an- 2014- genitive case in korean and its implications for noun phrase structure
TRANSCRIPT
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 132
Genitive Case in Korean and its implications for noun
phrase structure
Duk-Ho An
Received 15 December 2011 Accepted 3 July 2013 Published online 29 April 2014copy Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract I discuss in this paper the behavior of the so-called genitive Case marker
uy in Korean and argue that its occurrence has nothing to do with Case licensing in
terms of GB and Minimalism To this end I examine the distribution of uy and show
that it is obligatorily realized on certain elements which do not require Case at all I
also show that uy is in an allomorphic relation with a type of prenominal inflection
which clearly has nothing to do with Case This means that strictly speaking it is
not correct to refer to uy as a Case marker Based on the analysis of the distributionof uy I also explore the ordering possibilities of certain prenominal elements in
Korean in light of Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and show that the current analysis
provides a principled account of their behavior The discussion also has implications
for noun phrase structure in the language which has not received much attention in
the literature until recently
Keywords Genitive Case middot Case marker middot Noun phrase middot Prenominal modifier middot
Genitive drop middot Case omission middot Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
1 Introduction
It seems that in many languages the prototypical function of genitive Case is
marking possessive relations as well as certain arguments of the noun head In
Korean the usual assumption is that genitive Case is indicated by the so-called
genitive Case marker uy as shown in (1)
D-H An (amp)
Dept of English Konkuk University Hwayang-dong Gwangjin-gu Seoul South Korea
e-mail andukhogmailcom
1 3
J East Asian Linguist (2014) 23361ndash392
DOI 101007s10831-014-9123-9
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 232
(1) a Con-uy chayk
John-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos bookrsquo
b papalian-uy kongkyek
barbarians-gen attack lsquoBarbariansrsquo attackrsquo
Note however that the distribution of genitive Case often goes much beyond these
cases For instance it is well-known that in some Slavic languages an NP bears
genitive Case in the scope of sentential negation (Pesetsky 1982)
In this paper I show that genitive Case in Korean also has exceptional properties
More specifically I examine the nature of the genitive Case marker uy from a new
perspective and argue that contrary to the usual assumption this element is not to be
taken as a genuine indicator of Case licensing of its host To this end I begin bypointing out that the distribution of uy does not easily fit in with any traditional
characterizations of Case in GB and Minimalism1 based on the observation that
occurrence of uy is not contingent on whether its host is licensed with respect to
abstract genitive Case Crucially I show that uy attaches obligatorily to elements
that do not require Case at all which makes it difficult to maintain that uy is
involved in Case licensing
The argument is also shown to receive further support from the fact that the
behavior of uy which is classified as a prenominal modifier suffix in traditional
Korean grammar parallels that of another prenominal modifier suffix n which
attaches to verbs and adjectives in prenominal position It is crucial that for all
intents and purposes occurrence of n may not be taken to reflect Case licensing I
suggest further that these two elements are in fact allomorphic realizations of an
abstract prenominal modifier inflection Thus if it is correct that uy is an
allomorphic variant of n which does not have anything to do with Case licensing it
is reasonable to conclude that uy has nothing to do with Case licensing either The
intuition that I advocate heremdashie that uy and n are essentially the same thingmdash
actually finds its origin in traditional Korean grammar In this respect the current
analysis recasts the old insight in terms compatible with the framework of
generative grammar
I further show that there is a correlation between the structural position of
prenominal elements and the obligatoriness of uy-marking on these elements (see An
2009 2010 for relevant discussion and references) Based on this I explore various
word order possibilities of certain prenominal elements in the language from the
perspective of Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 In so doing I show that the current
analysis provides a principled account of why certain prenominal elements never have
to bear the prenominal modifier form and why only certain prenominal elements
conform to Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 while others apparently donrsquot a problem which
1 Note that the notion of caseCase is formalized differently in various theoretical frameworks (see Blake
1994 Woolford 2006 Malchukov and Spencer 2009 and references therein) It should be borne in mind
that the current discussion is couched exclusively in the framework of generative grammarmdashin particular
GB and Minimalism I will not be concerned with recasting the intuition reported here in terms
compatible with other theoretical frameworks
362 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 332
has not received much attention in the literature until recently Given this the current
analysis has implications for the structure of noun phrases in Korean
This paper is organized as follows In Sect 2 I set up the background for the
subsequent discussion by outlining the distribution of the genitive Case marker uy
and illustrate its basic properties which already makes it unlikely that uy is agenuine indicator of Case licensing In Sect 3 I briefly summarize the theoretical
assumptions about the notion of Case in GB and Minimalism to point out that the
behavior of uy outlined in Sect 2 does not fit in very well with the role and function
of Case in generative grammar In Sect 4 I examine another prenominal modifier
form n and argue that uy and n are allomorphic variants providing further support
for the current proposal that occurrence of uy has nothing to do with Case licensing
of its host In Sect 5 I examine a different aspect of the distribution of uy and
propose a more refined analysis of its distribution In Sect 6 I consider the
implications of the discussion in Sect 5 for various aspects of the behavior of prenominal elements in Korean and in Sect 7 I explore ordering possibilities of
certain prenominal elements in Korean in light of Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and
show that the current analysis provides a principled account of the properties
observed Section 8 concludes the discussion
2 The distribution of Genitive Case in Korean
In my opinion the most noteworthy property of the genitive Case marker uy is itswide distribution which is quite pervasive to prenominal constituents That is it
seems that uy can attach to a variety of elements without caring about the nature of
its host I illustrate below the distribution of uy
First of all as (2) and (3) show uy can attach to arguments of the head noun just
like corresponding elements in other languages
(2) kongsankwun-uy chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquo
(3) Loma-uy phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquothe destruction of Romersquo
More importantly uy can also attach to a much wider range of prenominal
constituents
(4) a Chelswu-uy cip (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen houselsquoChelswursquos housersquo
Genitive Case in Korean 363
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 432
b sey-kwen-uy chayk (Numeral)
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
c ecey-uy nalssi (Temporal)
yesterday-gen weatherlsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
d Thaiphei-uy nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
e hayngpok-uy swunkan (Modifier)
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
f Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebywu (Comitative)
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
g chong-ulo-uy kongkyek (Instrument)
gun-instr-gen attack
lsquoan attack with gunsrsquo
h mikwuk-ulopwuthe-uy phyenci (Source)
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
i ywulep-ulo-uy yehayng (Destination)
Europe-to-gen triplsquoa trip to Europersquo
Given this I believe the data above reveal the crucial question concerning uy
quite clearly In a nutshell the distribution of uy seems too widespread to make it
plausible to assume that its occurrence is contingent on the Case licensing of its
host Note that some of its hosts above are not even noun phrases which makes
them unlikely candidates for Case licensing Note also that the hosts of uy do not
seem to form a natural class with respect to their semantic properties either2 With
these considerations in mind let us move on to the next section to consider the
status of Case in GB and Minimalism and see how the behavior of uy fits into the
discussion on Case in these frameworks
3 Case in GB and Minimalism and Genitive Case in Korean
Let me first review some of the major ideas concerning the notion of Case in
generative grammar such as GB and Minimalism I will then move on to show how
genitive Case in Korean fares with these notions of Case
2 See Kim (2011) and references therein for various semantic properties of the hosts of uy
364 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 532
31 Case in GB and Minimalism
Standard Case theory assumes that there are basically two types of Case structural
and inherent In the GB framework (eg Chomsky 1980 1981 and 1986)
structural Case is seen as a property assigned to NPs in terms of their S-structureposition where the type of Case assigned is determined by the nature of the
governing Case assigner For instance the subject of a tensed clause is assigned
nominative by INFL the object of a verb is assigned accusative by the verb
Concerning inherent Case it is standardly assumed that its assignment is
contingent on Θ-marking In particular Chomsky (1986 pp 193ndash195) argues that
genitive Case is inherent and is assigned by N to the NP that it Θ-marks at
D-structure34 It is also worth pointing out that coupled with the Case Filter and
its Θ-theoretic reformulation referred to as the Visibility Hypothesis given in (5)
and (6) respectively Case theory played (and still plays) an important role inaccounting for the distribution of NPs
(5) NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case (Chomsky 1981 p 49)
(6) An element is visible forΘ-marking only if it is assigned Case (Chomsky 1986p94)
In Minimalism with the elimination of the notion government Case Theory
had to be reconsidered For instance Chomsky (1995) proposed that Case
assumed to be an uninterpretable formal feature is checked not assigned Thus
DPs check their Case features with the relevant Case-checkers such as v or T In
more recent updates of Minimalism such as Chomsky (2000 2001 and 2008) the
status of Case has been demoted somewhat in that it does not enter a checking
relation on its own but is simply valued when the φ-feature of its host undergoes
Agree
32 Genitive Case in Korean
Given this background let us first consider the nature of uy from the perspective of the proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case Concerning this note that some
of the uy-marked elements above (such as (4b) (4e) and presumably everything
from (4f) to (4i) as well) do not seem to be assigned a Θ-role from the head nounmdash
ie these elements are not arguments If this is correct it is quite unlikely that the
3 Chomsky (1986) argues that genitive Case is assigned at D-structure and is realized at S-structure intwo different ways depending on the configuration in which the genitive-marked NP is found It is
realized as of if the genitive-marked NP is in the complement position of N or as -rsquo s if the NP is in a
specifier position4 The proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case is not limited to Chomsky (1986) It is also adopted
in his (as well as many other researchersrsquo) later works
Genitive Case in Korean 365
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 632
occurrence of uy correlates with inherent Case assignment5 Furthermore it is
striking that the elements in question obligatorily require uy-marking as shown in
(7) while other elements which are clearly arguments can sometimes occur without
uy as shown in (8) (See the discussion in Sect 5 for further details on the omission
of uy)
5 Concerning the claim that the relevant elements in (4f)ndash(4i) are not Θ-marked an anonymous reviewer
for JEAL points out that corresponding elements in English behave like Θ-marked ones in that they allow
extraction Thus it seems that they are not barriers for movement
(i) a I need to find a person to dance with (Comitative)
b This is the knife which John stabbed Bill with (Instrument)c Where did you send the letter from (Source)
d Where are you going to (Destination)
For independent reasons however it is difficult to replicate this in Korean For instance note that the data
in (i) involve preposition stranding which is impossible in Korean due to the affixal nature of
postpositions
(ii) eti Con-un phenci-lul -eyse ponayss-ni (cf (ic))
where John-top letter-acc -from sent-Q
lsquo(intended) Where did John send the letter from)
(cf eti-eyse Con-un phenci-lul ponayss-ni)
Even if we change the example in (ii) to avoid postposition stranding the outcome is still ungrammatical
(iii) nwu-ka Con-un ku chayk-ul [ t koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni
who-nom John-top the book-acc hired person-from bought-Q
lsquo(intended) Who did John buy the book from the person that t hiredrsquo
(cf Con-un ku chayk-ul [nwu-ka koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni)
The deviance of (iii) may be implying that the relevant elements in Korean are different in that they
disallow extraction indicating that they are not Θ-marked However it may as well be that the deviance
of (iii) is due to an independent factormdasheg something like CNPC Settling this requires further
investigation for which I do not have space
In any case I believe there is still indirect evidence suggesting that Θ-marking is indeed relevant to
distinguishing the elements in question (including (4b) and (4e)) from the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4)to the effect that the former are not Θ-marked That is according to Saito et al (2008) only arguments
can be remnants of NP-ellipsis in Japanese Crucially Japanese counterparts of the elements in question
behave as adjunctsmdashie they may not be remnants of NP-ellipsis (For reasons of space I only include
one representative case below See Saito et al (2008) and An (2009) for further details)
(iv) Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satu no hon]-o yomu ga (Japanese)
T-top one-day-in three-CL no book-acc read though
Hanako-wa [go-satu no hon] -o yomu
H-top five-CL no book-acc read
