below:

    (1)

  • (i) Verbs denote actions (go, destroy, buy, eat, etc.)

  • (ii) Nouns denote entities (car, cat, hill, John, etc.)

  • (iii) Adjectives denote states (ill, happy, rich, etc.)

  • (iv) Adverbs denote manner (badly, slowly, painfully, cynically etc.)

  • (v) Prepositions denote location (under, over, outside, in, on etc.)

    • However, semantically based criteria for identifying categories must be used with care: for example, assassination denotes an action but is a noun, not a verb; illness denotes a state but is a noun, not an adjective; in fast food, the word fast denotes the manner in which the food is prepared but is an adjective, not an adverb; and Cambridge denotes a location but is a noun, not a preposition. Because semantic criteria can give misleading results if not applied carefully, it is generally more reliable to use morphosyntactic (i.e. morphological and syntactic) criteria to categorise words.

    The morphological criteria for categorising words concern their inflectional and derivational properties. Inflectional properties relate to different forms of the same word (e.g. the plural form of a noun like cat is formed by adding the plural inflection -s to give the form cats); derivational properties relate to the processes by which a word can be used to form a different kind of word by the addition of an affix of some kind (e.g. by adding -ness to the adjective ill we can form the noun illness).

  • 3 - Structure

  • Andrew Radford
  • Book:
    Analysing English Sentences
    Published online:
    28 May 2018
    Print publication:
    04 August 2016, pp 111-171

  • Summary

    Overview

    This chapter provides an introduction to syntactic structure, and to how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences. We shall see that phrases and sentences are built up by a series of Merge operations, each of which combines a pair of constituents together to form a larger constituent. We look at how the resulting structure can be represented in terms of a tree diagram. We also examine some of the principles which underlie sentence formation and explore ways of testing the structure of phrases and sentences.

    Phrases

    To put our discussion on a concrete footing, let's consider how an elementary two-word phrase such as the italicised response produced by speaker B in the following mini-dialogue is formed:

    (1)

    SPEAKER A: What are you trying to do?

    SPEAKER B: Help you

    As speaker B's utterance illustrates, the simplest way of forming a phrase is by merging (a technical term meaning ‘combining’) two words together: for example, by merging the word help with the pronoun you in (1), we form the phrase help you. The resulting phrase help you has verb-like rather than pronoun-like properties, as we see from the observation that it can occupy the same range of positions as the simple verb help, and hence, for example, occur after the infinitive particle to: cf.

    (2)

  • (a) We are trying to help

  • (b) We are trying to help you

    • By contrast, the phrase help you cannot occupy the same kind of position as a pronoun such as you, as we see from (3) below:

    (3)

  • (a) You are very difficult

  • (b) *Help you are very difficult

    • So it seems clear that the grammatical properties of a phrase like help you are determined by the verb help, and not by the pronoun you. Much the same can be said about the semantic properties of the expression, since the phrase help you describes an act of help, not a kind of person.

  • 9 - Coordination

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 204-225

  • Summary

    Every language employs its own coordination strategies, according to the type of coordinating marking, the pattern of marking, the position of the marker, and the phrase types coordinated. Korean is also intriguing in the sense that it displays almost all the possibilities of these dimensions. This chapter shows how a construction-based HPSG can provide a robust analysis for nominal and verbal coordination in Korean.

    Two main types of nominal and verbal coordination

    Korean employs two kinds of coordination marking: morphological and lexical marking. In the morphological marking system, the language distinguishes nominal and verbal coordination. As seen in the corpus example (1a), nominal coordination uses suffixal markers (usually called particles in the traditional literature) like -(k)wa, -hako, -(i)lang ‘and’ for conjunctive and -(i)na ‘or’ for disjunctive coordination. Meanwhile, as in (1b), verbal coordination uses the suffixal marker -ko ‘and’ for conjunctive and -kena ‘or’ for disjunctive coordination:

    (1) a. [khemphyuthe-wa/hako/lang intheneys-ul] payw-ess-ta

    computer-and internet-ACC learn-PST-DECL

    ‘(He) learned computer and internet.’

    b. pelley-ey [mwulli-ko/kena sso-i-yess-ta]

    insect-DAT bite-and/or sting-PASS-PST-DECL

    ‘(He) was bitten and/or stung by an insect.’

