427
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: A Comparative
Study with Languages with DP*
28
Mi-Jeung Jo
(Pukyong University)
The goal of this paper is to determine major functional categories
concerning NPs in Korean and to characterize them in comparison with
determiners in articled languages. D in languages with DP crucially has
syntactic and semantic roles for NPs in such a language; it functions as
the subordinator which turns them into an argument, and it has the ability
to pick out a single instance of whatever described by an NP. In addition,
D is the locus of a lexically-governed semantic nominalizing operator
which shifts a property realized in an adjective into a generic and kind
reference. It will be argued that the phrasal Case Marker adjacent to the
phrase-final head is the most feasible subordinator of an NP in Korean.
The head in complement-head construction in Korean is the locus of
nominalizing operator; a grammatical noun kes can productively
nominalize a clause in all possible positions of an NP. An articless
language like Korean appears to have a syntactic nominalizing operator,
which is due to the two parametric factors, the head-final parameter and
phrasal morphological Case.
0. Introduction
The parallelism between the internal structures of a noun phrase and a
* This paper is written under the financial support of Pukyong University, made in the
program year of 2000.
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Mi-Jeung Jo
sentencce extends to functional categories related to these constituents and their
syntactic roles. A number of independent proposals have suggested that noun
phrases containing one or more functional head are parallel to COM, INFL and
AGR in the sentential system (cf. Abney (1987), Reuland (1983), Ritter (1991),
Szabolcsi (1987, 1994)). The purpose of this paper is to characterize two
nominal functional categories in Korean. The first topic concerns the question of
determining the functional superstructure of NPs which subordinates them as
arguments. The second topic is about a syntactic realization of a nominalization
operator in Korean which is distinguished from that in languages with articles.
In Section 1.1, we will introduce a theory on functions of determiners and
parametric variations concerning them. Section 1.2 shows that an articless
language such as Chinese can have an actual and an abstract subordinator for a
definite and an indefinite NP, despite the fact that a bare N(P) is freely allowed
to occur. In Section 1.3, it will be argued that the parallelism between functions
of complementizers and determiners must be expanded to their positions in
determining the subordinator of NPs in Korean; we propose that the phrasal
Case-markers in Korean appearing in NP-final position is the most feasible
candidate. Section 2 compares two different loci of a nominalization operator in
an articled language such as Greek and a non-articled language such as Korean.
1.0. Subordinator of an NP in Korean
Postulation of DP headed by functional category Determiner over a noun
phrase has been generally accepted as necessary in languages with articles. It is,
however, less clear whether a functional category corresponding to it exists in
languages without articles. The aim of this section is to find a nominal
functional category in Korean which has a function similar to determiners via
two steps. I will first examine the functions of determiners in detail, and then
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
429
discuss the functional superstructures of NPs in Chinese, which does not have
overt determiners like Korean.
1.1. Two Functions of Determiners: Subordinator and Demonstrative
Determiners are assumed to have two separate functions regarding an NP.
Szabolcsi (1987, 1994:181) and Stowell (1989) claim that only DPs can function
as arguments; NPs are predicates or “propositions,” and D turns them into
arguments. Szabolcsi considers that in this respect typical Ds like articles are
similar to complementizers which subordinate a clause. In addition, D has an
individualizing or singularizing function (Longobardi 1994:634); it has the
ability to pick out a single instance of whatever is described by an NP. This is
the function of a quantifier/demonstrative, labeled as “the deitic function of D”
by Cheng and Sybesma (1999).
The two distinct functions of determiners is originated from Bhatt and Yoon
(1992)'s observations on two distinct functions of complementizers; they argue
that items broadly classified cross-linguistically as complementizers both serve
as subordinator and indicate clause type. In languages like English these two
functions are lexicalized in a single morpheme. In many languages with rich
agglutinative morphology, however, these are carried by two separate
morphemes. Korean, Japanese and Hungarian are classified as such languages.
Szabolcsi (1994:218) cites such examples from Korean as in (1):
(1) a.
Bill-i
[John-i wa-ss ta]-ko
sayngkakha-n-ta
Nom Nom come-past-dec-Comp think-pres-dec
‘Bill thinks that John came.’
b. Bill-i
[John-i
wa-ss nunya]-ko
mul-ess-ta
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Mi-Jeung Jo
Nom
Nom come-past-Q-Comp
ask-past-dec
‘Bill asked whether John came.’
