Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1998This dissertation investigates morphological features of Korean complementizers -ko and -nun. I propose that -ko and -nun are the realizations of accusative and genitive, respectively. The configurations in which the complementizers -ko and -nun are licensed provide empirical evidence for the proposed analysis. -Ko and -nun are licensed in the same configurations as the nominal suffixes -lul and -uy, which are the realizations of accusative and genitive, respectively. Interrogative clauses also provide empirical evidence for the analysis of -ko and -nun as being associated with case features. -Ko and -nun are interchangeable with the nominal suffixes -lul and -uy, respectively.The analysis of -ko and -lul as being associated with structural accusative should be revised considering that the latter but not the former is absorbed in passive. In order to account for this, I propose that -ko is associated with inherent accusative, whereas the nominal suffix -lul is the realization of structural accusative. I extend the analysis to the complementizer -nun and claim that -nun is associated with inherent genitive and the nominal suffix -uy with structural genitive. The analysis of -ko and -nun as being associated with inherent case is empirically supported by the fact that in various syntactic phenomena -ko and -nun pattern with postpositions, which are widely assumed to realize inherent case. I present a new system of case licensing in which structural case is licensed by functional categories in terms of spec-head agreement and inherent case by lexical categories in terms of head-complement relation.The analysis of -ko as being associated with inherent accusative provides a principled account for why ECM takes place in finite but not non-finite clauses in Korean. Finite clauses headed by -ko must be licensed via inherent accusative checking by the matrix V, whereas non-finite clauses headed by -lul must be licensed by the matrix AgrO. Given this, the subject of finite clauses but not of non-finite clauses can be licensed via structural accusative checking by the matrix AgrO