    In addition to these morphological markers, the language has words like kuliko ‘and’, ttonun ‘or’ as lexical coordinators. Unlike the morphological coordinators, these coordinators can be used for both nominal and verbal coordination:

    (2) a. hay-wa tal kuliko sem-i hamkkey ha-nun kos

    sun-and moon and island-NOM together do-MOD place

    ‘the place where sun, moon, and island exist together’

    b. mak-kena ttonun phiha-l swu iss-ta

    block-or or avoid-MOD possibility exist-DECL

    ‘(You) can block or avoid it.’

  • 4 - Auxiliary and complex predicate constructions

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 84-103

  • Summary

    The typical complex predicate construction is composed of more than one grammatical element, each of which contributes nontrivial syntactic and semantic information to it. Like other SOV languages, Korean employs a variety of complex predicate constructions which we can frequently find in daily language use. Complex predicate constructions in Korean can be classified into verbal and nominal ones. The former group consists of only verbal expressions, and auxiliary and serial verb constructions belong to this group. The latter has a predicative nominal and a verb. Light verb constructions and bound noun constructions belong to this group. This chapter discusses the grammatical properties of the auxiliary constructions in Korean as complex predicates.

    Types of auxiliary verbs and morphosyntactic properties

    Auxiliary verbs in Korean are traditionally subclassified according to their semantic contributions (see Suh 1996, Chang 1996, Sohn 1999, Kim 2004, among others). Consider one typical classification with examples:

    (1) a. Continuation

    phwul-e ka-ta

    solve-CONN gradually-DECL

    b. Service

    nol-a cwu-ta / ilk-e cwu-ta

    play-CONN for-DECL / read-CONN for-DECL

    c. Attempt

    mek-e po-ta / ilk-e po-ta

    eat-CONN try-DECL / read-CONN try-DECL

    d. Conjecture

    mek-na po-ta / o-na siph-ta

    eat-CONN maybe-DECL / come-CONN maybe-DECL

    e. Repetition

    wus-e tay-ta / mek-e tay-ta

    smile-CONN on-DECL eat-CONN on-DECL

    f. Hold

    mak-a twu-ta / kam-a noh-ta

    block-CONN keep-DECL / wrap-CONN keep-DECL

    g. Expectation

    mek-ko siph-ta

    eat-CONN wish-DECL

    h. Existence

    kelly-e iss-ta

    hang-CONN exist-DECL

    i. Obligation

    mek-eya ha-n-ta

    eat-CONN must-PRES-DECL

    j. Habit

    mek-kon ha-ta

    eat-CONN used.to-DECL

    Most of the auxiliary verbs carry aspectual, modal, or volitional interpretations, but they are also used as main verbs with different senses. Consider the following examples:

    (2) a. Mimi-ka hakkyo-ey ka-ss-ta

    Mimi-NOM school-LOC go-PST-DECL

    ‘Mimi went to school.’

    b. elum-i chachum nok-a ka-ss-ta

    ice-NOM gradually melt-CONN gradually-PST-DECL

    ‘The ice gradually melted away.’

    The main verb ka- in (2a) just describes the (motion/transition) event of Mimi's going to school, while its auxiliary use in (2b) denotes the ice's continuous melting process. Note that the auxiliary verb does not have a typical argument structure.

  • 10 - Passive constructions

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 226-241

  • Summary

    Korean employs both lexical and syntactic passive constructions. The lexical passive is quite idiosyncratic in the sense that it is applicable for only a limited number of transitive verbs. Meanwhile, syntactic passive, formed with the passive auxiliary verb ci-, is productive in the sense that most of the transitive verbs have a corresponding syntactic passive. This chapter discusses key properties of the syntactic passive in Korean and then offers a construction-based HPSG analysis.