Szabolcsi further claims that the two functions of determiners can be either
conflated or lexicalized separately, analogous to the typology of complementizers.
English is a language which typically conflates these two functions as in the
case of complementizers, whereas Hungarian systematically lexicalizes them as
separate morphemes; both an article and other determiners may cooccur, as in
(2a), and a complementizer and a Wh-word indicating interrogative sentence can
appear together, as in (2b):
(2) a. az é n
minden allitas-om
the I(Nom) every
claim-poss.1sg
b. Nem tudom, hogy hol
not
‘my every claim’
van Já nos
know-I SUB where is
John(-Nom)
‘I do not know where Janos is.’
Under her analysis, Hungarian represents a typical language which has a pure
subordinator both at the clausal and the noun phrase level.
If Szabolcsi is correct on her insight on the parallelism between the functions
of determiners and complementizers and the parameters set on these functions,
it seems plausible to pose a question concerning an articless language such as
Korean; which element undertakes the function of the subordinator for an NP
argument? Szabolcsi (1994:213) is inclined to think that Korean has a
construction similar to the Hungarian example in (2a), citing the data in (3):
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
(3) i/ku
motun salam
this/that all
431
‘all the(se) people’
people
Nevertheless, the construction in (3) is misinterpreted, even under her
generalization on the two separate functions of determiners; i /ku ‘this/that’ are
not determiners equivalent to the article in Hungarian az in (2a); they are
demonstratives appearing within the structure of an NP.
The structural identity of the demonstratives in Korean will become clear in
a construction in which it interacts with a possessive pronoun or NP. Both a
determiner and a possessive can cooccur in Hungarian (cf. (2a) and Italian, as
in (4). In Italian, the first element appearing on the left of the nominal head is
always the article, and it also precedes the possessive pronoun (Giorgi and
Longobardi 1991:203):
(4) a. il mio libre (the my book)
b. *mio il libre (my the book)
However the relative order between a demonstrative and a possessive pronoun
in Korean is in reverse to that of the Italian and Hungarian counterparts (cf.
(2)):
(5) a. *ku na-ui
the I-Gen
chaek (lit. the my book)
book
b. na-ui ku chaek (lit. the my book)
I-Gen the book
Therefore, we assume that the structure of an NP in Korean concerning a
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Mi-Jeung Jo
demonstrative is similar to (6a), rather than (6b)1 :
(6) a. [N max [DP D ] [NMAX-1 . . . N . . . ]]
b. [DP D [NMAX . . . N . . .]]
Since a demonstrative in Korean ku is an optional element appearing within an
NP it is inappropriate to postulate DP as the superstructure of NPs functioning
as their subordinator.2
Fukui (1986:Ch. 4) has a similar observation on Japanese demonstratives such
as ko-no ‘this’ and a-no ‘that’; he observes that they behave like English
prenominal modifiers and that they do not have a property of closing off the
category projection, as in (7) (ibid:202):
(7) a. ko-no hon
b. John-no ko-no hon
‘this book’
lit. ‘John's this book’
c. akai John's ko-no hon lit. ‘red John's this book’
On the bases of this, he concludes that Japanese lacks the functional category
DET and hence, that noun phrases in Japanese are a projection of N, N' which
are always “open”.
Although NPs in Korean, like the Japanese counterparts, are not “closed off”
1. The two different structures of an NP in (5) is labeled as ‘the NP parameter’ (5a) and
‘the DP parameter’, respectively (Jo M.-J. (1999)).
2. Since the demonstratives i/ku/ce can modify only nouns, they are posited as a specifier
of an NP. In the head-last parameter, the domain of specifiers and that of complement are
not strictly divided as in the head-first parameter. Therefore, movement of these determiners
close to the head must be independently posited. Nevertheless, they cannot occupy in the
head position of DP which is structurally superior and precedes a possessive NP.
