Tense Markers and -ko Constructions in Korean

Tense Markers and -ko Constructions in Korean Hee-Rahk Chae Dept. of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies Gyeonggi 449-791, Korea hrchae@hufs.ac.kr Abstract. There have been heated debates on whether tense markers in Korean are inflectional affixes or syntactic words. One of the strongest pieces of evidence for the latter position comes from tense-related phenomena in -ko constructions. These constructions are usually assumed to consist of two coordinate clauses. In this paper, we will see that the tense phenomena can be accounted for naturally by correctly identifying the non-past tense marker and by seriously taking consideration of the fact that -ko is ambiguous between a coordinate marker and a subordinate marker. It will be shown that the tense marker in the second conjunct does not have any effect on the first conjunct when -ko functions as a coordinate marker, which will render the position very weak that tense markers are syntactic words. Keywords: Tense markers, Null-form elements, Korean, -ko constructions, Coordinate markers, Subordinate markers, Ambiguity. 1 Introduction The purpose of this paper is two-fold. On the one hand, we will identify the morpho-syntactic status of the tense markers in Korean. On the other, we will provide a new system for accounting for the tense- related phenomena in “-ko coordinate constructions.” The element -ko is generally regarded to be a typical coordinate marker in Korean. Our analysis is based on two important observations, which are not new findings but have not been duly appreciated thus far. Firstly, the marker -ko is actually ambiguous between a coordinate marker and a subordinate marker. Secondly, the non-past tense marker is not -n or -nun but a null form element -ø. That is, the marker does not have an explicit form, contrary to the general belief. We will see that these observations lead to a natural explanation of the tense phenomena in -ko constructions. As for the morpho-syntactic status of the Korean tense markers, two large groups of different analyses have been proposed: “lexical analyses” and “syntactic analyses.” The tense markers are generally assumed to be inflectional affixes in the former group, while they are assumed to be “clitics” in the latter. Clitics are “grammatical units with some properties of inflectional morphology and some of independent words” ([17], [18]). They cannot stand alone phonologically just like inflectional affixes, but they are words on their own syntactically just like regular words. We can easily see that tense markers are inflectional affixes in such head-initial languages as English because the verb together with a tense marker comes before its complements. However, it has long been an issue of hot disputes to correctly identify the morpho-syntactic status of tense markers in Korean, a head-final language. It is not clear whether they are attached to the verb (V) or to the verb phrase (VP) concerned. In the former case, they should be regarded as inflectional affixes, while, in the latter case, they should be regarded as clitics. 2 Previous Analyses The behavior of tense markers in such …

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