    Lexical vs. syntactic passive

    Korean passive constructions include both lexical and syntactic passives. Consider the following two pairs of active and passive sentences:

    (1) a. Active

    kyengchal-i pemin-ul cap-ass-ta

    police-NOM criminal-ACC arrest-PST-DECL

    ‘The police arrested the criminal.’

    b. Lexical passive:

    pemin-i kyengchal-eykey cap-hi-ess-ta

    criminal-NOM police-DAT catch-PASS-PST-DECL

    ‘The criminal was arrested by the police.’

    (2) a. Active

    ai-ka os-ul simhakey ccic-ess-ta

    child-NOM clothes-ACC severely tear-PST-DECL

    ‘The child tore the clothes severely.’

    b. Syntactic passive:

    os-i simhakey ccic-e ci-ess-ta

    clothes-NOM severely tear-CONN become-PST-DECL

    ‘The clothes were severely torn.’

    In the lexical passive (1b), the addition of the passive morpheme -hi to the predicate promotes the active object into the passive subject while demoting the active subject into the passive oblique argument. Meanwhile, in the syntactic passive (2b), the promotion and demotion of the arguments are triggered by the passive auxiliary ci-ess-ta ‘become-PST-DECL’ even though there is no morphophonemic change of the main verb ccic- ‘tear’.2 That is, the form value of the main verb is intact other than the attachment of the connective marker or linker -e.

    Lexical passive, realized with one of the passive morphemes, -i, -hi, -li, and -ki, is quite restricted and unproductive. For example, transitive verbs like the following cannot be lexically passivized:

    (3) a. ditransitive: cwu- ‘give’, tuli- ‘give’, pachi- ‘give’, neh- ‘put’

    b. benefactive: et- ‘obtain’, mantul- ‘make’, ilh- ‘lose’, top- ‘help’

    c. experience: al- ‘know’, paywu- ‘learn’, pala- ‘wish’

    d. symmetric: manna- ‘meet’, talm- ‘resemble’

    There is also a difference even among synonymous transitive verbs. For example, the verb tam-ta ‘fill-DECL’ has its lexical passive tam-ki-ta ‘put- PASS-DECL’, but its synonymous verb neh-ta ‘put-DECL’ does not have any lexical passive.

  • 1 - Theoretical foundations

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 1-25

  • Summary

    This book, encompassing both empirical and theoretical issues of the Korean grammar, develops a constraint- and construction-based HPSG (Head-driven Phrase Structure) analysis. The constraint view assumes that grammar is a system of constraints governing the relation between form and meaning. This view eventually is combined with the philosophy of Construction Grammar in which functional knowledge of language is being based on an individual's systematic collection of “form and function pairings.” The book tries to merge these two perspectives of the grammar while seeking the greatest possible precision.

    Derivational vs. constraint-based views

    The central tasks of current linguistic theory are twofold. The first task is to explain how children are able to acquire grammatical competence even though they do not receive explicit instruction or have limited access to the data. This task is thus to account for the gap between children's knowledge of language and the apparent lack of substantive input for language, also known as Plato's problem. For example, assume that Korean speakers may hear both of the following Korean sentences including a relative clause:

    (1) a. [_ppang-ul manhi sa-n] ai-ka wus-ess-ta

    bread-ACC much buy-MOD child-NOM smile-PST-DECL

    ‘The child who bought a lot of bread smiled.’

    b. [[_ppang-ul manhi sa-ss-ta-ko] Mimi-ka malha-n]

    bread-ACC much buy-PST-DECL-COMP Mimi-NOM say-Mod

    ai-ka wus-ess-ta

    child-NOM smile-PST-DECL

    ‘The child who Mimi said bought a lot of bread smiled.’

    From these two examples, speakers may infer that a subject from a matrix clause as well as from an embedded clause can be relativized. However, note that Korean speakers may not utter sentences like the following:

    (2) *[[_ppang-ul manhi sa-n] kakey-lul] Mimi-ka malha-n

    bread-ACC much buy-Mod store-ACC Mimi-NOM say-Mod

    ai-ka wus-ess-ta

    child-NOM smile-PST-DECL

    ‘(int.) The child who bought a lot of bread from the store which Mimi

    mentioned smiled.’