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
433
by the functional category DET, it does not necessarily mean that no functional
category plays the role of the subordinator of an NP which can close off the
projection of N. Therefore, I will pursue the question of which functional
category is the subordinator of NPs in Korean in section 1.3. In the next
section, the NP structures in the two Chinese languages, Mandarin and
Cantonese, and their subordinators proposed by Cheng and Sybesma (1999) will
be introduced in order to show that the NPs in these articless languages also
can have an overt and an abstract superstructure for an indefinite and a definte
NP.
1.2. Existence of an Abstract Subordinator for Bare Nouns
The obligatoriness of DP for an NP argument forces one to postulate an
empty D in languages with an article system. Longobardi (1994)'s proposal for
the distribution of bare nouns in some Romance languages and Germanic
languages can be summarized as follows. The core generalization is that bare
nouns with an indefinite interpretation are restricted to lexically governed
positions (essentially, object position). Longobardi claims that bare nouns are
not really bare: they are embedded in a full-fledged DP structure, with an empty
D head. The presence of an empty D head leads to an explanation for both the
indefinite interpretation and the restricted distribution of bare nouns. However,
there are other interpretations of bare nouns, involving generics and proper
names, that are not restricted to lexically governed positions. Longobardi
accounts for such bare nouns by arguing that the N-to-D movement has taken
place, either in overt syntax or at LF. Thus, the empty D-node of DP appears
to have a syntactic role of restricting occurrences and interpretations of bare
indefinite nouns in these languages.
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Mi-Jeung Jo
Chinese is an articless language, which allows bare nouns to appear as
arguments, and it has no distinction between mass/count nouns in terms of
plural morphology. According to Chiechia(1998)'s Nominal Mapping Parameter,
NPs in a language like Chinese are inherently argument, containing features
[-predicate, +argument], and hence they need not be licensed by a functional
category such as D. However, Cheng and Sybesma (1999), basically adopting
Szabolcsi's theoretical claim, discuss the restricted distribution of bare nouns
interpreted as indefinite and the issue of licensing them in Mandarin and
Cantonese. They show that bare nouns in Chinese must involve more structure
than just the bare N (or the bare NP).
Bare nouns in both Mandarin and Cantonese can have indefinite and generic
reading; only in the former language bare nouns have definite reading, whereas
in the latter language, only [classifier+N] (i.e., [Cl + N])) can be interpreted as
definite. Bare nouns with an indefinite reading are restricted to post-verbal
position in both languages. Since noun phrases with overt numerals can only be
interpreted as indefinite in the two languages, they further assume that indefinite
bare noun and [Cl + N] phrases are in fact, NumeralPs with an empty Numeral
head/ Cl head or only an empty Cl, analogous to the empty D in DP as
proposed by Longobardi.3 Under this account, surface strings of the form [Cl +
N] have two different structural representations; [Cl + N] with an indefinite
reading is a NumeralP, as in (8a), and [Cl + N] with a definite reading is a
ClP, as in (8b).
3. The interpretational possibilities of Bare nouns and [Cl + N] phrases in Cantonese(C)
and Mandarin(M) are summarized in the following table (Cheng and Sybesma (1999:512):
Indef
Def
Generic
Bare nouns
M/C
M
M/C
[Cl + N]
M/C
C
____
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
(8) a.
NumeralP
Numeral
b.
ClP
Cl
435
ClP
Cl
NP
NP
N
N
As for bare nouns, the one with an indefinite reading has the structure of (8a),
and the one with a definite reading has the structure of (8b) with an empty
functional head(s).
To summarize, bare nouns in the two Chinese languages are not really bare.
Cheng and Sybesma conclude that the classifier in Chinese expresses both
classification and number, at the same time performing the deictic/subordinative
function; thus the two languages have the conflated form of the two functions
of determiners as English, according to the typology that Szabolcsi proposed.
The analysis of Chinese NP by Cheng and Sybesma shows that functional
categories other than an article, such as numerals and classifiers, can function as
an overt and an abstract subordinator for an NP argument in an articleless
language. Turning to the question of NPs in Korean, it also has numerals
accompanying with classifiers for both count and mass nouns(, similar to
Mandarin).4 Nevertheless, it is unclear whether interpretation of an indefinite
bare N(P) is structurally governed, and thus, there is no motivation for
postulating an abstract subordinator for a bare N(P).