lsquoTaroo reads three books in a day but Hanako reads fiversquo
The tricky part is that Korean does not allow NP-ellipsis (An 2012a b) so the observation above cannot
be replicated Nevertheless given that syntactic properties of noun phrases and ellipsis in Korean and
Japanese are otherwise quite similar (An 2009 Saito and An 2010) I take (iv) to imply that Θ-marking is
relevant in the way suggested above See also the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for other contexts where the
elements in question also contrast with the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4) which further confirms that the
distinction is real
366 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 232
(1) a Con-uy chayk
John-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos bookrsquo
b papalian-uy kongkyek
barbarians-gen attack lsquoBarbariansrsquo attackrsquo
Note however that the distribution of genitive Case often goes much beyond these
cases For instance it is well-known that in some Slavic languages an NP bears
genitive Case in the scope of sentential negation (Pesetsky 1982)
In this paper I show that genitive Case in Korean also has exceptional properties
More specifically I examine the nature of the genitive Case marker uy from a new
perspective and argue that contrary to the usual assumption this element is not to be
taken as a genuine indicator of Case licensing of its host To this end I begin bypointing out that the distribution of uy does not easily fit in with any traditional
characterizations of Case in GB and Minimalism1 based on the observation that
occurrence of uy is not contingent on whether its host is licensed with respect to
abstract genitive Case Crucially I show that uy attaches obligatorily to elements
that do not require Case at all which makes it difficult to maintain that uy is
involved in Case licensing
The argument is also shown to receive further support from the fact that the
behavior of uy which is classified as a prenominal modifier suffix in traditional
Korean grammar parallels that of another prenominal modifier suffix n which
attaches to verbs and adjectives in prenominal position It is crucial that for all
intents and purposes occurrence of n may not be taken to reflect Case licensing I
suggest further that these two elements are in fact allomorphic realizations of an
abstract prenominal modifier inflection Thus if it is correct that uy is an
allomorphic variant of n which does not have anything to do with Case licensing it
is reasonable to conclude that uy has nothing to do with Case licensing either The
intuition that I advocate heremdashie that uy and n are essentially the same thingmdash
actually finds its origin in traditional Korean grammar In this respect the current
analysis recasts the old insight in terms compatible with the framework of
generative grammar
I further show that there is a correlation between the structural position of
prenominal elements and the obligatoriness of uy-marking on these elements (see An
2009 2010 for relevant discussion and references) Based on this I explore various
word order possibilities of certain prenominal elements in the language from the
perspective of Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 In so doing I show that the current
analysis provides a principled account of why certain prenominal elements never have
to bear the prenominal modifier form and why only certain prenominal elements
conform to Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 while others apparently donrsquot a problem which
1 Note that the notion of caseCase is formalized differently in various theoretical frameworks (see Blake
1994 Woolford 2006 Malchukov and Spencer 2009 and references therein) It should be borne in mind
that the current discussion is couched exclusively in the framework of generative grammarmdashin particular
GB and Minimalism I will not be concerned with recasting the intuition reported here in terms
compatible with other theoretical frameworks
362 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 332
has not received much attention in the literature until recently Given this the current
analysis has implications for the structure of noun phrases in Korean
This paper is organized as follows In Sect 2 I set up the background for the
subsequent discussion by outlining the distribution of the genitive Case marker uy
and illustrate its basic properties which already makes it unlikely that uy is agenuine indicator of Case licensing In Sect 3 I briefly summarize the theoretical
assumptions about the notion of Case in GB and Minimalism to point out that the
behavior of uy outlined in Sect 2 does not fit in very well with the role and function
of Case in generative grammar In Sect 4 I examine another prenominal modifier
form n and argue that uy and n are allomorphic variants providing further support
for the current proposal that occurrence of uy has nothing to do with Case licensing
of its host In Sect 5 I examine a different aspect of the distribution of uy and
propose a more refined analysis of its distribution In Sect 6 I consider the
implications of the discussion in Sect 5 for various aspects of the behavior of prenominal elements in Korean and in Sect 7 I explore ordering possibilities of
certain prenominal elements in Korean in light of Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and
show that the current analysis provides a principled account of the properties
observed Section 8 concludes the discussion
2 The distribution of Genitive Case in Korean
In my opinion the most noteworthy property of the genitive Case marker uy is itswide distribution which is quite pervasive to prenominal constituents That is it
seems that uy can attach to a variety of elements without caring about the nature of
its host I illustrate below the distribution of uy
First of all as (2) and (3) show uy can attach to arguments of the head noun just
like corresponding elements in other languages
(2) kongsankwun-uy chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquo
(3) Loma-uy phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquothe destruction of Romersquo
More importantly uy can also attach to a much wider range of prenominal
constituents
(4) a Chelswu-uy cip (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen houselsquoChelswursquos housersquo
Genitive Case in Korean 363
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 432
b sey-kwen-uy chayk (Numeral)
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
c ecey-uy nalssi (Temporal)
yesterday-gen weatherlsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
d Thaiphei-uy nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
e hayngpok-uy swunkan (Modifier)
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
f Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebywu (Comitative)
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
g chong-ulo-uy kongkyek (Instrument)
gun-instr-gen attack
lsquoan attack with gunsrsquo
h mikwuk-ulopwuthe-uy phyenci (Source)
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
i ywulep-ulo-uy yehayng (Destination)
Europe-to-gen triplsquoa trip to Europersquo
Given this I believe the data above reveal the crucial question concerning uy
quite clearly In a nutshell the distribution of uy seems too widespread to make it
plausible to assume that its occurrence is contingent on the Case licensing of its
host Note that some of its hosts above are not even noun phrases which makes
them unlikely candidates for Case licensing Note also that the hosts of uy do not
seem to form a natural class with respect to their semantic properties either2 With
these considerations in mind let us move on to the next section to consider the
status of Case in GB and Minimalism and see how the behavior of uy fits into the
discussion on Case in these frameworks
3 Case in GB and Minimalism and Genitive Case in Korean
Let me first review some of the major ideas concerning the notion of Case in
generative grammar such as GB and Minimalism I will then move on to show how
genitive Case in Korean fares with these notions of Case
2 See Kim (2011) and references therein for various semantic properties of the hosts of uy
364 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 532
31 Case in GB and Minimalism
Standard Case theory assumes that there are basically two types of Case structural
and inherent In the GB framework (eg Chomsky 1980 1981 and 1986)
structural Case is seen as a property assigned to NPs in terms of their S-structureposition where the type of Case assigned is determined by the nature of the
governing Case assigner For instance the subject of a tensed clause is assigned
nominative by INFL the object of a verb is assigned accusative by the verb
Concerning inherent Case it is standardly assumed that its assignment is
contingent on Θ-marking In particular Chomsky (1986 pp 193ndash195) argues that
genitive Case is inherent and is assigned by N to the NP that it Θ-marks at
D-structure34 It is also worth pointing out that coupled with the Case Filter and
its Θ-theoretic reformulation referred to as the Visibility Hypothesis given in (5)
and (6) respectively Case theory played (and still plays) an important role inaccounting for the distribution of NPs
(5) NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case (Chomsky 1981 p 49)
(6) An element is visible forΘ-marking only if it is assigned Case (Chomsky 1986p94)
In Minimalism with the elimination of the notion government Case Theory
had to be reconsidered For instance Chomsky (1995) proposed that Case
assumed to be an uninterpretable formal feature is checked not assigned Thus
DPs check their Case features with the relevant Case-checkers such as v or T In
more recent updates of Minimalism such as Chomsky (2000 2001 and 2008) the
status of Case has been demoted somewhat in that it does not enter a checking
relation on its own but is simply valued when the φ-feature of its host undergoes
Agree
32 Genitive Case in Korean
Given this background let us first consider the nature of uy from the perspective of the proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case Concerning this note that some
of the uy-marked elements above (such as (4b) (4e) and presumably everything
from (4f) to (4i) as well) do not seem to be assigned a Θ-role from the head nounmdash
ie these elements are not arguments If this is correct it is quite unlikely that the
3 Chomsky (1986) argues that genitive Case is assigned at D-structure and is realized at S-structure intwo different ways depending on the configuration in which the genitive-marked NP is found It is
realized as of if the genitive-marked NP is in the complement position of N or as -rsquo s if the NP is in a
specifier position4 The proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case is not limited to Chomsky (1986) It is also adopted
in his (as well as many other researchersrsquo) later works
Genitive Case in Korean 365
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 632
occurrence of uy correlates with inherent Case assignment5 Furthermore it is
striking that the elements in question obligatorily require uy-marking as shown in
(7) while other elements which are clearly arguments can sometimes occur without
uy as shown in (8) (See the discussion in Sect 5 for further details on the omission
of uy)
5 Concerning the claim that the relevant elements in (4f)ndash(4i) are not Θ-marked an anonymous reviewer
for JEAL points out that corresponding elements in English behave like Θ-marked ones in that they allow
extraction Thus it seems that they are not barriers for movement
(i) a I need to find a person to dance with (Comitative)
b This is the knife which John stabbed Bill with (Instrument)c Where did you send the letter from (Source)
d Where are you going to (Destination)
For independent reasons however it is difficult to replicate this in Korean For instance note that the data
in (i) involve preposition stranding which is impossible in Korean due to the affixal nature of
postpositions
(ii) eti Con-un phenci-lul -eyse ponayss-ni (cf (ic))
where John-top letter-acc -from sent-Q
lsquo(intended) Where did John send the letter from)
(cf eti-eyse Con-un phenci-lul ponayss-ni)
Even if we change the example in (ii) to avoid postposition stranding the outcome is still ungrammatical
(iii) nwu-ka Con-un ku chayk-ul [ t koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni
who-nom John-top the book-acc hired person-from bought-Q
lsquo(intended) Who did John buy the book from the person that t hiredrsquo
(cf Con-un ku chayk-ul [nwu-ka koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni)
The deviance of (iii) may be implying that the relevant elements in Korean are different in that they
disallow extraction indicating that they are not Θ-marked However it may as well be that the deviance
of (iii) is due to an independent factormdasheg something like CNPC Settling this requires further
investigation for which I do not have space
In any case I believe there is still indirect evidence suggesting that Θ-marking is indeed relevant to
distinguishing the elements in question (including (4b) and (4e)) from the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4)to the effect that the former are not Θ-marked That is according to Saito et al (2008) only arguments
can be remnants of NP-ellipsis in Japanese Crucially Japanese counterparts of the elements in question
behave as adjunctsmdashie they may not be remnants of NP-ellipsis (For reasons of space I only include
one representative case below See Saito et al (2008) and An (2009) for further details)
(iv) Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satu no hon]-o yomu ga (Japanese)
T-top one-day-in three-CL no book-acc read though
Hanako-wa [go-satu no hon] -o yomu
H-top five-CL no book-acc read
lsquoTaroo reads three books in a day but Hanako reads fiversquo
The tricky part is that Korean does not allow NP-ellipsis (An 2012a b) so the observation above cannot
be replicated Nevertheless given that syntactic properties of noun phrases and ellipsis in Korean and
Japanese are otherwise quite similar (An 2009 Saito and An 2010) I take (iv) to imply that Θ-marking is
relevant in the way suggested above See also the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for other contexts where the
elements in question also contrast with the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4) which further confirms that the
distinction is real
366 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 332
has not received much attention in the literature until recently Given this the current
analysis has implications for the structure of noun phrases in Korean
This paper is organized as follows In Sect 2 I set up the background for the
subsequent discussion by outlining the distribution of the genitive Case marker uy
and illustrate its basic properties which already makes it unlikely that uy is agenuine indicator of Case licensing In Sect 3 I briefly summarize the theoretical
assumptions about the notion of Case in GB and Minimalism to point out that the
behavior of uy outlined in Sect 2 does not fit in very well with the role and function