    Note that just like those in (1), the sentence in (2) also relativizes the subject of the embedded clause, but Korean speakers would not utter such a sentence. The question that follows is then how and why the language users, with no explicit instruction, can avoid generating such an unacceptable sentence.

    The next and related task is to explain syntactic competence in language. Native speakers have the ability to combine structures to create simple as well as complex sentences.

  • 11 - Wh-questions

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 242-255

  • Summary

    Korean is a wh-in-situ language in the sense that the wh-expression stays in situ with an obligatory Q-particle marking its interrogative scope. This chapter reviews some basic properties of the wh-question construction in Korean and shows how a constraint- and construction-based HPSG can provide a robust, precise analysis of the wh-construction in the language.

    Dependency between wh-question and Q-particle

    Unlike English, Korean is a wh-in-situ language where the wh-word stays in the original position (see, among others, Hagstrom 1998, Chung 2000, Kim 2000, and Hong 2005).

    (1) a. ecey Mimi-ka nwukwu-lul manna-ss-ni?

    yesterday Mimi-NOM who-ACC meet-PST-QUE

    ‘Who(m) did Mimi meet yesterday?’

    b. ecey nwu-ka Mimi-lul manna-ss-ni?

    yeterday who-NOM Mimi-ACC meet-PST-QUE

    ‘Who met Mimi yesterday?’

    As seen from these examples, unlike English, there is no displacement (or movement) of the wh-phrase in forming the wh-questions. The wh-expression in Korean need not move to the clausal scope (clause-initial) position, though it can be optionally displaced to the position through a scrambling process:

    (2) nwukwu-lul ecey Mimi-ka manna-ss-ni?

    who-ACC yesterday Mimi-NOM meet-PST-QUE

    ‘Who(m) did Mimi meet yesterday?’

    In forming a wh-question in the language, all that is required is the presence of a Q-particle. That is, the wh-expression requires a question mood marking (Q-particle) like -ni on the matrix verb to have an interrogative meaning.Without such a Q-particle, the wh-expression can be interpreted as an indefinite pronoun (see Chung 1996, Kim 2000, Hong 2005):

    (3) a. Mimi-ka mwues-ul mek-ess-ta

    Mimi-NOM what-ACC eat-PST-DECL

    ‘Mimi ate something.’

    b. nwu-ka Mimi-lul manna-ss-ta

    who-NOM Mimi-ACC meet-PST-DECL

    ‘Someone met Mimi.’

    The wh-expression is thus ambiguous between an interrogative reading and an indefinite reading, depending on the presence of the Q-particle.

    The Q-particle can be attached to the final verb of a clause located to the right of the corresponding wh-element, marking its scope, as illustrated by the following:

    (4) a. Embedded clause wh-question

    Haha-nun [Mia-ka mwues-ul sa-ss-nunci] mwul-ess-ni?

    Haha-TOP Mia-NOM what-ACC buy-PST-QUE ask-PST-QUE

    ‘Did Haha ask what Mia bought?’

    #‘What did Haha ask if Mia bought?’

    b. Matrix clause wh-question

    Haha-nun [Mia-ka mwues-ul sa-ss-ta-ko]

    Haha-TOP Mia-NOM what-ACC buy-PST-DECL-CONN

    malha-yess-ni?

    say-PST-QUE

    ‘What did Haha say Mia bought?’

    In both cases, the wh-question is in the embedded clause but the position of the Q-particle differs.

  • 8 - Negation and related phenomena

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 169-203

  • Summary

    A common and productive method of expressing sentence negation in Korean is to introduce the negative marker an or a negative auxiliary anh-, which are called ‘short form’ (SFN) and ‘long form’ (LFN) negation, respectively. In this chapter, we show that treating the SFN as a prefix is more viable for various related phenomena such as ordering restrictions among adverbs, lexical blocking cases, plural copying, reduplication process, and the like. As for the LFN employing a negative auxiliary, this chapter shows that the Complex Predicate analysis can allow us to have a streamlined way of analyzing negation phenomena in Korean.