4. Cheng and Saysma claim that this phenomenon is related to the lack of plural/number
morphology in Chinese. This claim seems to hold in Korean, a language without number
morphology.
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Mi-Jeung Jo
1.3. The Phrasal Case-Marker as the head of KP
In this section, we will argue that position of a functional category must be
taken into consideration in determining the subordinator of NP in Korean; unlike
Chinese, Korean has phrasal morphological Case markers adjacent to the head,
and they not only marks Case of an NP but also they subordinate it as an
arguments.
The location of the subordinators of an NP and a clause appear to be a
significant factor for the typology of these functional categories; position of a
determiner, or other elements equivalent to it, is parallel to that of a
complementizer. They will be either phrase/clause-initial or phrase/clause-final.
As for the Hungarian examples in (2), determiner az and complementizer hogy
are both in the initial position of an NP and a clause, respectively. Similarly,
the determiner and the complementizer in English also occupy the initial
position.5
A complementizer in Korean is in clause-final and a morpheme representing
a sentence type is adjacent to it, as shown in the sentences in (1). This fact
suggests that the subordinator of an NP argument must be positioned in
NP-final. Szabolcsi disregards the fact that there exists no parallelism between
the positions of a complementizer and a demonstrative in Korean, as shown in
the examples in (1) and (3) in which the former is in the clause-final and the
latter, in phrase-initial. The most feasible candidate for the subordinator of an
5. Since the subordinator of an NP, overt or abstract one, is in the phrase-initial position
in Chinese, as given in the structures in (6) we can assume that a complementizer must be
in the clause-initial position. However, we are informed that Chinese has no overt
complementizer for an embedded clause. The absence of an overt complemtizer does not
counter the parallelism in the positions of the two subordinators.
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
437
NP is the phrasal Case markers such as ka/i for the Nominatives and (l)ul for
the Accusatives; they accompany all NP arguments regardless of whether they
are definite and indefinite. In contrast, (n)un, which is known as the Topic
marker in the initial position of a sentence can appear with both an NP and a
postpositional phrase (PP). Therefore, we can see that the two Case markers
function as the subordinators of an NP argument which turn it into an argument,
assigning Case at the same time. We postulate K (Case) in KP as the
superstructure of NP in Korean as in (9):
(9)
KP
NP
K
N
ka/i (Nominative)
(l)ul (Accusative)
The Nominative marker attached to a predicate NP (or a noun which is a
part of a predicate) is the default Case marker for a nonargument, as the
underlined elements in the sentences in (8)6 :
(10) a. Suil-i
Nom
uisa-ka
toe-ess-ta
doctor-Part become-Past-Dec
‘Suil has become a doctor.’
b. Sunae-ka
Nom
maum-i
coh-0-ta
heart-Part
good-Pres-Dec
‘Sunae is good-hearted.’
The nonarguments followed by the default Case marker in (10) behave
6. Stowell (1989) pointed out that the predicate phrase (of nominal Small Clause) are
nonreferential cateogires and a bare noun is allowed in such a context, as in we elected John
as president of the class.
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Mi-Jeung Jo
differently from an argument with the Nominative/Accusative Case marker; the
former cannot be freely reordered, as in (11), while the latter can be freely
reordered, as in (12).
(11) a. *uisa-ka
Suil-i toe-ess-ta
doctor-Part Nom
b. *maum-i Sunae-ka
heart-Part
become-Past-Dec
coh-0-ta
Nom good-Pres-Dec
(12) a. Suil-i Sunae-eyke senmuwl-ul cu-ess-ta
Nom
to
present-Acc give-Past-Dec
‘Suil gave a present to Sunae’
b. senmuwl-ul Sunae-eyke Suil-i cuw-ess-ta
The sentences in (12) show that a Case marker attached to an argument allows
free reorderings. However, such a property is absent in a default Case marker
given to a nonargument.
The existence of a grammatical element which functions as a subordinator of
an NP as well as a Case-marker is not an idiosyncratic phenomenon. Among
languages with DP, determiners in German carry out these two functions, in
addition to quantifying an NP (i.e., definiteness). K in KP in Korean, on the
other hand, is the subordinator of NPs, which is independent from the ‘deitic
function’ of D in a language with articles. The two functions of K in Korean
seem to be parallel to those of the complementizer -ko (cf. (1b); it is a
subordinator of a clause, and it is also assumed to be the Case-assigner of a
clausal argument (cf.Yim Y.-J. (1984)).