of Case in generative grammar In Sect 4 I examine another prenominal modifier
form n and argue that uy and n are allomorphic variants providing further support
for the current proposal that occurrence of uy has nothing to do with Case licensing
of its host In Sect 5 I examine a different aspect of the distribution of uy and
propose a more refined analysis of its distribution In Sect 6 I consider the
implications of the discussion in Sect 5 for various aspects of the behavior of prenominal elements in Korean and in Sect 7 I explore ordering possibilities of
certain prenominal elements in Korean in light of Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and
show that the current analysis provides a principled account of the properties
observed Section 8 concludes the discussion
2 The distribution of Genitive Case in Korean
In my opinion the most noteworthy property of the genitive Case marker uy is itswide distribution which is quite pervasive to prenominal constituents That is it
seems that uy can attach to a variety of elements without caring about the nature of
its host I illustrate below the distribution of uy
First of all as (2) and (3) show uy can attach to arguments of the head noun just
like corresponding elements in other languages
(2) kongsankwun-uy chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquo
(3) Loma-uy phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquothe destruction of Romersquo
More importantly uy can also attach to a much wider range of prenominal
constituents
(4) a Chelswu-uy cip (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen houselsquoChelswursquos housersquo
Genitive Case in Korean 363
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 432
b sey-kwen-uy chayk (Numeral)
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
c ecey-uy nalssi (Temporal)
yesterday-gen weatherlsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
d Thaiphei-uy nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
e hayngpok-uy swunkan (Modifier)
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
f Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebywu (Comitative)
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
g chong-ulo-uy kongkyek (Instrument)
gun-instr-gen attack
lsquoan attack with gunsrsquo
h mikwuk-ulopwuthe-uy phyenci (Source)
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
i ywulep-ulo-uy yehayng (Destination)
Europe-to-gen triplsquoa trip to Europersquo
Given this I believe the data above reveal the crucial question concerning uy
quite clearly In a nutshell the distribution of uy seems too widespread to make it
plausible to assume that its occurrence is contingent on the Case licensing of its
host Note that some of its hosts above are not even noun phrases which makes
them unlikely candidates for Case licensing Note also that the hosts of uy do not
seem to form a natural class with respect to their semantic properties either2 With
these considerations in mind let us move on to the next section to consider the
status of Case in GB and Minimalism and see how the behavior of uy fits into the
discussion on Case in these frameworks
3 Case in GB and Minimalism and Genitive Case in Korean
Let me first review some of the major ideas concerning the notion of Case in
generative grammar such as GB and Minimalism I will then move on to show how
genitive Case in Korean fares with these notions of Case
2 See Kim (2011) and references therein for various semantic properties of the hosts of uy
364 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 532
31 Case in GB and Minimalism
Standard Case theory assumes that there are basically two types of Case structural
and inherent In the GB framework (eg Chomsky 1980 1981 and 1986)
structural Case is seen as a property assigned to NPs in terms of their S-structureposition where the type of Case assigned is determined by the nature of the
governing Case assigner For instance the subject of a tensed clause is assigned
nominative by INFL the object of a verb is assigned accusative by the verb
Concerning inherent Case it is standardly assumed that its assignment is
contingent on Θ-marking In particular Chomsky (1986 pp 193ndash195) argues that
genitive Case is inherent and is assigned by N to the NP that it Θ-marks at
D-structure34 It is also worth pointing out that coupled with the Case Filter and
its Θ-theoretic reformulation referred to as the Visibility Hypothesis given in (5)
and (6) respectively Case theory played (and still plays) an important role inaccounting for the distribution of NPs
(5) NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case (Chomsky 1981 p 49)
(6) An element is visible forΘ-marking only if it is assigned Case (Chomsky 1986p94)
In Minimalism with the elimination of the notion government Case Theory
had to be reconsidered For instance Chomsky (1995) proposed that Case
assumed to be an uninterpretable formal feature is checked not assigned Thus
DPs check their Case features with the relevant Case-checkers such as v or T In
more recent updates of Minimalism such as Chomsky (2000 2001 and 2008) the
status of Case has been demoted somewhat in that it does not enter a checking
relation on its own but is simply valued when the φ-feature of its host undergoes
Agree
32 Genitive Case in Korean
Given this background let us first consider the nature of uy from the perspective of the proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case Concerning this note that some
of the uy-marked elements above (such as (4b) (4e) and presumably everything
from (4f) to (4i) as well) do not seem to be assigned a Θ-role from the head nounmdash
ie these elements are not arguments If this is correct it is quite unlikely that the
3 Chomsky (1986) argues that genitive Case is assigned at D-structure and is realized at S-structure intwo different ways depending on the configuration in which the genitive-marked NP is found It is
realized as of if the genitive-marked NP is in the complement position of N or as -rsquo s if the NP is in a
specifier position4 The proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case is not limited to Chomsky (1986) It is also adopted
in his (as well as many other researchersrsquo) later works
Genitive Case in Korean 365
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 632
occurrence of uy correlates with inherent Case assignment5 Furthermore it is
striking that the elements in question obligatorily require uy-marking as shown in
(7) while other elements which are clearly arguments can sometimes occur without
uy as shown in (8) (See the discussion in Sect 5 for further details on the omission
of uy)
5 Concerning the claim that the relevant elements in (4f)ndash(4i) are not Θ-marked an anonymous reviewer
for JEAL points out that corresponding elements in English behave like Θ-marked ones in that they allow
extraction Thus it seems that they are not barriers for movement
(i) a I need to find a person to dance with (Comitative)
b This is the knife which John stabbed Bill with (Instrument)c Where did you send the letter from (Source)
d Where are you going to (Destination)
For independent reasons however it is difficult to replicate this in Korean For instance note that the data
in (i) involve preposition stranding which is impossible in Korean due to the affixal nature of
postpositions
(ii) eti Con-un phenci-lul -eyse ponayss-ni (cf (ic))
where John-top letter-acc -from sent-Q
lsquo(intended) Where did John send the letter from)
(cf eti-eyse Con-un phenci-lul ponayss-ni)
Even if we change the example in (ii) to avoid postposition stranding the outcome is still ungrammatical
(iii) nwu-ka Con-un ku chayk-ul [ t koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni
who-nom John-top the book-acc hired person-from bought-Q
lsquo(intended) Who did John buy the book from the person that t hiredrsquo
(cf Con-un ku chayk-ul [nwu-ka koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni)
The deviance of (iii) may be implying that the relevant elements in Korean are different in that they
disallow extraction indicating that they are not Θ-marked However it may as well be that the deviance
of (iii) is due to an independent factormdasheg something like CNPC Settling this requires further
investigation for which I do not have space
In any case I believe there is still indirect evidence suggesting that Θ-marking is indeed relevant to
distinguishing the elements in question (including (4b) and (4e)) from the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4)to the effect that the former are not Θ-marked That is according to Saito et al (2008) only arguments
can be remnants of NP-ellipsis in Japanese Crucially Japanese counterparts of the elements in question
behave as adjunctsmdashie they may not be remnants of NP-ellipsis (For reasons of space I only include
one representative case below See Saito et al (2008) and An (2009) for further details)
(iv) Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satu no hon]-o yomu ga (Japanese)
T-top one-day-in three-CL no book-acc read though
Hanako-wa [go-satu no hon] -o yomu
H-top five-CL no book-acc read
lsquoTaroo reads three books in a day but Hanako reads fiversquo
The tricky part is that Korean does not allow NP-ellipsis (An 2012a b) so the observation above cannot
be replicated Nevertheless given that syntactic properties of noun phrases and ellipsis in Korean and
Japanese are otherwise quite similar (An 2009 Saito and An 2010) I take (iv) to imply that Θ-marking is
relevant in the way suggested above See also the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for other contexts where the
elements in question also contrast with the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4) which further confirms that the
distinction is real
366 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 432
b sey-kwen-uy chayk (Numeral)
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
c ecey-uy nalssi (Temporal)
yesterday-gen weatherlsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
d Thaiphei-uy nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
e hayngpok-uy swunkan (Modifier)
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
f Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebywu (Comitative)
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
g chong-ulo-uy kongkyek (Instrument)
gun-instr-gen attack
lsquoan attack with gunsrsquo
h mikwuk-ulopwuthe-uy phyenci (Source)
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
i ywulep-ulo-uy yehayng (Destination)
Europe-to-gen triplsquoa trip to Europersquo
Given this I believe the data above reveal the crucial question concerning uy
quite clearly In a nutshell the distribution of uy seems too widespread to make it
plausible to assume that its occurrence is contingent on the Case licensing of its
host Note that some of its hosts above are not even noun phrases which makes
them unlikely candidates for Case licensing Note also that the hosts of uy do not
seem to form a natural class with respect to their semantic properties either2 With
these considerations in mind let us move on to the next section to consider the
status of Case in GB and Minimalism and see how the behavior of uy fits into the
discussion on Case in these frameworks
3 Case in GB and Minimalism and Genitive Case in Korean
Let me first review some of the major ideas concerning the notion of Case in
generative grammar such as GB and Minimalism I will then move on to show how
genitive Case in Korean fares with these notions of Case
2 See Kim (2011) and references therein for various semantic properties of the hosts of uy
364 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 532
31 Case in GB and Minimalism
Standard Case theory assumes that there are basically two types of Case structural
and inherent In the GB framework (eg Chomsky 1980 1981 and 1986)
structural Case is seen as a property assigned to NPs in terms of their S-structureposition where the type of Case assigned is determined by the nature of the
governing Case assigner For instance the subject of a tensed clause is assigned
nominative by INFL the object of a verb is assigned accusative by the verb
Concerning inherent Case it is standardly assumed that its assignment is
contingent on Θ-marking In particular Chomsky (1986 pp 193ndash195) argues that
genitive Case is inherent and is assigned by N to the NP that it Θ-marks at
D-structure34 It is also worth pointing out that coupled with the Case Filter and
its Θ-theoretic reformulation referred to as the Visibility Hypothesis given in (5)
and (6) respectively Case theory played (and still plays) an important role inaccounting for the distribution of NPs
(5) NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case (Chomsky 1981 p 49)
(6) An element is visible forΘ-marking only if it is assigned Case (Chomsky 1986p94)
In Minimalism with the elimination of the notion government Case Theory
had to be reconsidered For instance Chomsky (1995) proposed that Case
assumed to be an uninterpretable formal feature is checked not assigned Thus
DPs check their Case features with the relevant Case-checkers such as v or T In
more recent updates of Minimalism such as Chomsky (2000 2001 and 2008) the
status of Case has been demoted somewhat in that it does not enter a checking
relation on its own but is simply valued when the φ-feature of its host undergoes
Agree
32 Genitive Case in Korean
Given this background let us first consider the nature of uy from the perspective of the proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case Concerning this note that some
of the uy-marked elements above (such as (4b) (4e) and presumably everything
from (4f) to (4i) as well) do not seem to be assigned a Θ-role from the head nounmdash
ie these elements are not arguments If this is correct it is quite unlikely that the
3 Chomsky (1986) argues that genitive Case is assigned at D-structure and is realized at S-structure intwo different ways depending on the configuration in which the genitive-marked NP is found It is
realized as of if the genitive-marked NP is in the complement position of N or as -rsquo s if the NP is in a
specifier position4 The proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case is not limited to Chomsky (1986) It is also adopted
in his (as well as many other researchersrsquo) later works
Genitive Case in Korean 365
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 632
occurrence of uy correlates with inherent Case assignment5 Furthermore it is
striking that the elements in question obligatorily require uy-marking as shown in
(7) while other elements which are clearly arguments can sometimes occur without
uy as shown in (8) (See the discussion in Sect 5 for further details on the omission
of uy)
5 Concerning the claim that the relevant elements in (4f)ndash(4i) are not Θ-marked an anonymous reviewer
for JEAL points out that corresponding elements in English behave like Θ-marked ones in that they allow
extraction Thus it seems that they are not barriers for movement
(i) a I need to find a person to dance with (Comitative)
b This is the knife which John stabbed Bill with (Instrument)c Where did you send the letter from (Source)