    Short form and long form negation

    The most typical way of expressing sentence negation in Korean is to introduce the negative marker an or mos in the preverbal position or the negative auxiliary anh- in the postverbal position:

    (1) SFN (Short Form Negation)

    a. Kim-un an ttena-ss-ta

    Kim-TOP not leave-PST-DECL

    ‘Kim did not leave.’

    b. Kim-un mos ttena-ss-ta

    Kim-TOP not leave-PST-DECL

    ‘Kim could not leave.’

    (2) LFN (Long Form Negation)

    Kim-un ttena-ci anh-ass-ta

    Kim-TOP leave-CONN not-PST-DECL

    ‘Kim did not leave.’

    The SFN an or mos in (1) occurs in the preverbal position, while the LFN anh- follows the main verb marked with -ci, as given in (2). The different position of the negator distinguishes the two forms, though they are essentially synonymous.

    Historically, the SFN an + V is developed from the adverbial negator ani and the LFN anh- from the combination of ani and ha- ‘do’. This historical development of phonological shortening in fact accompanies the recategorization of the negator from adverb to prefix for the SFN and to auxiliary for the LFN. The recategorization process can even be observed in childhood language uses (see Han and Park 1994, Hagstrom 2002, Han et al. 2007).

    (3) a. an pesu tha

    not bus ride

    ‘I do not take the bus.’

    b. na mos pap hay

    I not meal do

    ‘I can't cook.’

    Such examples, misplacing the negator in front of the object, can often be observed in early childhood, but are eliminated in adult grammar.

    There is much evidence, which we will consider in detail, that the two new forms are recategorized as prefix and auxiliary verb.

  • 2 - Noun phrases

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 26-46

  • Summary

    In Korean, the ordering of NP constituents is known to be quite flexible, but few attempts have been made to provide their precise syntactic structures. This chapter reviews the distributional properties of Korean prenominal expressions as well as relevant ordering constraints, and then offers a surface-oriented analysis of Korean NP structures. This surface-oriented, construction-based analysis, tightly interacting with lexical information, can not only capture the flexible orderings of prenominal expressions in a simple manner but also generate proper and precise NP structures.

    Basic properties

    It is well known that prenominal expressions in Korean display a high flexibility in their distributional possibilities. For example, the prenominal expression chakha-n ‘good-natured’ can either precede or follow a determiner:

    (1) a. ku chakha-n haksayng

    the good.natured-MOD student

    ‘the good-natured student’

    b. chakha-n ku haksayng

    good.natured-MOD the student

    ‘the good-natured student’

    The prenominal expressions in Korean can be largely classified into two types: deterministic and phrasal. The deterministic prenominals, which we call (lexical) determinants here, roughly correspond to determiners in English (cf. Jackendoff 1977, Huddleston and Pullum 2002 for English).

    The lexical determinants have been traditionally classified into five types in accordance with their semantic contribution (see Nam and Ko 1993, Chang 1996, Sohn 1999).

    (2) a. characteristic: say ‘new’, hen ‘old’, yeys ‘old’, ttan ‘other’, …

    b. indicative: i ‘this’, ku ‘the’, ce ‘that’, …

    c. interrogative: enu ‘which’, mwusun ‘what’, etten ‘which’, …

    d. quantificational: motun ‘all’, myech ‘some’, yele ‘several’, …

    e. numeral: han ‘one’, twu ‘two’, sey ‘three’, …

    These lexical determinants combine with a nominal head, forming an NP structure.

    Different from these lexical determinants, there are also phrasal prenominal expressions such as adjectival elements, relative clauses, and genitive-marked possessive NPs:

    (3) a. Adjectival:

    acwu [khu-ko] [pissa-n] [ppalka-n] chayk

    very big-and expensive-MOD red-MOD book

    ‘a very big and expensive red book’

    b. Relative:

    [Mia-ka ilk-un] ku chayk

    Mia-NOM read-MOD the book

    ‘the book that Mia read’

    c. Genitive:

    [Mia-uy] ku chayk

    Mia-GEN the book

    ‘Mia's book’

    These prenominal expressions are marked with the MOD suffix (-(u)n in (3a) and (3b)) or the GEN marker (uy in (3c)) and then combine with the following nominal head.

