Dependency formation interacts with case: Evidence from Korean double nominative constructions

The subject-object asymmetry in relative clauses, where structures containing subject dependencies are typically easier to process than those with object dependencies, has been previously attributed to both grammatical function (subject > object) as well as morphological case (e.g., nom > acc). We investigate processing of Double Nominative Constructions (“DNCs”) in Korean, where the object exceptionally has nominative case like the subject (i.e., nom-nom).  This enables isolation of grammatical function and case as possible factors driving the so-called “subject advantage.” We find that dependency formation is more costly in DNCs as compared with nom-acc structures, especially for object relative clauses. We tie this effect to distinctness in morphological case of the subject and object, suggesting that the less morphosyntactically distinct the subject and object are, the more difficult it is to process DNCs in dependencies

Object Control in Korean: How Many Constructions?

Korean seltukhata ‘persuade’ and similar predicates that take a propositional complement (marked with -tolok) license three object control constructions: 1) accusative persuadee in the matrix clause precedes the embedded clause (ACC1); 2) accusative persuadee follows the embedded clause (ACC2); 3) persuadee in the nominative case appears in the embedded clause (NOM). Prior accounts treated these constructions as derivationally related, arguing either for semantic or syntactic analysis of control. Using primary data and processing results, we argue that ACC1 and ACC2 are structurally distinct, the former instantiating obligatory control, the latter, non-obligatory control. Additionally, we provide evidence that NOM may be an instance of non-obligatory control.Linguistic

Copulas in Korean and Japanese, -i and -da: Grammatical Categorization and Comparison on the Basis of Morphosyntactic and Syntactic Analyses

The behavior of the copula varies by language, and it is often considered as an arbitrary element that is language-specific. While Korean and Japanese copular constructions share many characteristics, the differences between the two languages confirms the language-specific characteristic of the copula. Through examinations and anlayses of the morphosyntactic behaviors of the copulas in Korean and Japanese such as suffixation of tense morphemes, mood morphemes, and morphological derivation/contraction, the differences and similarities between Korean and Japanese copulas are highlighted, thereby contributing to the definition and the language-specific features and parametrization of the copulas in the two languages. This thesis claims that both Korean and Japanese copulas exclusively take nominal complements only, which connects to explicate the assignment of the nominative case in Korean copular constructions. This paper also argues that a mismatch in case-marking between the affirmative and negative constructions in Korean is a result of the phonotactics of the Korean language

Morphology, derivational syntax and second language acquisition of resultatives

This thesis explores questions of functional morphology in morphosyntactic theory and in second language acquisition. The work develops Emonds' (2000) notion of a Syntacticon as the store of grammatical lexical items in the Lexicon and it explores the interaction between morphology and syntax in syntactic derivation. The focus of the work is the resultative construction (e.g. She painted the table red). As a resultative, the string conforms to a regular syntactic structure and gives rise to an interpretation in which there is an agent that acts upon some object so as to effect some change of state. In this work, resultative formation in English is contrasted with resultative formation in Korean because the latter, but not the former, includes an obligatory functional result morpheme, -key. The proposed analysis of the resultative accounts for both the morphological and syntactic facts in English and Korean. Additionally, traditional notions of subcategorization are developed, using a Feature-based approach in order to explain the lexical restrictions associated with resultatives. The thesis also includes an experimental study of the acquisition of English resultatives by native Korean and Mandarin Chinese speakers. These languages were chosen in order to highlight the mismatch between Korean and English resultative formation in terms of functional morphology. Accepting the Full Transfer/Full Access model of Schwartz and sprouse (1996), the whole of the native language is assumed to transfer to form the initial state of second language acquisition. The results of the experimental study provide support for the claim that functional morphology, like that implicated in Korean resultative formation, transfers from the native language to affect the development of the Interlanguage in second language acquisition