d Where are you going to (Destination)
For independent reasons however it is difficult to replicate this in Korean For instance note that the data
in (i) involve preposition stranding which is impossible in Korean due to the affixal nature of
postpositions
(ii) eti Con-un phenci-lul -eyse ponayss-ni (cf (ic))
where John-top letter-acc -from sent-Q
lsquo(intended) Where did John send the letter from)
(cf eti-eyse Con-un phenci-lul ponayss-ni)
Even if we change the example in (ii) to avoid postposition stranding the outcome is still ungrammatical
(iii) nwu-ka Con-un ku chayk-ul [ t koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni
who-nom John-top the book-acc hired person-from bought-Q
lsquo(intended) Who did John buy the book from the person that t hiredrsquo
(cf Con-un ku chayk-ul [nwu-ka koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni)
The deviance of (iii) may be implying that the relevant elements in Korean are different in that they
disallow extraction indicating that they are not Θ-marked However it may as well be that the deviance
of (iii) is due to an independent factormdasheg something like CNPC Settling this requires further
investigation for which I do not have space
In any case I believe there is still indirect evidence suggesting that Θ-marking is indeed relevant to
distinguishing the elements in question (including (4b) and (4e)) from the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4)to the effect that the former are not Θ-marked That is according to Saito et al (2008) only arguments
can be remnants of NP-ellipsis in Japanese Crucially Japanese counterparts of the elements in question
behave as adjunctsmdashie they may not be remnants of NP-ellipsis (For reasons of space I only include
one representative case below See Saito et al (2008) and An (2009) for further details)
(iv) Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satu no hon]-o yomu ga (Japanese)
T-top one-day-in three-CL no book-acc read though
Hanako-wa [go-satu no hon] -o yomu
H-top five-CL no book-acc read
lsquoTaroo reads three books in a day but Hanako reads fiversquo
The tricky part is that Korean does not allow NP-ellipsis (An 2012a b) so the observation above cannot
be replicated Nevertheless given that syntactic properties of noun phrases and ellipsis in Korean and
Japanese are otherwise quite similar (An 2009 Saito and An 2010) I take (iv) to imply that Θ-marking is
relevant in the way suggested above See also the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for other contexts where the
elements in question also contrast with the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4) which further confirms that the
distinction is real
366 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 532
31 Case in GB and Minimalism
Standard Case theory assumes that there are basically two types of Case structural
and inherent In the GB framework (eg Chomsky 1980 1981 and 1986)
structural Case is seen as a property assigned to NPs in terms of their S-structureposition where the type of Case assigned is determined by the nature of the
governing Case assigner For instance the subject of a tensed clause is assigned
nominative by INFL the object of a verb is assigned accusative by the verb
Concerning inherent Case it is standardly assumed that its assignment is
contingent on Θ-marking In particular Chomsky (1986 pp 193ndash195) argues that
genitive Case is inherent and is assigned by N to the NP that it Θ-marks at
D-structure34 It is also worth pointing out that coupled with the Case Filter and
its Θ-theoretic reformulation referred to as the Visibility Hypothesis given in (5)
and (6) respectively Case theory played (and still plays) an important role inaccounting for the distribution of NPs
(5) NP if NP has phonetic content and has no Case (Chomsky 1981 p 49)
(6) An element is visible forΘ-marking only if it is assigned Case (Chomsky 1986p94)
In Minimalism with the elimination of the notion government Case Theory
had to be reconsidered For instance Chomsky (1995) proposed that Case
assumed to be an uninterpretable formal feature is checked not assigned Thus
DPs check their Case features with the relevant Case-checkers such as v or T In
more recent updates of Minimalism such as Chomsky (2000 2001 and 2008) the
status of Case has been demoted somewhat in that it does not enter a checking
relation on its own but is simply valued when the φ-feature of its host undergoes
Agree
32 Genitive Case in Korean
Given this background let us first consider the nature of uy from the perspective of the proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case Concerning this note that some
of the uy-marked elements above (such as (4b) (4e) and presumably everything
from (4f) to (4i) as well) do not seem to be assigned a Θ-role from the head nounmdash
ie these elements are not arguments If this is correct it is quite unlikely that the
3 Chomsky (1986) argues that genitive Case is assigned at D-structure and is realized at S-structure intwo different ways depending on the configuration in which the genitive-marked NP is found It is
realized as of if the genitive-marked NP is in the complement position of N or as -rsquo s if the NP is in a
specifier position4 The proposal that genitive Case is an inherent Case is not limited to Chomsky (1986) It is also adopted
in his (as well as many other researchersrsquo) later works
Genitive Case in Korean 365
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 632
occurrence of uy correlates with inherent Case assignment5 Furthermore it is
striking that the elements in question obligatorily require uy-marking as shown in
(7) while other elements which are clearly arguments can sometimes occur without
uy as shown in (8) (See the discussion in Sect 5 for further details on the omission
of uy)
5 Concerning the claim that the relevant elements in (4f)ndash(4i) are not Θ-marked an anonymous reviewer
for JEAL points out that corresponding elements in English behave like Θ-marked ones in that they allow
extraction Thus it seems that they are not barriers for movement
(i) a I need to find a person to dance with (Comitative)
b This is the knife which John stabbed Bill with (Instrument)c Where did you send the letter from (Source)
d Where are you going to (Destination)
For independent reasons however it is difficult to replicate this in Korean For instance note that the data
in (i) involve preposition stranding which is impossible in Korean due to the affixal nature of
postpositions
(ii) eti Con-un phenci-lul -eyse ponayss-ni (cf (ic))
where John-top letter-acc -from sent-Q
lsquo(intended) Where did John send the letter from)
(cf eti-eyse Con-un phenci-lul ponayss-ni)
Even if we change the example in (ii) to avoid postposition stranding the outcome is still ungrammatical
(iii) nwu-ka Con-un ku chayk-ul [ t koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni
who-nom John-top the book-acc hired person-from bought-Q
lsquo(intended) Who did John buy the book from the person that t hiredrsquo
(cf Con-un ku chayk-ul [nwu-ka koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni)
The deviance of (iii) may be implying that the relevant elements in Korean are different in that they
disallow extraction indicating that they are not Θ-marked However it may as well be that the deviance
of (iii) is due to an independent factormdasheg something like CNPC Settling this requires further
investigation for which I do not have space
In any case I believe there is still indirect evidence suggesting that Θ-marking is indeed relevant to
distinguishing the elements in question (including (4b) and (4e)) from the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4)to the effect that the former are not Θ-marked That is according to Saito et al (2008) only arguments
can be remnants of NP-ellipsis in Japanese Crucially Japanese counterparts of the elements in question
behave as adjunctsmdashie they may not be remnants of NP-ellipsis (For reasons of space I only include
one representative case below See Saito et al (2008) and An (2009) for further details)
(iv) Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satu no hon]-o yomu ga (Japanese)
T-top one-day-in three-CL no book-acc read though
Hanako-wa [go-satu no hon] -o yomu
H-top five-CL no book-acc read
lsquoTaroo reads three books in a day but Hanako reads fiversquo
The tricky part is that Korean does not allow NP-ellipsis (An 2012a b) so the observation above cannot
be replicated Nevertheless given that syntactic properties of noun phrases and ellipsis in Korean and
Japanese are otherwise quite similar (An 2009 Saito and An 2010) I take (iv) to imply that Θ-marking is
relevant in the way suggested above See also the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for other contexts where the
elements in question also contrast with the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4) which further confirms that the
distinction is real
366 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 632
occurrence of uy correlates with inherent Case assignment5 Furthermore it is
striking that the elements in question obligatorily require uy-marking as shown in
(7) while other elements which are clearly arguments can sometimes occur without
uy as shown in (8) (See the discussion in Sect 5 for further details on the omission
of uy)
5 Concerning the claim that the relevant elements in (4f)ndash(4i) are not Θ-marked an anonymous reviewer
for JEAL points out that corresponding elements in English behave like Θ-marked ones in that they allow
extraction Thus it seems that they are not barriers for movement
(i) a I need to find a person to dance with (Comitative)
b This is the knife which John stabbed Bill with (Instrument)c Where did you send the letter from (Source)
d Where are you going to (Destination)
For independent reasons however it is difficult to replicate this in Korean For instance note that the data
in (i) involve preposition stranding which is impossible in Korean due to the affixal nature of
postpositions
(ii) eti Con-un phenci-lul -eyse ponayss-ni (cf (ic))
where John-top letter-acc -from sent-Q
lsquo(intended) Where did John send the letter from)
(cf eti-eyse Con-un phenci-lul ponayss-ni)
Even if we change the example in (ii) to avoid postposition stranding the outcome is still ungrammatical
(iii) nwu-ka Con-un ku chayk-ul [ t koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni
who-nom John-top the book-acc hired person-from bought-Q
lsquo(intended) Who did John buy the book from the person that t hiredrsquo
(cf Con-un ku chayk-ul [nwu-ka koyonghan salam]-eykeyse sass-ni)
The deviance of (iii) may be implying that the relevant elements in Korean are different in that they
disallow extraction indicating that they are not Θ-marked However it may as well be that the deviance
of (iii) is due to an independent factormdasheg something like CNPC Settling this requires further
investigation for which I do not have space
In any case I believe there is still indirect evidence suggesting that Θ-marking is indeed relevant to
distinguishing the elements in question (including (4b) and (4e)) from the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4)to the effect that the former are not Θ-marked That is according to Saito et al (2008) only arguments
can be remnants of NP-ellipsis in Japanese Crucially Japanese counterparts of the elements in question
behave as adjunctsmdashie they may not be remnants of NP-ellipsis (For reasons of space I only include
one representative case below See Saito et al (2008) and An (2009) for further details)
(iv) Taroo-wa iti-niti-ni [san-satu no hon]-o yomu ga (Japanese)
T-top one-day-in three-CL no book-acc read though
Hanako-wa [go-satu no hon] -o yomu
H-top five-CL no book-acc read
lsquoTaroo reads three books in a day but Hanako reads fiversquo
The tricky part is that Korean does not allow NP-ellipsis (An 2012a b) so the observation above cannot
be replicated Nevertheless given that syntactic properties of noun phrases and ellipsis in Korean and
Japanese are otherwise quite similar (An 2009 Saito and An 2010) I take (iv) to imply that Θ-marking is
relevant in the way suggested above See also the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for other contexts where the
elements in question also contrast with the rest of the elements in (1)ndash(4) which further confirms that the
distinction is real
366 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 732
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 832
topic marker nun cannot combine with structural Case markers as shown in (9a)
while it can with (what Choi assumes to be) inherent Case markers as in (9b)
(9) a Chelswu-ka-nun-lul-un-uy-nun
Chelswu-nom-topacc-topgen-topb Chelswu-ekey-nun-lo-nun
Chelswu-to-topwith-top
Choi further argues that uy is unlikely to reflect inherent Case in that multiple uy-marked
elements are allowed as shown in (10) while the thematic relations that the hosts of uy
can establish with the head noun are not uniform as also noted above in (2)ndash(4)7
(10) Chelswu-uy phianokok-uy yencwu
Chelswu-gen piano song-gen playlsquoChelswursquos play of a piano songrsquo
Given this I would like to make it clear that I essentially agree with these authors in
assuming that occurrence of uy is determined by the structural configuration of its host
(See the discussion in Sects 5 and 6 for further details on this point) However I do not
believe the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing in terms of GB and
Minimalism (regardless of whether it is inherent or structural) I discuss below the
reasons for this conclusion
First of all note that not all of the prenominal elements in (4) are NPs8 For
instance in (4b) the host of uy is a numeral-classifier in (4e) although the host of uy may be noun-like it is clearly an adjunct in (4f g h i) uy is attached to a PP In
particular the fact that uy attaches to PPs is crucial evidence that the occurrence of
this element is not contingent on Case licensing9 Furthermore recall that as shown
in (7) it is in fact obligatory that these PPs be marked with uy in prenominal
contexts which is quite surprising because PPs in GB and Minimalism normally do
not require Case licensing (let alone obligatorily) In this connection note also that
locative elements can be Case-marked in Korean as shown in (11) (Kim and Maling
1993 Wechsler and Lee 1996 Sohng 2004 among others) (12) paraphrases (11)
replacing the locative with a PP (13) shows however that the PP may not be Case-marked in contrast to (11) Interestingly if we put the same PP in prenominal
position attachment of uy becomes obligatory as illustrated in (14)
(11) haksayngtul-i thulayk-ul cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
7
Choi (2009) seems to assume that inherent Case assignment is associated with a particular Θ-rolewhatever it is and that this Θ-role can only be assigned once by a given Θ-role assigner Whether this
view is correct or not is tangential to the current analysis8 Here I am using NP as a cover term for nominal extended projections9 Stowell (1981) argues that Case-assigning categories such as P may not occur in Case-marked
