Distributional Asymmetry in Subject and Object Internally headed Relative clauses in Korean

Abstract

The present study is largely concerned with the distributional asymmetry between the so-called subject and object internally headed relative clause (IHRC) constructions in Korean. These two types of IHRCs behave differently but have seldom been explored in the existing literature. Based on an extensive and careful examination of various examples of subject IHRCs and object IHRCs in Korean, the present study demonstrates that the semantic feature [Human] plays a crucial role in licensing the internal heads of the subject IHRCs, but not the internal heads of the object IHRCs. In particular, we suggest that only nouns with the feature [-Human] (not ones with [+Human]) are allowed to serve as the internal heads of the subject IHRCs, while the internal heads of the object IHRCs are not sensitive to such a semantic restriction. Consequently, this feature results in the distributional asymmetry between the subject and object IHRC constructions.