Internally Headed Relative Clause Constructions in Korean

Language, Information and Computation(PACLIC 11),1996, 403-413 Internally Headed Relative Clause Constructions in Korean Yong-Beom Kim Kwangwoon University ybkim@daisy.kwangwoon.ac.kr Abstract This paper attempts to analyze some grammatical aspects of the so called internally-headed relative clause construction in Korean. This paper proposes that the meaning of the external head kes is underspecified in the sense that its semantic content is filled in by co-indexing it to the internal head under appropriate conditions. This paper also argues that interpretation of kes is determined by the verb following it. Dealing also with the pragmatics of the construction, this paper argues that the crucial characteristics of the construction in question resides in pragmatics rather than in semantics. 1. Introduction This paper deals with some semantic and pragmatic aspects of the so called internally-headed relative clause (IHRC, hereafter) construction in Korean, as is exemplified in (1), although we also touch on problems related to its syntax: (1)a. totwuk-i ton-ul kaci-ko unhayng-ul nao-nun kes-ul cheyphohayssta. thief-nom money-ul carry-and bank-acc leave-mod thing-acc arrested '(Someone) arrested the thief who was carrying money and leaving the bank' b. totwuk-i ton-ul� kaci-ko unhayng-ul nao-nun] kes-ul ppayasassta. deprived '(Someone) took away money which the thief carried leaving the bank' This construction has some peculiar properties. First, it has a external syntactic head which is void of semantic contents and there is an so called internal head which determines the semantic value of the whole construction. Second, as pointed out by Park (1994), there is no one-to-one correspondence between externally- and internally-headed constructions, as shown in (2). What makes (2a) grammatical and (2b) otherwise? (2)a. sinsenhan sikumchi-lul salm-un kes fresh� spinach-Acc boiled-ref thing qthe outcome) of boiling fresh spinach' 403 b. *sinsenhan salm-un sikumchi fresh boiled spinach 'boiled fresh spinach' Third, there are many cases where the IHRC is not obtained as argued in S.-E. Jhang(1991) and Park: (3) a. *toywuk-i pangeyse nao-n� kes-i� tomangchessta. thief� room-from come-out-rel thing-Nom fled 'The thief that came out of the room fled' b. *Emma-ka� ai-eykey wuywu-lul cwu-n� kes-ul� ttalyessta Mom-Nom baby-dat milk-acc give-rel�thing-Nom hit (Someone) hit the baby the Mom gave milk to Jhang claims that the grammaticality of the IHRC construction is sensitive to the case particle. Fourth, there are apparent pragmatic differences between the external and internal constructions in questions as exemplified in (4): (4)a. Kyenchal-un totwukcilha-nun manhun haksayngtul-ul� kyothongbep police -Top steal-rel�many� students-Acc� traffic rule wuipan-ulo capassta. violation-for arrested 'The police attrested many students who (habitually) steals things in violation of traffic rules' b. !Kyenchal-un manhun haksayngtul-i totwukcilha-nun kes-ul kyothongbep police -Top many students-Nom steal-rel� thing-Acc traffic rule wuipan-ulo capassta. violation-for arrested 'The police arrested many students in the act of stealing things in violation of traffic rules' (4a) is pragmatically sound but (4b) is not. What makes these differences? Can it be attributed to syntax, semantics or pragmatics? This paper will address these issues that are raised in this section. In Section 2, recent papers and articles are reviewed from various points of grammatical aspects. The reviewed papers include Jhang (1991), Park …

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