positions which further supports the point made in the main text
368 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 932
(12) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse cilcwuhayssta
students-nom track-at sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(13) haksayngtul-i thulayk-eyse-lul cilcwuhaysstastudents-nom track-at-acc sprinted
lsquoStudents sprinted on the trackrsquo
(14) thulayk-eyse-(uy) cilcwu
track-at-gen sprint
lsquothe sprint on the trackrsquo
This strengthens the point If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case licensing
why must the PP be assigned Case in (14) while the same PP resists Case in (13)(See also Footnote 9)
Under the Minimalist formulation of Case the problem seems to remain the
same If the occurrence of uy correlates with Case checking it would be unclear
why PPs obligatorily undergo Case checking in prenominal contexts while they do
not in clauses Furthermore concerning the Agree version of Case licensing the
question about the status of uy as a marker for structural Case seems to be more
uncertainmdashespecially so in a language like Korean where morphological agree-
ment is rarely manifested Here it is quite unlikely that prenominal PPs and
adjuncts obligatorily undergo φ-feature agreement with the head noun
In this section I have argued that there is strong reason to believe that the so-
called genitive Case marker uy in Korean should not be considered a genuine
indicator of Case licensing regardless of whether the process involves Case
assignment Case checking or Agree and also whether genitive Case in Korean is
structural or inherent The main motivation for this claim is that uy attaches often
obligatorily to elements that do not need Case licensing In the next section I
provide further evidence for this claim
4 Prenominal modifier inflection in Korean
In this section I discuss additional empirical motivation for the claim that the
genitive Case marker uy is not a genuine marker of Case
First it is significant that in the data examined in Sect 2 all the prenominal
elements marked with uy are specifiable as [minusV]10 For instance in (1)ndash(3) and (4a
c d e) the host of uy is a noun In (4b) it is a numeral-classifier complex where the
classifier can be considered a noun11 In (4f g h i) uy is attached to a postposition
which is also [minusV] Given this one may wonder what happens if a [+V] element
such as a verb or adjective occurs in prenominal position as illustrated in (15)
10 According to the usual feature-based classification of grammatical categories (Chomsky 1981) nouns
are characterized by the feature specification [+N minusV] Similarly verbs are assumed to be [minusN +V]
adjectives [+N +V] and prepositions [minusN minusV]11 In Korean grammar classifiers are categorized as lsquodependent nounsrsquo
Genitive Case in Korean 369
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1032
(15) a khi-ka khu-n ai
height-nom big-n boy
lsquoa tall boyrsquo
b cip-ey ka-n ai
home-to go-n boylsquothe boy who went homersquo
In (15a) an adjective immediately precedes the head noun and a verb does in (15b)
It can be easily noted that these elements have something in commonmdashthat is the
word-final morpheme n In Korean grammar this element is referred to as the
lsquokwanhyengsahyeng emirsquo where the term kwanhyengsahyeng can be translated
roughly as lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo and emi as lsquoword endingrsquo12 (For ease of
exposition I will refer to this element as the lsquoK-endingrsquo and gloss it as minusn)13
Before proceeding onto the main proposal it should be pointed out that inaddition to its basic function of marking certain prenominal modifiers n has also
been argued to be responsible for such notions as past tense perfective aspect realis
mood etc (See Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011 Kim 2012 among others) For
instance as indicated in (15b) the verb bearing n seems to receive a past tense
reading However as Mwun (2009) also points out the element bearing n in (15a)
does not receive such a reading which makes it questionable that n is a genuine past
tense marker14 Furthermore Kim (2012) argues that the tenseaspect interpretation
of prenominal clauses containing n is not determined clause-internally but by the
properties of the main clause which also means that n is not responsible for such
interpretations It is also significant that n is never used as a marker for tense aspect
or mood outside of prenominal contexts Furthermore given that such notions as
tense aspect and mood are quite heterogeneous and are standardly assumed to
occupy different structural positions it seems to me to be quite implausible if not
impossible to attribute all of these properties to a single item (The same
considerations apply to l mentioned in Footnote 13) In this context it is also
noteworthy that many researchers propose that in Korean tense aspect and mood
can each be instantiated by a null morpheme (Mwun 2009 Yang 2010 Kim 2011
12 It is also significant that in Korean grammar the genitive Case marker uy is referred to as the
kwanhyengkyek cosa (Nam and Ko 1994 Lee and Chae 1999 Kim 2011) Here the first word
kwanhyengkyek comprises two elements kwanhyeng and kyek where the former means lsquoprenominal
modifier formrsquo as discussed in the main text and the latter lsquocasersquo The second word cosa can be
translated as lsquonominal suffixrsquo The point is that according to this traditional view uy and n serve
essentially the same functionmdashthat is they mark prenominal constituents This has not received serious
attention in the generative literature on Korean but is in fact the view I advocate in this paper13 In fact n is not the only K-ending for [+V] elements there is also l as shown in (i)
(i) cip-ey ka-l ai
home-to go-l boy
lsquothe boy who will go homersquo
As shown in the translation of (i) l is often assumed to be associated with such notions as future tense
imperfect aspect irrealis mood etc See the main text for further discussion on this point)14 Mwun (2009) also notes that in some contexts n purely serves the function of marking prenominal
modifiers without any implications for tense aspect or mood
370 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1132
Kim 2012 among others) For instance Chung (2005) argues that Korean allows a
phonologically null tense marker given the availability of an example like (16)
(16) motwu (ecey) yehayngttena-ko na-man honcaall yesterday goonatrip-and I-only alone
(cikum) cip-ul cikhi-n-ta
now home-acc keep-pres-dec
lsquoAll others left on a trip yesterday and I am alone staying home nowrsquo
(Chung 2005 p 553)
Here although the verb in the first conjunct is bare and is without any tense
marking it receives a past tense reading as is indicated by the fact that an adverb
like ecey lsquoyesterdayrsquo can occur in it Based on this Chung (2005) argues that
Korean allows a null past tense markerGiven this I assume that in the relevant prenominal contexts involving n (or l for
that matter) we are actually dealing with null tense aspect or mood elements
combined with an abstract K-suffix realized as the K-ending n or l 15
Concerning
the choice between n and l I suggest that when the K-suffix combines with those
null elements that mark past tense perfective aspect or realis mood it is realized as
n while it surfaces as l when it combines with those null elements that are
responsible for future imperfect or irrealis interpretation16 If this is correct the
allomorphic relation between n and l can be represented as in (17)
(17) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minusn [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]17
minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
Now what is crucial for our purposes is the fact that the genitive Case marker uy and
the K-ending n have certain properties in common18 In fact I believe that the
similarities are much more than a coincidence Rather there is good reason to believe
that the two suffixes are essentially the same elementmdashthat is uy and n are alsoallomorphs which provides further empirical evidence that uy may not be considered a
genuine Case marker I illustrate the relevant properties of uy and n below
First of all uy and n are allowed only in prenominal contexts Thus in non-
prenominal contexts they are excluded
15 This is also reminiscent of Kangrsquos (1988) proposal that n and l conflate INFL and COMP16
I put aside further explorations of the syntactico-semantic properties of these null elements for futureresearch as this will take us too far afield17 Here I use NP in its traditional sense to refer to the whole extended nominal projection18 Given that l manifests all the relevant properties of n (and also because I assume the two elements to
be allomorphs) I will discuss only n in what follows (unless it is necessary to mention l ) assuming that
the same considerations extend to l
Genitive Case in Korean 371
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1232
(18) Con-i-uy [Meyli-uy chayk]-ul-uy sa-ss-ta
John-nom-gen Mary-gen book-acc-gen buy-past-dec
lsquoJohn bought Maryrsquos bookrsquo
(19) a ku ai-nun khi-ka khu-ta-n (cf (15))the boy-top height-nom big-dec-n
lsquoThe boy is tallrsquo
b ku ai-nun cip-ey ka-ss-ta-n
the boy-top home-to go-past-dec-n
lsquoThe boy went homersquo
The second significant property of uy and n has to do with the way these elements
combine with other morphemes In fact in traditional Korean grammar these
elements are both classified as word-final elements which means that they alwaysoccupy the absolute final position within their morphological complex Thus
regardless of how many and what kind of morphemes occur with them uy and n
always appear at the end of the word If they occur in any other position than that
indicated in (20) the result is completely ill-formed
(20) a haksayng-tul-man-uy
student-pl-only-gen
lsquoonly for studentsrsquo
b alumtawu-si-ess-te-n
beautiful-hon-past-evid-n
lsquohad been beautiful (polite)rsquo
The third crucial property of uy and n has to do with the type of their host That
is as already pointed out above uy can only attach to [minusV] elements such as nouns
and postpositions whereas n can only attach to [+V] elements such as verbs and
adjectives Crucially because of this property the distribution of uy and n do not
overlap and are completely predictablemdashthat is to a given prenominal element
only either one of these elements can be attached In other words uy and n are in
complementary distributionNow if we put together these observations an interesting picture emerges That
is the state of affairs concerning the distribution of uy and n fits perfectly into the
standard characterization of allomorphic variation Given this I suggest that uy and
n are different contextual realizations of a single abstract kwanhyengsahyeng
lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo element If this is correct then the distribution of the
prenominal modifier markers in Korean can be schematized as follows
(21) Insertion of the K-suf 1047297 x
K rarr minus
n [NP emptypastperfectrealis __ N]minusl [NP emptyfutureimperfectirrealis __ N]
minusuy elsewhere
372 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1332
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1432
cases involving omission of n in Sect 6) In Sect 52 I consider what the behavior
of uy suggests concerning the distribution of the K-suffix Then in Sect 6 I discuss
the implications and consequences of the proposal concerning the distribution of the
K-suffix made in Sect 52
51 Omission of Uy
As mentioned above it is significant that in some contexts the occurrence of uy is
not required even of [minusV] prenominal elements (I refer to this phenomenon as
ldquogenitive droprdquo (GD for convenience)) I illustrate three important properties of GD
below
First [minusV] prenominal elements can optionally bear the genitive Case marker uy
when they are Θ-marked by the head noun
(23) a Chelswu-(uy) chayk (Possessor)
Chelswu-gen book
lsquoChelswursquos bookrsquo
b Loma-(uy) phagoy (Theme)
Rome-gen destruction
lsquoRomersquos destructionrsquo
c kongsankwun-(uy) chimlyak (Agent)
communist army-gen invasion
lsquoCommunist armyrsquos invasionrsquod ecey-(uy) nalssi (Temporal)
20
yesterday-gen weather
lsquoyesterdayrsquos weatherrsquo
e Thaiphei-(uy) nalssi (Locative)
Taipei-gen weather
lsquoTaipeirsquos weatherrsquo
Second in contrast to the Θ-marked prenominal elements non-Θ-marked
elements do not allow GD (Concerning the status of the prenominal constituents in
(24) as non-Θ-marked elements see the discussion in Footnote 5 in Sect 3)
(24) a sey-kwen-(uy) chayk (cf (4b))
three-CL-gen book
lsquothree booksrsquo
b hayngpok-(uy) swunkan (cf (4e))
happiness-gen moment
lsquoa happy momentrsquo
c Chomskhi-wa-(uy) inthebyu (cf (4f))
Chomsky-with-gen interviewlsquoan interview with Chomskyrsquo
20 Anderson (1983) argues that temporal and locative phrases occupy an argument position within the
noun phrase and function as extended possessors Larson (1985) also assumes that temporal and locative
phrases are inherently Θ-marked
374 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1532
d dol-lo-(uy) kongkyek (cf (4g))
stone-with-gen attack
lsquoan attack with stonesrsquo
e mikwuk-ulopwuthe-(uy) phyenci (cf (4h))
America-from-gen letter
lsquoa letter from Americarsquo
f ywulep-ulo-(uy) yehayng (cf (4i))
Europe-to-gen trip
lsquoa trip to Europersquo
Next although Θ-marking seems to be relevant in the way suggested above it is
not the only factor that determines the availability of GD That is there seems to be
a kind of adjacency requirement to the effect that the element without uy be adjacent
to the head noun Thus if there is an intervening element between a prenominalelement and the head noun GD is normally disallowed as illustrated in (25)
(25) kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (cf (23c))
communist army South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
Here the intervening element does not have to be a uy-marked phrase N -marked
elements can also block GD in this context
(26) kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Interestingly however an intervening element does not always block GD either In
some cases GD is possible from elements that are not immediately adjacent to the
head noun21
(27) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak (Gen-Gen)
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-uy namhan chimlyak (Gen-GD)
communist army-gen South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
21 Caution is necessary in interpreting the data in question The type of interpretation we are concerned
with here can be schematically represented as in (i) not (ii)
(i) [X [Y N0]]
(ii) [[X Y] N0]
Genitive Case in Korean 375
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1632
c kongsankwun namhan chimlyak (GD-GD)
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
d kongsankwun namhan-uy chimlyak (GD-Gen)
communist army South Korea-gen invasionlsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