Hungarian has a morphological Case as well as the article system. The
Nominative Case is unmarked, and it is explicitly represented in a verb, and
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
439
only the Accusative Case is morphologically marked, as in (13) (an example
slightly modified from Szabolcsi (1994:222)):
(13) (En) eltitkolI
om
a /ezen/ valamenyi talalkozas-t
keep secret-Def.1SG the/this/each
meeting- ACC
‘I keep[def] the/this/each meeting secret.’
Given that the two functions of D are realized in separate morphemes, the
morphological Case in Hungarian (Zero or marked) represents a pure Casemarker
To conclude Section.1, it appears that languages without an article system
chooses a language-specific subordinator of NPs among various nominal
functional categories. In Chinese, Numeral P and ClP are the functional
categories which subordinate indefinite and definite NPs, respectively, and the
heads of these categories are allowed to be empty in restricted syntactic contexts
for specific readings. Although Korean shares significant common properties
concerning NP with Chinese, such as the lack of articles and plural morphology
(i.e. classifiers for both mass and count nouns) it has, unlike Chinese, a
morphological Case system; phrasal Case-markers such as ka/i (Nominative) and
(l)ul (Accusative) carry out the role of NP subordinator in Korean. They can be
omitted only in colloquial Korean as long as a sentence maintains the basic
word order (i.e. SOV order).
2. The Semantic Nominalization versus The Syntactic
Nominalization Operator
Having the different NP structures presented in (6), or having a different
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Mi-Jeung Jo
functional category as the NP sudordinator seems to have far-reaching
consequences to other phenomena relating to the structure of an NP. One of
them involves the locus of a nominalization operator. This section will discuss
two different loci of a nominalization operator in a language with articles such
as Greek and a language without them such as Korean. In the former the head
of DP, D involves nominalization of adjectives interpreted as generic and kind
references. In contrast, the head of NP, N in the latter functions as a clausal
nominalizer. The former process is a lexically governed semantic nominalization,
but the latter process involves a productive syntactic nominalization.
It is well-known that the ‘expletive’ definite determiner appears in generic
DPs in articled languages. For example, English has a curious form of adjective
nominalization, which can be used for generic and kind reference as in (14):
(14) a. The rich are greedy.
b. The poor are common.
The nominalized adjectives trigger plural agreement on the predicate and must
be accompanied by the definite article.
Chierchia (1998) assumes that there is a null nominal head with a plural
feature in the syntactic structure of these constructions as in the follwoing:
(15)
DP
D
NP
ADJ
N
[+pl]
the
rich
△
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
441
However, the question is why the resulting structure in (15) cannot be shifted
to denoting a kind without resorting to the definite article. Chierchia provides an
unsatisfactory account; phonologically null items must be licensed, but English
lacks null determiners; therefore, the presence of a null head with nominalized
adjectives can be licensed in English only by an overt determiner. This cannot
account for why the overt determiner can license a null head only for some
adjectives (e.g. *the addicted).
Giannakidou and Stavrou (1999) discuss the construction similar to those in
(14) in Greek as an instance of substantivization as in the following sentence:
(16) I
plusii
the rich.MASC.PL.NOM
ksexnun
apo
pu
ksekinisan
forget.3PL from where started.3PL
‘The rich forget where they started from.’
They clearly distinguish this phenomenon from another DP-internal phenomenon
in Greek, subdeletion, which involves ellipis; they treat a bare adjective in a
construction like (16) as a kind-denoting nominalization and the definite
determiner, as a type-shifting device. In other words, in their analysis, no empty
head is involved in the Greek counterpart, and the definite determiner is the
syntactic instantiation of the nominalization operator.
Giannakidou and Stavrou admit that the Greek pattern of substantivization is
not exactly identical to the relevant English (or Dutch) pattern. They argue that
unlike the English counterpart, the nominalized adjective in a construction like
(16) is a noun, not an adjective. Evidence for this are a fixed gender for the
nominalized adjective (contra various gender agreement of regular adjectives
with the head N) and exclusion of adverb modification as well as unavailability
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Mi-Jeung Jo
of comparatives and superlatives.7 The semantics of substantivization, as they
point out, should account for the four characteristics of this construction:(1) the
obligatory presence of the definite article, (2) its kind-denoting, generic
semantics, (3) the resistance to modification for adjectives and (4) lexical
constraints on the derivation of the construction.