  • 13 - Relative clause constructions

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 283-317

  • Summary

    Relative clause constructions in Korean have been notorious for their complexity in terms of syntax and semantics. This chapter develops a construction-based HPSG analysis of Korean relatives. The analysis is “headdriven” and “constraint-based” in the sense that the head of a relative clause and the declarative constraints on well-defined constructions play a crucial role in the formation of relative clauses. The analysis enables us to eliminate invisible elements (i.e., trace or empty operator) in licensing Korean relative clauses and further allows us to express cross-cutting generalizations among different types of relatives.

    Some key properties

    The Korean relative clause constructions are often characterized by flexible application of the relative morphology, lack of relative pronouns and omission of arguments (see, among others, Na and Huck 1993, Kim 1998b, 2004, Han and Kim 2001, Chae 2012). These properties contribute to the overall structural complexity of the relative clause constructions in Korean. Consider the following two typical relative clause constructions:

    (1) a. [mek-nun] mwul

    eat-MOD water

    ‘water that one drinks’

    b. [Kim-i mek-un] ceskalak

    Kim-NOM eat-MOD chopsticks

    These examples illustrate that the interpretation of relative clauses is in part dependent upon world knowledge or contexts. The natural reading of (1a) is the one in which the direct object is relativized with the subject being unexpressed. It would be difficult to interpret this as a subject relativization since “water” cannot eat/drink anything. The relative clause (1b) could be ambiguous: the most natural reading is “the chopsticks that Kim ate with.” In an imaginary context (where chopsticks are made from edible materials), one may have a reading like “the chopsticks that Kim ate,” where the direct object is relativized.

    Further complications relating to Korean relative clause constructions also could be found from examples like (2) (Na and Huck 1993, Han and Kim 2001):

    (2) a. [NP[S[_i_ j tha-ko tani-nun] cha j -ka] mesci-n]

    ride-CONN drive-Mod car-Nom stylish-Mod

    sinsai

    gentleman

    (lit.) ‘gentlemani who the car j that [hei] is driving is stylish’

    b. [NP [S [_i_ j kac-ko iss-nun] khemphyuthej-ka]

    MAC-i-n] kyoswui

    MAC-COP-MOD professor

    (lit.) ‘professori who the computer j that [hei] has is a MAC’

    In (2), the relative heads sinsa ‘gentleman’ and kyoswu ‘professor’ have been relativized out of the more deeply embedded relative clause, violating the CNPC (Complex Noun Phrase Constraint).

  • 7 - Serial verb constructions

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 144-168

  • Summary

    The so-called serial verb construction (SVC) is a complex predicate structure consisting of two or more main verbs but denotes one single complex event with a series of connected subevents. This chapter discusses the grammatical properties of Korean SVCs and provides a lexicalist, construction-based HPSG analysis. In particular, we identify two typical types of SVCs in Korean as well as pseudo-SVCs, each of which has its own idiosyncrasies while sharing general properties with the other, related constructions. We also discuss the monoclausal properties of the SVCs and then offer a construction-based analysis that allows tight interactions between the lexicon and constructional constraints.

    Serial verbs and general properties

    The so-called serial verb constructions (SVC) allow more than one verb to occur without any specific coordination or subordination markings. Korean examples given in (1) are taken to belong to such constructions (Lee, S. 1993, Chung 1993, Chung and Kim 2008, among others):

    (1) a. Mia-ka hakkyo-ey kel-e ka-ss-ta

    Mia-NOM school-to walk-CONN go-PST-DECL

    ‘Mia went to school on foot.’

    b. Mia-ka cwul-ul cap-a tangky-ess-ta

    Mia-NOM rope-ACC hold-CONN pull-PST-DECL

    ‘Mia held a rope and pulled it.’

    The serial verbs here denote actions that are closely connected to each other and can be considered to be part of the same complex event. For instance, (1a) represents an event of walking and its manner while (1b) denotes a complex event of holding and pulling a rope simultaneously.