In (27) the (a) and (b) examples simply illustrate basic cases while the (c) and
(d) examples deserve some attention In (27c) note that the agent argument is not
immediately adjacent to the head noun although it still can undergo GD
Interestingly (27d) shows that such non-local GD is impossible when the
intervening element is marked with uy Thus it seems that for non-local GD to
be possible the intervening element should also undergo GD This leads us to
predict that if the intervening element belongs to those categories that do not allow
GD as in (24) non-local GD will not be possible This prediction is borne out
(28) a papalian-(uy) dol-lo-uy kongkyek
barbarian-gen stone-with-gen attack
lsquobarbariansrsquo attack with stonesrsquo
b Con-(uy) sey-kwen-uy chayk
John-gen three-CL-gen book
lsquoJohnrsquos three booksrsquo
c kica-(uy) Chomskhi-wa-uy inthebyu
reporter-gen Chomsky-with-gen interview
lsquoa reporterrsquos interview with Chomskyrsquo
d pwupwu-(uy) hayngpok-uy swunkan
couple-gen happiness-gen moment
lsquoa couplersquos happy momentrsquo
e paynangyehayngkayk-(uy) yulep-ulo-uy yehayng
backpacker-gen Europe-to-gen trip
lsquobackpackersrsquo trip to Europersquo
In sum it turns out that there are contexts where uy does not have to appear on aprenominal [minusV] constituent when the element in question is Θ-marked by and is
also local to the head noun
52 On the distribution of the K-suffix
I have shown above that two factors play a crucial role in determining the
availability of GD the Θ-markedness and the position of the prenominal element
Based on this observation I consider the distribution of the K-suffix below
First concerning the locality requirement that a prenominal element without uybe local to the head noun I suggest that this property follows from the fact that
Θ-marking is done in a local configuration given the observation that GD targets
only Θ-marked constituents More specifically I assume that in cases like (23) the
prenominal elements without uy are all sitting inside the local domain of the Θ-role
376 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1732
assigner which is basically the lexical projection of the head noun ie NP In other
words a Θ-marked prenominal constituent surfaces without a K-suffix if it stays
within the NP where it is Θ-marked Furthermore assuming that only Θ-marked
elements can reside within the lexical projection of the head noun I suggest that
non-Θ-marked elements which fail to undergo GD as in (24) sit outside the Θ-domain of the head noun and are required to bear the K-suffix This means that the
absence and presence of uy on a given prenominal element is determined by its
structural position within the extended projection of a noun to the effect that an
element without uy resides in the lexical projection of the head noun whereas those
with uy are outside of it22
Given this anticipating the discussion in Sect 6 let me recast the proposal
above More specifically I suggest that within the extended projection of a noun if
the merger of an element is triggered by a selectional property such as Θ-marking
the K-suffix is not realized on the element while the K-suffix is required on theelement if its merger does not involve selection
(29) Within the extended projection of a noun
a if an instance of merger is motivated by a selectional property
no K-suffix is realized on the merging element
b if the merger is not motivated by a selectional property the K-suffix is
required on the merging element
Note that the proposal here is reminiscent of Saito et al (2008) proposal
concerning the genitive Case marker no in Japanese where its insertion is argued to
be determined by the structural context of its host These authors actually refer to no
as a ldquocontextual Case markerrdquo whose insertion is subject to the following condition
(30) Mod-Insertion
[NP hellip XP Nα] rarr [NP hellip XP Mod Nα] where Mod = no
(Saito et al 2008 p 249 attributed to Kitagawa and Ross 1982)
Translated into the current analysis (30) means roughly that in Japanese a
prenominal element merged with the (extended) projection of a noun regardless of
selection is assigned the genitive Case marker no The difference between Japanese
and Korean is that although the genitive Case marker uy may also be considered a
contextual Case marker its insertion is more restrictedmdashthat is it is inserted after
an element in the extended projection of a noun when its merger is not motivated by
a selectional property23
22 This is the aspect in which the pattern of occurrence of uy resembles that of structural Case although I
argued above that its behavior does not fit in with the GB and MP formulations of the notion of Case
Given this it is not surprising that several researchers working on Korean assumed uy to be a structuralCase marker23 I should also mention that several native speakers of Japanese have informed me that a Japanese
counterpart to GD is apparently not available Although further investigation is necessary this seems at
first blush consistent with the proposal that the condition of insertion of the genitive Case marker in
Japanese is more lenient than that in Korean
Genitive Case in Korean 377
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1832
The current proposal is also reminiscent of Cho and Sellsrsquos (1994) proposal in the
framework of LFG that prenominal elements should be specified with the type
feature [N-SIS] which is required to allow an element to be merged with a nominal
projection Under their analysis uy is considered a realization of [N-SIS] and thus
suffixing uy to a constituent licenses that element as a sister to a nominal projection(Cho and Sells 1995 p 135) which is quite similar to what I am proposing here
(See also Yoon 1995 and Lee 2009 for relevant discussion)
6 Implications and consequences of GD
Let me illustrate here how the analysis of GD proposed in the previous section
extends to other data and also consider its implications
61 Locality effects on GD
First the basic cases of the locality effect on GD in (25) and (26) repeated below as
(31a) and (31b) are straightforwardly accounted for Here the intervening elements
bear a K-suffix which indicates that they are outside NP This means that the initial
elements are outside NP as well where they must be marked with the K-suffix
realized in this case as uy This way the unavailability of GD in (31) is captured
(31) a kongsankwun-(uy) namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun-(uy) [amwuto yeysanghaci motha-n] chimlyak
communist army-gen anyone predict could not-n invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion that nobody could predictrsquo
Concerning the grammatical cases of non-local GD as in (27c) repeated below I
assume that the prenominal elements are all within NP24
24 Concerning (32) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks what happens if the order of the two
prenominal elements is reversed For some reason it turns out that the example is bad regardless of
whether the displaced element bears uy or not (NB (i) is acceptable under the reading where the initial
phrase is understood as the agent and the second one as the theme This reading is irrelevant here)
(i) a namhan-uy kongsankwun chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun chimlyak
The example is still unacceptable when the second phrase is uy-marked
(ii) a namhan-uy kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
South Korea-gen communist army invasion
lsquo(intended) the communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b namhan kongsankwun-uy chimlyak
378 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 1932
(32) kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
communist army South Korea invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
62 [+V] Prenominal elements and GD
It should first be noted that n normally does not allow an equivalent of GD25 Thus
it is not easy to find a context where n is omitted from a prenominal element Under
the current analysis this is actually not surprising because in prenominal position
[+V] elements are typically modifiers and for that reason their merger is not
motivated by the selectional properties of the head noun which thus requires the K-
suffix26
Given this account as an anonymous reviewer for JEAL also points out thequestion arises naturally concerning noun complement clauses in Korean That is
do these clauses bear n or not The answer is actually yes as shown below
(33) Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul coahantanu-n sasil
Chelswu-nom Yenghi-acc like-n fact
lsquothe fact that Chelswu likes Yenghirsquo
Footnote 24 continued
Here the deviance of (ib) and (iib) can be captured by the current analysis Assuming that the theme
starts out from a lower position than the agent its remerger in the surface position cannot be Θ-driven
which thus requires uy on it On the other hand (ia) and (iia) seem to involve additional factors First
concerning (ia) I suspect that the deviance is on a par with the ungrammaticality of (iiia)
(iii) a pap-ul Chelswu mekesse
rice-acc Chelswu ate
lsquo(intended) Chelswu ate the ricersquo
b Chelswu pap-(ul) mekesse
Next concerning (iia) I suggest that it is basically the same as (iva)
(iv) a kay-ka Chelswu-ka mwuesepta
dog-nom Chelswu-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo (cf Good as lsquoThe dog is afraid of Chelswursquo)
b Chelswu-ka kay-ka mwuseppta
Chelswu-nom dog-nom afraid
lsquo(intended) Chelswu is afraid of dogsrsquo
In any case it seems clear that there are interfering factors involved in (iii) and (iv) which I suspect have
to do with more general properties of scrambling and (multiple) Case marking I put aside further
explorations of these issues for future research25 But see Sect 7 for some special cases involving n26 It should also be noted that the stem of [+V] elements in Korean is typically a bound morpheme
which requires suffixes to be attached to it for their morphological well-formedness (See Kang 1988 for
the notion of ldquomorphological closurerdquo) This may be considered another reason why n-drop is not
available See Sect 7
Genitive Case in Korean 379
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2032
If we assume that the prenominal clause in (33) is in the Θ-marked complement
position of the head noun the presence of n which is actually obligatory here may
appear problematic for the current analysis However there are several reasons why
the occurrence of n here does not pose a problem for the current analysis First it
has been argued by several researchers that noun complement clauses do not occupya Θ-marked position For instance Stowell (1981) proposes that noun complement
clauses are appositive modifiers In addition Murasugi (2000) argues that in
Japanese there is no distinction between relative clauses and noun complement
clauses They are both clausal modifiers of nouns which occupy the specifier
position of some functional projection above NP2728 Furthermore An (2007)
shows that in many languages including Serbo-Croatian Tagalog Brazilian
Portuguese and English noun complement clauses are obligatorily parsed as
separate intonational phrases which suggests that they are not sitting in a Θ-marked
complement position If these proposals are on the right track the obligatoryoccurrence of n in noun complement clauses (as well as in relative clauses) in
Korean actually provides additional support for the current analysis rather than
posing a problem for it29
63 GD and compounding
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether GD involves
compounding This is a reasonable question but there is reason to believe that
compounding is not relevant For instance GD is possible for syntactically complexelements as shown below
(34) [ku [mikwuk-eyse o-n] haksayng]-(uy) ilum
that America-from came-n student-gen name
lsquothe name of that student who came from Americarsquo
Here the prenominal noun haksayng lsquostudentrsquo is itself modified by the demonstra-
tive ku lsquothatrsquo as well as the relative clause mikwuk-eyse o-n lsquowho came from
27 Recall also that n obligatorily shows up in relative clauses as well28 Although I cannot go into the details of Murasugirsquos (2000) arguments here for reasons of space the
types of construction she examines are also attested in Korean except for some cases where certain
language-specific properties interfere Thus I believe that to a large extent her arguments can be directly
extended to Korean as well In particular the obligatory presence of n in relative clauses and noun
complement clauses is consistent with Murasugirsquos proposal that there is no distinction between relative
clauses and noun complement clauses29
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether n can be considered a marker of relativization This is a reasonable question as several researchers argue that even prenominal adjectives
bearing n are reduced relative clauses However as discussed in the main text the predicate of a noun
complement clause also bears n This indicates that regardless of the construction type a prenominal
[+V] category is always marked with n Recall also that n is referred to as a prenominal modifier marker
in Korean grammar See also Murasugi (2000) mentioned in the previous footnote for relevant
discussion
380 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2132
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2232
(38) a tol-tari
stone-bridge
lsquoa stone bridgersquo
b kiwa-cip
tile-houselsquoa tile roofed housersquo (cf kiwa lsquoKorean traditional roofing tilersquo)
I take these to indicate that in GD contexts we are not dealing with the process of
compounding
64 The position of prenominal arguments and GD
An anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that under the current analysis the
prenominal elements in (27a) repeated below as (39a) and those in (27c) repeated
below as (39b) should occupy different structural positions
(39) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen invasion
lsquothe communist armyrsquos invasion of South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan chimlyak
It is correct that under the current analysis the uy-marked elements in (39a) are
outside of NP while the prenominal element without uy in (39b) are inside of NP
The question is whether there is any independent way to show this structuraldifference Devising a test for that requires further investigation but I think the
following contrast is suggestive
(40) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
communist army-gen South Korea-gen two-CL-gen invasion
lsquo(roughly) the two instances of the communist armyrsquos invasion of
South Korearsquo
b kongsankwun namhan twu-pen-uy chimlyak
The pattern here is actually predicted by the current analysis Given that the first two
prenominal elements precede an element marked with uy they are expected to be
uy-marked as well But that also illustrates that the prenominal elements in (40a)
and (40b) do not occupy the same position Only uy-marked elements can occur
before the numeral-classifier32
