한국어 교량지시 명사구 변이형태에 대한 연구

Abstract

This study explores the Korean language system that allows bare NPs as well as definite NPs with the determiner ku to function as demonstratives in bridging references. Three Korean experts of linguistics were asked in this study to judge the omissibility of the 252 cases of the Korean demonstrative ku that established the bridging references in 184 argumentative essays. Their judgments revealed that the Korean demonstrative ku used in a specific type (i.e., possession) of bridging references is omissible at an overwhelming rate, while the demonstrative used in another type (i.e., inclusion) of bridging references is non-omissible at a rate of more than half. These results of sharp contrast led to the novel analysis of the two variations of demonstrative NPs in the article-less language of Korean. The demonstrative ku omissible is analyzed as a contracted form of the Korean possessive pronoun ku(-kes-uy) occupying [Spec, DP] to saturate the possessor of the relational noun. In contrast, the demonstrative ku non-omissible is analyzed as a kind of domain restrictor modifying the non-relational noun. The availability of bare NPs as demonstratives in Korean is then subsumed to a broader phenomenon of possessor pro-drop that saturates the possessor of the relational noun. This study, after all, reveals an interaction of the availability of the pro possessor with the way the demonstrative ku is realized in Korean nominal constructions.