An Analysis of the Korean [manyak ... V-telato] Construction : An Indexed Phrase Structure Grammar Approach

An Analysis of the Korean [manyak … V-telato] Construction: An Indexed Phrase Structure Grammar Approach Hee-Rahk Chae Dept. of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies Wangsan-ri san 89, Mohyun-myun, Yongin-si Kyunggi 449-791, Korea hrchae@hufs.ac.kr Abstract Concord adverbial constructions in Korean show unbounded dependency relationships between two non-empty entities. There are two different types of unboundedness involved: one between a concord adverbial and a verbal ending and the other between the adverbial as a modifier and a predicate. In addition, these unboundedness relationships exhibit properties of “downward movement” phenomena. In this paper, we examine the Indexed Phrase Structure Grammar analysis of the constructions presented in Chae (2003, 2004), and propose to introduce a new feature to solve its conceptual problem. Then, we provide an analysis of conditional-concessive constructions, which is a subtype of concord adverbial constructions. These constructions are special in the sense that they contain a seemingly incompatible combination of a conditional adverbial and a concessive verbal ending. We argue that they are basically conditional constructions despite their concessive meaning. 1 Introduction In Korean there is a group of adverbials which show a correspondence to some specified element in the sentence. These adverbials, which are called “concord adverbials (CAs),” are comprised of such “modality adverbials” as those indicating ‘condition’ and ‘concession.’ They constitute “Concord Adverbial Constructions (CACs)” together with the corresponding elements. These corresponding elements are typically verbs which have some specified verbal endings (VEs). (1) a. pilok yengca-ka ttena-ess-telato/eto, (ke peulo-nun po-l manha-e.) {CA} Youngja-Nom leave-Past-{VE ‘although’}, that program-Top see-Fut be worth-Decl ‘Although Youngja doesn’t appear, (that program is worth watching.)’ b. *pilok yengca-ka ttena-ess-tamyen {CA} {VE ‘if’} Here the CA pilok requires that the clause-final verb have an ending of a concessive meaning, i.e. -telato or -eto. It does not allow a conditional ending like -tamyen. These constructions show some special properties which cannot be easily accounted for. One such property in (1) is that the CA and (the verb with) the VE are not always adjacent. Furthermore, as we will see in section 2, they exhibit two different types of unbounded relationships. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. Firstly, after examining the analysis of Korean CACs in Chae (2003, 2004), we will propose a new feature of LICENSEE for a better analysis of them. The former analysis employs the LICENSOR feature under the “Indexed Phrase Structure Grammar (IPSG)” framework, which is introduced in Chae (1992) following the spirit of Gazdar (1988). While the LICENSOR approach does not have any problems from a syntactic point of view, it is not very satisfactory from a semantic point of view. We will show that the new LICENSEE approach does not have any syntactic or semantic problems. Secondly, under this revised IPSG framework, we will provide an analysis of a subtype of CACs: PACLIC 18, December 8th-10th, 2004, Waseda University, Tokyo - 47 - (2) manyak chulswu-lul manna-telato (ke kes-ul mal haysenun antoyn-ta.) {CA ‘if’} -Acc meet-{VE ‘although’} that thing-Acc must not say-Decl ‘Even if you meet …

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