32 Interestingly the uy-marked elements in (40a) allow all of the logically possible combinations
concerning their order (as long as the order between the agent and theme is preserved (cf Footnote 24)
(i) a kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy twu-pen-uy chimlyak
b kongsankwun-uy twu-pen-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
c twu-pen-uy kongsankwun-uy namhan-uy chimlyak
I take these ordering possibilities to reflect the status of these prenominal elements as adjoined elements
See also the discussion in Sect 7
382 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2332
65 Numeral-classifiers and Uy-marking
Concerning the obligatory uy-marking on numeral-classifiers in Korean as shown in
(24a) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that in Japanese where a direct
counterpart of (24a) is available the sequence langnoun + Num-CLrang is also possibleIn fact Korean allows such a sequence as well
(41) a na-nun [sey-kwen-uy chayk]-ul sassta (= (24a))
I-top three-CL-gen book-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
b na-nun [chayk sey-kwen]-ul sassta
I-top book three-CL-acc bought
lsquoI bought three booksrsquo
The question is why the numeral-classifier in (41b) is not marked with uy
Before addressing this issue I should perhaps note first that analyzing the
numeral-classifier construction is not my primary concern and will certainly take us
far afield which prevents me from going into too much detail here Still I would
like to point out a couple of things that might be relevant Here the crucial factor is
the inverted order of the relevant prenominal elements There seem to be several
possibilities for deriving (41b) putting aside the question about the relation between
(41a) and (41b) One is to suppose that the noun head moves up (via head movement
or even NP movement) from below the position of the numeral-classifier Then the
question arises why the numeral-classifier is not marked with uy although it would
have been ldquoprenominalrdquo before the movement of the noun One of the possibilities
that comes to mind is that perhaps realization or insertion of uy is based on the
configuration in the postsyntactic component (or S-structure so to speak) which is
actually not far removed from the current analysis33 Thus at the relevant point the
numeral classifier is no longer prenominal which presumably does not qualify for
uy-insertion Alternatively note that in (41b) the numeral-classifier is actually
marked with the accusative Case marker ul which is licensed by the main verb
Thus perhaps when there is competition between uy and other structural Case
markers like ul the latter kind wins out There may still be other options to explorebut I leave them aside for future research
66 Uy-Marking and interpretation of prenominal elements
Finally the current analysis may also provide a potential account of the often-made
observation that uy-marked prenominal elements unlike those without uy tend to be
interpreted to be more specific D-linked definite or salientmdashproperties often
associated with displaced elements (Choi 2009 Ahn and Cho 2007 among others)
Although further details need be worked out it seems that this tendency can bederived at least partly from the current analysis where prenominal elements without
33 Recall that in Saito et al (2008) terms no the genitive Case marker in Japanese which shares many
properties with uy (An 2009) is a ldquocontextualrdquo Case marker which I assume can essentially be extended
to uy as well
Genitive Case in Korean 383
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2432
uy are supposed to stay in situ in the local domain of the head noun while those
bearing it are merged with some functional projection above the lexical domain
7 Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and noun phrase structure in Korean
In this section I introduce a different set of prenominal elements and discuss their
properties In particular I examine these prenominal modifiers in light of
Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 which states that there is a strong cross-
linguistics tendency concerning the order of demonstratives numerals and
adjectives in prenominal position That is they are arranged in the order Dem [
Num [ A I show however that prenominal modifiers in Korean do not behave
uniformly concerning Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and argue that the state of affairs
can be accounted for under the current analysis The discussion is also shown tohave implications for noun phrase structure in Korean which has not received much
attention in the literature until very recently (see Hong 2010 Kim 2010 and Kim
2012 for relevant discussion and references)
71 Ordering of prenominal modifiers in Korean and Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
As mentioned above Greenbergrsquos (1963) Universal 20 (henceforth GU20) states
that in prenominal position the order of demonstrative numeral and adjective
conforms to the order Dem [ Num [ A34
That said note that Korean is one of therepresentatives of so-called ldquofree word orderrdquo language Indeed prenominal
elements in Korean seem to enjoy a great deal of freedom in word order as
illustrated in (42)35
(42) a ku twu-chay-uy saylowu-n kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two-CL-gen new-n building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku saylowu-n twu-chay-uy kenmwul (Dem [ A [ Num)
c twu-chay-uy ku saylowu-n kenmwul (Num[
Dem[
A)d twu-chay-uy saylowu-n ku kenmwul (Num [ A [ Dem)
e saylowu-n ku twu-chay-uy kenmwul (A [ Dem [ Num)
f saylowu-n twu-chay-uy ku kenmwul (A [ Num [ Dem)
On the surface this state of affairs seems to be inconsistent with the predictions
of GU20 I think situations like this have unduly rendered unattractive any serious
attempts at investigating the structure of noun phrases in the language from a more
34 Although Dem [ Num [ A is by far the most commonly observed order of prenominal elementsacross languages it is not the only order GU20 is concerned with However those other possibilities are
not relevant to the current discussion See Cinque (2005) for further discussion and references35 The examples in (42) may differ slightly from one another with respect to scope interpretation
However what is important for us is the fact that all of the logically possible combinations of the relevant
prenominal elements are attested in the language
384 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2532
general theoretical point of view which in turn has led to the relative paucity of the
discussion on the topic in the literature
Nevertheless it is hasty to conclude that noun phrases and prenominal elements
in Korean behave in a way that is completely unexpected by GU20 In fact it turns
out that there is a set of prenominal elements whose distribution conforms to thepredictions of GU20 36 The relevant elements form a relatively small set consisting
of demonstratives numerals and adjectives which are of native Korean origin and
are usually monosyllabic37 Crucially the relative order of these items is strictly
Dem [ Num [ A as shown below
(43) a ku twu say kenmwul (Dem [ Num [ A)
the two new building
lsquothe two new buildingsrsquo
b ku say twu kenmwul ( Dem [ A [ Num)c twu ku say kenmwul ( Num [ Dem [ A)
d twu say ku kenmwul ( Num [ A [ Dem)
e say ku twu kenmwul ( A [ Dem [ Num)
f say twu ku kenmwul ( A [ Num [ Dem)
This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the prenominal elements in (42) which
are semantically very close to the prenominal elements in (43) (Below in places
where a distinction has to be made I refer to the numerals and adjectives in (42) as full
numerals and full adjectives and the corresponding elements in (43) as bare numerals
and bare adjectives) Thus at first blush it appears that there are two different classes
of prenominal modifiers in Korean which behave differently with respect to GU2038
36 After I submitted the first draft of this paper I learned that Kang (2005) had also investigated similar
elements in relation to GU20 although the focus of his analysis is somewhat different than mine I refer
the reader to Kangrsquos work for details37 I present below a few more examples
(i) Demonstratives i lsquothisrsquo ku lsquothatrsquo ce lsquothatrsquo etc
(ii) Numerals han lsquoonersquo twu lsquotworsquo sey lsquothreersquo etc(iii) Adjectives say lsquonewrsquo yeys lsquooldrsquo ttan lsquootherrsquo mayn lsquomostrsquo etc
See also Kang (2005) Hong (2010) Kim (2010) and Kim (2011) for relevant discussion
38 Given the data in (42) and (43) an anonymous reviewer for JEAL asks whether demonstratives have a
longer form bearing uy To answer the question first there does not seem to be a longer form of
demonstratives unlike bare adjectives and bare numerals In fact there are a few other aspects in which
demonstratives differ from adjectives and numerals For instance certain defective nouns can combine
with demonstratives but not with numerals and adjectives regardless of whether the latter are bare or
full (Here defective nouns are a class of native nouns which must be used with a preceding modifier such
as a demonstrative a modifying clause or another noun (Sohn 1999))
(i) ikuce cuum lsquoaround thisthat timersquo ikuce ccum lsquoabout thisthat muchrsquo etc
(NB It is a bit difficult to translate cuum and ccum into English They both indicate some sort of approximation)
In addition intuitively demonstratives seem to have less lexical content than numerals and adjectives
At the moment I am not sure why these differences exist This might as well be an accident In any
case this does not seem crucially relevant for the current analysis and thus I put aside these issues for
future research
Genitive Case in Korean 385
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2632
72 Reconciling prenominal modifiers in Korean with GU20
The question that arises here is whether the prenominal modifiers in (42) are
genuine exceptions to GU20 and whether there is any principled way to account for
the differences between (42) and (43) Concerning this I believe that the exceptionsto GU20 illustrated by the data in (42) are only apparent and that prenominal
elements in Korean do indeed conform to GU20 in their essentials
First concerning the fixed order of the prenominal elements in (43) I assume
essentially following Cinque (2005) that their Dem [ Num [ A order follows
from the fact that they each head independent projections and contribute to the
expansion of the extended nominal projection in a manner illustrated in (44) (Here
for the sake of argument I assume the head-initial phrase structure and ignore
certain irrelevant details in the tree diagram See also Kayne 1994 and Cinque 2005
for relevant discussion)
(44) DemP
Dem NumP
Num AP
A NP
Next notice that there is an important difference between the prenominal
elements in (42) and those in (43) That is the prenominal elements in (42) (except
for the demonstrative ku lsquothethatrsquo) bear the K-suffixes uy and n as in twu-chay-uy
lsquotworsquo and saylowu-n lsquonewrsquo whereas none do in (43) More importantly only the
prenominal elements without a K-suffix conform to the order dictated by GU20 as
noted in (43)
Given this I suggest that these two properties are not coincidental That is notethat as the tree diagram in (44) illustrates the merger of the prenominal elements in
(43) is triggered by selection as they form a series of head-complement relations
Thus under the analysis of the K-suffix proposed above it follows that the
prenominal elements in (43) never have to bear the K-suffix although they
exclusively occur in prenominal position39 Concerning the full numerals and full
adjectives in (42) which manifest free word order I assume that not being selected
elements they can adjoin to or occupy the specifier position of some functional
projection above NP where the K-suffix is required of them40
39 In fact the elements in question (as well as those in (iii) in Footnote 37) can only be used attributively40 As an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out numeral-classifiers in some languages for instance
Chinese have often been argued to establish a head-complement relation with the noun they modify
(Tang 1990 Cheng and Sybesma 1999 and Li 1999) As mentioned in the main text I assume however
that numeral-classifiers in Korean are adjuncts Concerning this note that the obligatory presence of uy on
numeral-classifiers in Korean which parallels other non-selected elements is a question to be answered
386 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2732
There is further evidence in support of this analysis In Korean there is a group
of adjectives containing the morpheme cek (Hong 1994 2010 and Bak 2006) Cek
is a derivational morpheme that typically attaches to Sino-Korean nouns to derive
adjectives In prenominal contexts the cek -adjective can be used in two different
forms In one case the adjective is followed by the copula i and the K-suffix n as in(45a) (call it ldquolong-formrdquo) in the other case the adjective stands alone without n as
in (45b) (call it ldquoshort-formrdquo)
(45) a yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b yelcengcek chengnyen
enthusiastic youngster
lsquoan enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
What is interesting for our purposes is that in some respects the short-form cek -
adjective is similar to GD For instance the alternation between the long-form and
short-form cek -adjectives is not free That is under normal circumstances the short-
form cek -adjective is allowed only if it is adjacent to the head noun if the adjective
is not adjacent to the head noun we must resort to the long-form as shown in (46)
and (47)
(46) a ce yelcengcek-i-n chengnyen
that enthusiastic-cop-n youngster
lsquothat enthusiastic youngsterrsquo
b ce yelcengcek chengnyen
that enthusiastic youngster
(47) a yelcengcek ce chengnyen
enthusiastic that youngster
b yelcengcek-i-n ce chengnyen
enthusiastic-cop-n that youngster
(46) illustrates that when the cek -adjective is adjacent to the head noun both the
long-form and short-form cek -adjectives are allowed On the other hand when it is
separated from the head noun as in (47) the short-form cek -adjective is not
possible This is reminiscent of the locality condition on GD
Given this I suggest that the short-form cek -adjective is special in that it behaves
like the bare adjective in (44) which is why this element does not bear the K-suffix
Footnote 40 continued
by anyone who tries to extend the head-complement analysis to numeral-classifiers in Korean Theadjunct analysis also receives further plausibility from the fact that numeral-classifiers in Korean can be
reordered rather freely with respect to other uy-marked elements as shown in Footnote 32 In addition in
comparing numeral-classifiers in Chinese and Japanese Saito et al (2008) argue that numeral-classifiers
in Japanese are adjuncts unlike their Chinese counterparts Given that numeral-classifiers in Korean and
Japanese are quite similar in the relevant respects this also provides indirect support for the current
analysis
Genitive Case in Korean 387