    The generation of such Korean SVCs, in which the first main verb is marked with the meaningless connective linker -a/e, is quite productive, as attested by the naturally occurring examples with the verb mek-ta ‘eat-DECL’:

    (2) a. nanwu-e mek-ta ‘divide and eat’

    divide-CONN eat-DECL

    b. kkulh-ye mek-ta ‘boil and eat’

    boil-CONN eat-DECL

    c. mantul-e mek-ta ‘make and eat’

    make-CONN eat-DECL

    d. cap-a mek-ta ‘catch and eat’

    catch-CONN eat-DECL

    e. cip-e mek-ta ‘pick up and eat’

    pick.up-CONN eat-DECL

    f. ssip-e mek-ta ‘chew and eat’

    chew-CONN eat-DECL

    g. kwu-we mek-ta ‘roast and eat’

    roast-CONN eat-DECL

    h. ppal-a mek-ta ‘suck and eat’

    suck-CONN eat-DECL

    The examples here, extracted from the Sejong POS-tagged Corpus, show us that the activity verb mek- ‘eat’ can combine with various types of verbs and form the SVCs. Such productivity implies that the SVC is a grammatical process that the language employs.

  • 6 - Verbal nouns and light verb constructions

  • Jong-Bok Kim, Kyung Hee University, Seoul
  • Book:
    The Syntactic Structures of Korean
    Published online:
    05 July 2016
    Print publication:
    28 July 2016, pp 121-143

  • Summary

    One of the most widely used constructions in Korean is the so-called light verb construction (LVC) involving a verbal noun (VN) together with the light verb ha- ‘do’. This chapter discusses the light verb's grammatical functions as well as the VN's mixed properties, both of which have provided a challenge to syntactic analyses with a strict version of X-bar theory. It then shows that the mechanism of multiple classification of category types with systematic inheritance can provide an effective way of capturing these mixed properties. The chapter also restates the well-known argument composition properties of the LVC and reinforces them with a construction-based HPSG analysis.

    Basic properties

    In Chapter 4, we have seen that the verb ha- is used as an auxiliary verb:

    (1) a. motwu-ka i chayk-ul ilk-eya ha-yess-ta

    everyone-NOM this book-ACC read-CONN do-PST-DECL

    ‘Everyone had to read this book.’

    b. motwu-ka i chayk-ul ilk-kon ha-yess-ta

    everyone-NOM this book-ACC read-CONN do-PST-DECL

    ‘Everyone used to read this book.’

    The auxiliary verb ha- here induces the meanings of obligation and habitual behavior, respectively. The verb ha- can also be used as a main verb:

    (2) a. Mimi-nun cokumaha-n saep-ul ha-yess-ta

    Mimi-TOP small-MOD business-ACC do-PST-DECL

    ‘Mimi ran a small business.’

    b. Mimi-nun yeyppun kwikeli-lul ha-yess-ta

    Mimi-TOP pretty earing-ACC do-PST-DECL

    ‘Mimi was wearing a pretty earing.’

    Sentence (2a) describes the action of running a business, while (2b) denotes a state of wearing an earing. The use of the verb ha- here is linked to the core meaning of ‘running’ and ‘wearing’ in each case.

    The verb ha- can also be used with an activity-denoting noun (so-called verbal noun):

    (3) a. Mimi-nun DNA kwuco-lul yenkwu ha-yess-ta

    Mimi-TOP DNA structure-ACC research do-PST-DECL

    ‘Mimi studied the DNA structure.’

    b. ku yenghwa-lul hankwuk-eyse chwalyeng ha-yess-ta

    the movie-ACC Korea-LOC shoot do-PST-DECL

    ‘They made the movie at Korea.’

    c. ku ilum-un namwu-lopwuthe yulay ha-yess-ta

    the name-TOP tree-SRC origin do-PST-DECL

    ‘The name was originated from the tree.’

    Unlike the auxiliary and main verb use, the verb ha- in these examples is optional and its absence does not change the sentential meaning. In this sense, the verb ha-, called a light verb, is semantically vacuous, and it is the preceding VN (verbal noun) that denotes the action in question (see, among others, Chae 1996, Kim et al. 2007, Park 2013a).

Page 109 of 313