Yoo (ehong@ling.ohio-state.edu)
Sun, 30 Jul 1995 17:17:01 -0400 (EDT)
On July 25th, Steve Wechsler wrote: > I agree with the gist of Eun Jung Yoo's analysis: the 'ECM' construction > has a flat structure (the ACC is the matrix object), and case is determined > by something like grammatical relation. > But there is evidence that the Korean construction is rather > different from its apparent counterpart in English. Actually it appears to > be a kind of 'null operator' (weak UDC) construction. Most importantly, the > 'raised' ACC doesn't need to correspond to the subject of the lower > predicate, as in this example with a locative (from Hong 1990): > > (i) > John-un L.A.-lul hankwuksalam-i manhi san-ta-ko sayngkakhakoiss-ta. > J.-Top LA-Acc Koreans-N many live-Dec-Comp think-Dec > 'John thinks that many Korean live in L. A.' > > Not every speaker loves this example, but most find it OK. See Ki-Sun Hong > 1990 (in Dziwirek et al _Grammatical Relations--a Cross-Theoretical > Perspective) for more examples. Jae-Gyun Song's 1994 dissertation (UT > Austin) gives further, rather surprising, evidence for the 'null operator': > the ECM construction is a syntactic island. Also, in a paper at the last > LSA, Yae-Sheik Lee and I looked at the semantic conditions on this > construction. Roughly, the embedded predicate cannot denote a specific > event; it must be generic or lexically stative (i-level rather than > s-level). We tried to relate this to other weak UDC constructions like the > tough-construction, which has a similar semantic condition. > In HPSG terms this means that the apparent case problem for Korean > should be handled similarly to other weak UDCs. Roughly, an 'ECM verb' > like mit- 'believe' in Eun Jung Yoo's example above, would specify > structure-sharing between indices of the NP[acc] and an item on the slash > list of the embedded predicate: > > COMPS < NP[acc]/-[1], S[INHER|SLASH {NP/-[1]}] > > > Since only the index is shared, there is no case conflict. > I agree with Steve Wechsler's observation that Korean 'raising' construction is different from English counterpart. (Actually it appears to me that English-like examples form only a subset of raising constructions in Korean.) Moreover, given the example like (i), I found the weak UDC analysis very interesting. However, a few questions came to my mind. First, as it stands, the weak UDC analysis seems to violate HPSG Raising Principle, since despite the presence of a non-role-assigned argument, an unsaturated phrase does not appear in the SUBCAT list of a verb. Second, in the examples like (a) where the second complement is a PP, it seems hard to assume a null operator or a gap within the complement: (a) Na-nun Mary-lul chinkwu-lo sayngkakha-n-ta. I-Top Mary-Acc friend-as think-Pres-Dec 'I regard Mary as a friend.' Third, I'm wondering how the following kind of examples can be explained: (b) Ku chayk-ul na-nun [[[hanpen-man ilk-eto] kamtongha-l] saram-i the book-Acc I-Top once-only read-though is-moved-Rel people-Nom manh-ta-ko] sayngkakha-n-ta. many-Dec-Comp think-Pres-Dec 'I think that there are many people who will be moved even though they read the book only once.' If I understand correctly, in the 'null operator' (weak UDC) analysis of (b), a null operator (which is coindexed with the NP _ku chayk-ul_) will move out of the innnermost adjuct clase [hanpen-man ilk-eto] which is embedded within a relative clause. However, violation of syntactic island seems free in this case. Moreover, the gap position can be filled with a resumptive pronoun as in (c): (c) Ku chayk-ul na-nun [[[hanben-man kuket-ul ilk-eto] kamtongha-l] saram-i manh-ta-ko] sayngkak-ha-n-ta. As for the examples such as (i) and (b) where the 'raised' accusative NPs do not appear to be in the SUBJ list, I don't have a detailed analysis at this point. However, there are two possible approaches. In one approch, we can assume that the embedded predicate has multiple subjects and relate those Acc NPs to the first (major) subject of the embedded predicate. See Jeong-Me Yoon 1989 ("ECM and Multiple Subject Constructions in Korean" in Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics III) for the same line of approach. Alternatively, for those speakers to whom multiple subject constructions are less permissible, it might be said that those Acc NPs correspond to the topic NP of the lower clause. (As topics and subjects share many properties in Korean, it may not be that surprising.) If we assume that 'TOPIC' is a valence feature in Korean following Chan Chung 1993 ("A Lexical Approach to Inalienable Possesion Construction in Korean" in OSU Working Papers Vol.42), then the lexical entry of the verb _sayngkakha_ in (i) and (c) can be roughly described as in (d): (d) COMPS < [1]NP, VP[TOP<[1]>, SUBJ<>] > Best, Eun Jung
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