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2832
Furthermore given (44) the ungrammaticality of (47a) follows straightforwardly It
goes against GU20 Given this an anonymous reviewer for JEAL points out that
under the current analysis it is predicted that the short-form cek -adjective can be
followed by a prenominal constituent if the latter undergoes GD This prediction is
actually borne out as shown below
(48) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon kanguy
Chelswu-gen passionate syntax lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture on syntaxrsquo (adapted from Hong 1994)
Here the short-form cek -adjective yelcengcek lsquopassionatersquo precedes the theme
argument thongsalon lsquosyntaxrsquo which is without the genitive Case marker uy41
Concerning the long-form cek -adjective recall that it involves the copula which
I take to indicate that the adjective is actually bigger than a simple A
0
it is ratherlike a prenominal modifying clause42 Therefore this element does not establish a
head-complement relation with NP and is adjoined to (or occupies the spec position
of) some functional projection above NP It is then correctly predicted that this
element bears the K-suffix Crucially only when it bears the K-suffix does it have
freedom of word order just like the cases we examined in (42)
To summarize I have addressed in this section the following questions (i) Why
is it that some prenominal elements do and others do not conform to the predictions
made by GU20 (ii) Why is it that certain prenominal elements are never required to
bear the K-suffix (iii) Why is it that only those elements in (ii) conform to GU20 I
have suggested that those elements mentioned in (ii) and (iii) project independent
projections and their introduction to the structure is licensed by selectional relations
requiring no K-suffix Regarding those elements that apparently do not conform to
GU20 and enjoy freedom of word order I have suggested that they occupy non-
selected positions and thus must be realized with the K-suffix Finally I have also
shown that the behavior of a special class of adjective called the cek -adjective
further corroborates the current analysis
41 It is also significant that (48) becomes degraded if the theme argument is marked with uy
(i) Chelswu-uy yelcengcek thongsalon-uy kanguy
C-gen passionate syntax-gen lecture
lsquoChelswursquos passionate lecture in syntaxrsquo
This implies that the lowest NP-external position where a prenominal element is obligatorily marked
with the K-suffix is higher than the position of the bare adjective (including the short-form cek -adjective)Crucially this also indicates that the distribution of the relevant prenominal elements here can provide a
toolbox for examining the fine-grained structure of noun phrase in Korean which I put aside for
subsequent research for reasons of space42 Kim (2012) argues more generally that n-marked adjectives in prenominal position including the
long-form cek -adjective involve reduced relative clauses
388 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 2932
8 Conclusion
In this paper I presented a fresh perspective on the nature of the so-called genitive
Case marker uy in Korean In particular I argued that the occurrence of uy is not
contingent on the licensing of abstract genitive Case of its host For instance Ishowed that it obligatorily attaches to prenominal PP modifiers and adjuncts Seen
from the perspectives of Case in generative grammar the behavior of uy does not
seem to qualify as something crucially involved in Case licensing In this respect it
actually seems inappropriate to refer to this element as a Case marker
I also argued that uy is in an allomorphic relation with the K-ending n which
clearly has nothing to do with Case licensing I argued that uy and n are different
contextual realizations of an abstract K-suffix where K stands for kwanhyengsa-
hyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo a term borrowed from traditional Korean non-
generative grammar As mentioned earlier uy and n are both categorized as sometype of kwanhyengsahyeng lsquoprenominal modifier formrsquo an intuition that has not
drawn any attention in the generative literature on Korean In this respect the
current analysis presents a generative reinterpretation of an old insight from Korean
grammar
Moreover I showed that the current analysis has implications for the structure of
noun phrases in Korean In particular I addressed this issue from the perspectives of
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 which describes a cross-linguistic tendency in the order
of prenominal elements I argued that the superficial counterexamples to Green-
bergrsquos Universal 20 are only apparent and are in fact amenable to a principledexplanation under the current analysis I also explained why certain prenominal
elements never occur with the K-suffix and why only these elements conform to
Greenbergrsquos Universal 20
Finally one of the questions I leave open here is the extent to which the current
proposal can be extended to other types of Case markers in Korean It is also worth
mentioning that an anonymous reviewer for JEAL raises the question whether
nominal arguments of nouns need Case in Korean if uy indeed has nothing to do
with Case I think the question can be asked in more general terms Do noun phrases
in Korean need Case Concerning this I believe the answer should be in the
positive if one assumes the formulations of Case in GB or Minimalism to be
universal at least in their essentials However based on the behavior of the so-called
genitive Case marker uy I argue in this paper that the surface realization of the Case
marker in question does not tell us whether a given noun phrase is licensed with
respect to Case To some extent the same may be applicable to other Case markers
As is well-known there are many contexts where nominative and accusative Case
markers (let alone the genitive Case marker) in Korean behave quite differently
from corresponding Case forms in other languages For instance there are multiple
nominative and accusative constructions nominative and accusative markings are
sometimes available on elements which are not noun phrases or not even arguments
these Case markers can be omitted in certain contexts etc Given this one could
entertain the hypothesis that nominal arguments in Korean are licensed for Case in a
way not morphologically reflected on the surface and that traditional Case markers
serve some other functions than Case licensing similarly to what I proposed
Genitive Case in Korean 389
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3032
concerning uy An extreme view along that line would be that Case in Korean is
more abstract than that of English in that it is never reflected morphologically
Similarly concerning the reviewerrsquos question mentioned above one could assume
that as in English nominal arguments of nouns are assigned an inherent Case
although it is not phonologically realized (and uy is simply a marker of a prenominalmodifier as argued above) In any case it seems that the various phenomena
involving Case markers mentioned above are curious enough to warrant a rethinking
of the notion of Case and Case marking in the language (as well as other languages
employing Case markersmdashmost notably Japanese) which I put aside for future
research
Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to Mamoru Saito for his insightful comments
encouragement and kindness I am also grateful to several other people who contributed to this research
at its various stages including but not limited to Hee-Don Ahn Jonathan Bobaljik Z eljko Boskovic
Tomohiro Fujii Teresa Griffith Yu-On Kang Hideki Kishimoto Keiko Murasugi Bum-Sik Park MasaoOchi and Sandra Wood I also thank three anonymous reviewers for JEAL for their comments which
helped improve the paper significantly
References
Ahn Hee-Don and Sungeun Cho 2007 Non-case-marked wh-phrases and left-dislocation In University
of Maryland working papers in linguistics 16 ed Akira Omaki Ivan Ortega-Santos Jon Sprouse
and Matt Wagers 111ndash141 College Park MD UMWPiL
An Duk-Ho 2007 Clauses in noncanonical positions at the syntaxndashphonology interface Syntax 10 38ndash
79An Duk-Ho 2009 A note on genitive drop in Korean Nanzan Linguistics 5 1ndash16
An Duk-Ho 2010 On the curious nature of the genitive Case in Korean Paper presented at GLOW in
Asia viii Beijing Language and Culture University China
An Duk-Ho 2012a Some thoughts on Nacute-ellipsis in Korean Paper presented at the 8th Workshop on
Altaic Formal Linguistics (WAFL) Universitat Stuttgart Germany
An Duk-Ho 2012b NP-ellipsis its impostors and minor argument pronominalization Korean Journal
of Linguistics 37 345ndash356
Anderson Mona 1983 Prenominal genitive NPs The Linguistic Review 3 1ndash24
Bak Jeong-Sup 2006 On the optionality of the genitive Case marker uy Studies in Generative Grammar
16 3ndash18
Blake Barry 1994 Case Cambridge Cambridge University PressCheng Lisa Lai-Shen and Rint Sybesma 1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP
Linguistic Inquiry 30 509ndash542
Cho Young-Mee Yu and Peter Sells 1995 A lexical account of inflectional suffixes in Korean Journal
of East Asian Linguistics 4 119ndash174
Choi Ki-Yong 2009 Hankwuke kyekkwa cosauy sayngsengthongsalon [ A generative grammatical
analysis of Case and nominal suf 1047297 xes in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Mwunhwasa
Chomsky Noam 1980 On binding Linguistic Inquiry 11 1ndash46
Chomsky Noam 1981 Lectures on government and binding Dordrecht Foris
Chomsky Noam 1986 Knowledge of language Its nature origin and use New York Praeger
Chomsky Noam 1995 The Minimalist program Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2000 Minimalist inquiries The framework In Step by step Essays on minimalist
syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka 89ndash155Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chomsky Noam 2001 Derivation by phase In Ken Hale A life in language ed Michael Kenstowicz
1ndash52 Cambridge MA MIT Press
390 D-H An
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3132
Chomsky Noam 2008 On phases In Foundational issues in linguistic theory Essays in honor of Jean-
Roger Vergnaud ed Robert Freidin Carlos P Otero and Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 133ndash166
Cambridge MA MIT Press
Chung Daeho 2005 What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean
Lingua 115 549ndash568
Cinque Guglielmo 2005 Deriving Greenbergrsquos Universal 20 and its exceptions Linguistic Inquiry 36315ndash332
Greenberg Joseph 1963 Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements In Universals of language ed Joseph Greenberg 73ndash113 Cambridge MA
MIT Press
Han Eunjoo 1994 A prosodic analysis of Korean compounding In Theoretical issues in Korean
linguistics ed Y-K Kim-Renaud 61ndash76 Stanford CSLI
Hong Yong-Tcheol 1994 Yunghap ilonkwa kyekcosa punpo [Incorporation theory and the distribution
of Case markers] Studies in Generative Grammar 4 1ndash43
Hong Yong-Tcheol 2010 Peripheral nominal modifiers and noun phrase structure in Korean Studies in
Generative Grammar 20 27ndash50
Kang Young-Se 1986 Korean syntax and universal grammar PhD Dissertation Harvard University
Kang Myung-Yoon 1988 Topics in Korean syntax Phrase structure variable binding and movement
PhD Dissertation MIT
Kang Soon Haeng 2005 On the adjective in Korean University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics
15 153ndash169
Kayne Richard S 1994 The antisymmetry of syntax Cambridge MA MIT Press
Kim Jong-Bok 2010 On the NP structure and prenominal ordering in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 20 579ndash602
Kim Sen-Hyo 2011 Hankwuke kwanhyenge yenkwu [ An analysis of Korean prenominal modi 1047297ers]
Seoul Yekrak
Kim Min-Joo 2012 On the position of adnominal adjectival expressions in Korean MS Texas Tech
University
Kim Soowon and Joan Maling 1993 Syntactic case and frequency adverbials in Korean In Harvard studies in Korean linguistics V Proceedings of the 1993 Harvard international symposium on Korean
linguistics ed S Kuno et al 368ndash378 Cambridge MA Harvard University
Kitagawa Chisato and Claudia Ross 1982 Prenominal modification in Chinese and Japanese Linguistic
Analysis 9 19ndash53
Ko Young-Keun 2000 Phyocwun cwungsey kwukemwunpenron [Standard grammar of Middle Korean]
Seoul Cipmwuntang
Larson Richard 1985 Bare-NP adverbs Linguistic Inquiry 16 595ndash621
Lee Ik-Seop and Wan Chae 1999 Kwukemwunpeplon kanguy [ Lectures on the grammar of Korean]
Seoul Hakyensa
Lee Wooseung 2009 The role of Case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building PhD
Dissertation University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Li Yen-Hui Audrey 1999 Plurality in a classifier language Journal of East Asian Linguistics 8 75ndash99Malchukov Andrej and Andrew Spencer 2009 The Oxford handbook of case New York Oxford
University Press
Murasugi Keiko 2000 Japanese complex noun phrases and the antisymmetry theory In Step by step
Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik ed Roger Martin David Michaels and Juan
Uriagereka 211ndash234 Cambridge MA MIT Press
Mwun Swuk-Yeng 2009 Hankwukeuy sicey pemcwu [Categories of tense in Korean] Seoul
Kwukehakhoy
Nam Ki-Shim and Young-Keun Ko 1994 Phyocwun kwuke mwunpeplon [Standard grammar of
Korean] Seoul Thap Publishing
Pesetsky David 1982 Paths and categories PhD Dissertation MIT
Saito Mamoru and Duk-Ho An 2010 A comparative syntax of ellipsis in Japanese and Korean In Proceedings of the 6th workshop on Altaic formal linguistics MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
61 ed Hiroki Maezawa and Azuka Yokogoshi 287ndash307 Cambridge MA MITWPL
Saito Mamoru Jonah Lin and Keiko Murasugi 2008 Nacute-ellipsis and the structure of noun phrases in
Chinese and Japanese Journal of East Asian Linguistics 17 247ndash271
Sohn Ho-Min 1999 The Korean language New York Cambridge University Press
Genitive Case in Korean 391
1 3
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An
892019 An- 2014- Genitive Case in Korean and Its Implications for Noun Phrase Structure
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullan-2014-genitive-case-in-korean-and-its-implications-for-noun-phrase-structure 3232
Sohng Hong-Ki 2004 A minimalist analysis of adverbial Case in Korean Studies in Generative
Grammar 14 103ndash136
Stowell Tim 1981 The origins of phrase structure PhD Dissertation MIT
Tang C-C Jane 1990 Chinese phrase structure and the extended X rsquo -theory PhD Dissertation Cornell
University
Wechsler Stephen and Yae-Sheik Lee 1996 The domain of direct Case assignment Natural Languageand Linguistic Theory 14 629ndash664
Woolford Ellen 2006 Lexical Case inherent Case and argument structure Linguistic Inquiry 37
111ndash130
Yang Ceng-Sek 2010 Hankwuke thongsakwucowa sikan haysek [Syntactic structure and temporal
interpretation in Korean] Seoul Hankuk Munwha
Yoon James Hye Suk 1995 Nominal verbal and cross-categorial affixation in Korean Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 4 325ndash356
392 D-H An