Yoo (ehong@ling.ohio-state.edu)
Thu, 20 Jul 1995 12:47:44 -0400 (EDT)
On Jul 19th, Andreas wrote: > ... The idea of handling case assignment not lexically, i.e. > strictly within the lexical entry for the head, but with an eye toward > syntax, is rather reminiscent of Eun Jung Yoo's quite similar proposal > for case assignment in Korean: > > @incollection{Yoo:93, > author = "Eun-Jung Yoo", > year = "1993", > title = "Subcategorization and Case Marking in Korean", > booktitle = "Papers in Syntax", > editor = "Andreas Kathol and Carl Pollard", > series = OSUWPL, > publisher = "Department of Linguistics", > address = "Ohio State University", > number = "42", > pages = "178--198"} I'd like to add a couple of relevant points from Korean, hoping that it would not interrupt discussion of the German data in question. In my paper, I proposed that most Korean verbs simply subcategorize for structural NPs (i.e. NPs with structural case) for subjects and complements and that their surface case is determined by the principle (i): (i) Case Principle (for Korean) A unresolved structural NP which is a daughter of a phrase P is [nom] if it is a SUBJ-DTR of P, and [acc] if it is a COMP-DTR of P. The notion of structural case is introduced into HPSG by Pollard 1994 ("Toward a Unified Account of Passive in German" in J. Nerbone, K.Netter and C. Pollard eds., _German in HPSG_) and I adopted it in my work.. The main motivation for such a structural approach to Korean case marking was to account for Korean raising verb constructions as in (ii): (ii) Mary-ka ku-lul o-n-ta-ko mit-nun-ta. Mary-NOM he-ACC come-PRES-DECL-COMP believe-PRES-DECL 'Mary believes him to come.' Under the lexical approach to case and HPSG analysis of raising verbs, a real case conflict arises in (ii), since both verbs in (ii) are finite verbs and therefore the NP 'he' should be [nom] in the SUBJ list of 'come' and should be [acc] in the COMPS list of 'believe'. This is the same kind of case conflict that Karel Oliva worried about (in the Jul 17th message) for the English counterpart, but the problem is even clearer because the verbs involved are all finite. However, once we assume structural case, the NP 'he' in (ii) will be [str] in the lexicon and resolved as [acc] by (i), since it is a COMPS-DTR of a phrase headed by the verb 'believe'. I claimed that this analysis should be extended to infinite verbs as well in Korean, because nominative NPs can appear as a subject of a nonfinite verb in some constructions as in (iii): (iii) Ku-nun [tongsayng-i cwuk-ese] wu-n-ta. he-TOP brother-NOM die-because cry-PRES-DECL 'He is crying because his brother died.' Again, nominative case of the embedded subject is explained straightforwardly, if we assume that the embedded nonfinite verb subcategorizes for a structural NP and it is resolved as [nom] by the principle (i). Best, Eun Jung Yoo (ehong@ling.ohio-state.edu)
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