A Nonconfigurational Approach to the Weak Crossover Effect in Korean

A NONCONFIGURATIONAL APPROACH TO THE WEAK CROSSOVER EFFECT IN KOREAN Chan Chung Department of English Language and Literature Dongseo University, Pusan, Korea. Email: cchung@kowon.dongseo.ac.kr ABSTRACT Configurational approaches to weak crossover effects in Japanese and Korean have been proposed based on the notions such as c-command and reconstruction (e.g., [5], [25], and [26] among others). However, empirical problems arise from the approaches simply because they cannot fully account for the relevant Korean data. This paper proposes nonconfigurational operator binding conditions formulated in terms of obliqueness and linear precedence within the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. The proposed syntactic operator binding conditions are formulated in only a necessary condition, which suggests that the pronominal binding possibilities are also determined by other factors such as discourse and/or processing factors. 1. INTRODUCTION Since at least [30], the weak crossover (WCO) effect has been used as a diagnostic for movement. In this paper, we assume that scrambling in Korean is licensed by a flat clausal structure and relative freedom of the linear precedence constraints among the non-head constituents, which entails that scrambling does not involve movement and thus leaves no trace. (See [2], [9], and [10] among others.) This predicts scrambling does not induce WCO effects at all. Then the putative WCO effect reported in the literature ([5], [6], [16], [25], and [26]) among others) must be accounted for in different ways. In this paper, first, we will review [26]'s claim that the WCO effect occurs in the psych-verb construction with backward reflexivization in Japanese, showing that the construction actually cannot be considered to have the WCO effect in some respects and thus cannot be evidence that scrambling is an instance of movement. Then we will consider some canonical cases of WCO and some other relevant data, trying to show that the so-called WCO condition can be accounted for in nonconfigurational terms such as relative obliqueness and linear precedence between a pronominal and its binder, rather than in terms of c-command. To this end, we will explore binding conditions of non-locally bound anaphor caki 'self, the overt pronoun ku 'he', and the empty pronoun pro. 2. WEAK CROSSOVER EFFECT, MOVEMENT, AND CONFIGURATIONALITY Under the assumption that in Japanese, the non-locally bound reflexive zibun 'self has a property of a bound variable when it is locally A-bar bound, [26] argue for a VP node in Japanese, using the psych-verb construction with backward reflexivization. They claim that the construction can induce the WCO effect due to the existence of a VP node. The Korean sentences corresponding to the Japanese sentences in [26] are as follows: (1) a.*[s [Np Mary-ka cakirlul miwehantanun� M-Nom self-Acc dislike�[vp nwukvvunarinwukwunkarlul koylopkeyhayssta] ] . fact-Nom everyone-/someone-Acc� depressed `The fact that Mary dislikes himself; has depressed everyone;/someone;.' b.*[s [Np Mary-ka� eakii-lul� miwehantanun Basil]-i [vp nvvukwurlul� koylopkeyhayss-ni]]? M-Nom� self-Ace dislike� fact-Nom who-Acc� depressed-Q `Whom; has the fact that Mary dislikes himself; depressed?' According to them, the sentences in (1) are unacceptable because the antecedent quantifier (nwukwuna-/nwukwnka- lul 'everyone/someone' or nwukwu-lul 'who') is scrambled to …

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