Licensing Nominals in the Multiple Nominative Constructions in Korean: A Mereological Perspective

Licensing Nominals in the Multiple Nominative Constructions in Korean — A Mereological Perspective Byong-Rae Ryu Department of Linguistics, Chungnam National University, 220 Gung-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-764, South Korea ryu@cnu.ac.kr Abstract. This paper investigates some important constraints on the licensing of nominals in the so-called Multiple Nominative Constructions (MNCs) in Korean from a mereological point of view, proposing a semantic relation hierarchy. The main idea advanced in this paper is that MNCs are cyclically formed only when the relationship between the two consecutive NPs satisfies one of the conceptual constraints including inclusion, possession and attribution. The inclusion constraints are further divided into meronymic relations, spatio-temporal rela- tions and classificational relations. The meronymic relations integrate some essential ideas of the tradition of mereological thoughts. Some appealing consequences of this proposal in- clude a new comprehensive classification of MNCs and a straightforward account of some long standing problems such as how the additional nominative NPs are licensed. Keywords: Multiple Nominative Constructions, Korean, Mereology, Part-Whole 1 Introduction One of the most controversial phenomena in Korean linguistics is the constructions in which two or more nominative case-marked NPs may occur in a clause headed by an intransitive predicate. They properly include the so-called Double Nominative Constructions (DNCs) and Multiple Nominative Constructions (MNCs). The former is characterized by the occurrences of two NPs marked with the nominative case-marker within a clause headed by an intransitive predicate. The latter is referred to the clauses containing three or more nominative case-marked consecutive NPs. Althought a large number of studies have been made on these constructions, there is still little agreement as to the nature of these constructions. One of the controversial issues is the issue why only a subset of the clauses containing three or more nominative case-marked consecutive NPs is grammatical and the issue whether or not the two constructions are grammatically related. If so, in what way? If not, why not? The questions raised above, in my opinion, may be answered by investigating the constraints on the licensing of nominals in the MNCs in Korean. The purpose of this paper is to tackle this licensing issue and to propose a set of licensing conditions from a mereological point of view. What I wish to show in this paper is that MNCs are cyclically formed only when the relationship between the two consecutive NPs satisfies one of the conceptual constraints including inclusion, possession and attribution. 2 Basic Data and Issues The set of sentences in (1) is the most frequently cited one in the literature on this topic at all (see Yang (1972), Yoon (1986), O’Grady (1991), Sch¨utze (1996), Kim (2001), Park (2001), Park (2005) and Kim, Sells & Yang (2007), among others.)1 Copyright 2010 by Byong-Rae Ryu 1 The nominative case markers -ka and -i are allomorphs. While the former is attached to a CV syllable, the latter to a CVC syllable. The Yale Romanization System is used for the romanization of the Korean sentence. The abbreviations PACLIC 24 Proceedings 271 (1) a. khokkili-ka elephant-NOM kho-ka …

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