The use of the definite article in Greek has two basic domains, namely the
referential use for definite description and the generic use for generic DPs. In
the referential use, the definite determiner denotes the extensional iota-operator;
in the generic use, it denotes the intensionalized version of iota-operator.
Giannakidou and Stavrou (1999) treat generic readings as the product of
nominalization, in the sense of Chierchia (1998), and consequently handle the
definite article in this case as the syntactic realization of the nominalization
operator. In their analysis, the definite article in generic DPs is not at all
expletive(as proposed in Longobardi (1994)), but contentful: the definite
determiner in substantivization construction, such as the sentence in (16), plays
the role of a nominalization operator.
Chierchia (1998)'s nominalization involves mapping between properties and
7. Sentence (14) in the text with a different gender will be ungrammatical as in (1a), and
no degree adverb or comparative/superlative form is allowed in this construction, as shown
in (1b) and (1c), respectively:
(1) a. *I
plusies
ksexnun
apo pu
ksekinisan
the rich.FEM.PL.NOM FORGET.3PL. from where started.3PL.
b. *I
poli
anapiri
griniazoun
sinexos
the very handicapped complain.3PL constantly
‘The very handicapped constantly complain.’
c. *I
plusioteri
ksexnun
apo
pu
ksekinisan
the rich.COMPR forget.3PL from where started.3PL
‘The richer forget where they started from.’
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
443
kinds; to any natural property, say DOG, there corresponds a kind, say
dog-kind. And kinds are intensionalized individuals; dog-kind can be thought as
the individual concept that comprises the totality of all dogs in all possible
worlds. Generally, there are type-shifting functions that allow us to express the
correspondence between kinds and properties and get from the one to the other.
One such function is the nominalization function ∩. If DOG is the property of
being a dog, then ∩DOG is the corresponding kind. Thus, an adjective
representing a certain property can be directly intensionalized by the definite
determiner, and the adjectives nominalized by it resist modification for
adjectives. Giannakidou and Stavrou's analysis based on the concept of
Chierchia's nominalization provides an adequate account for the three semantic
properties of the substantivization, except for the last one.
Nevertheless, not all adjectives in Greek can be nominalized by the definite
determiner, as with the English counterparts. Except for natural kinds, not all
properties correspond to kinds and what constitutes a kind is not settled in the
grammar; Giannakidou and Stavrou regard that it depends on the shared
knowledge of the speaker community. Due to the unsettled semantics of the
nominalization process, substantivization in Greek is subject to the lexical
constraints. Likewise, the variation across languages can be explained: i
eksartimeni ‘the addicted’ is a successful nominalization in Greek but the
addicted is ungrammatical in English. Hence, in principle, the inventory of
substantivizations is not expected to be identical across languages. The final
semantic property of the substantivization, the lexical constraint on the
nominalized adjective is adequately accounted for.
To summarize this section, the definite determiner in generic DPs is the locus
of the semantic nominalization operator in a language in which D is the
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Mi-Jeung Jo
subordinator of NPs, such as Greek. This shows that the definite determiner
appearing in D has an additional syntactic function other than the two functions
we have discussed in Section 1.1. It is unlikely that the substantivization
construction [definite determiner + adjective] is available in a language like
Korean, which has a demonstrative semantically equivalent to the definite
determiner, ku. In the following, however, we will show that a grammatical
noun appearing in the head position of the noun complement structure functions
as a syntactic nominalization operator.
There is a large class of nouns in Korean which are termed as ‘dependent’ or
‘defective’ nouns, since they have to be obligatorily expanded as a noun phrase.
Jo M.-J.(1999) regards this as a characteristic phenomenon in an articless
language (or a language with the structure of NPs in (6a)); it further
differentiates such nouns depending on whether they fulfill syntactic properties
of NPs with respect to their internal structure and their distributions in a
sentence. Among them, noun kes, represented as [N, THING], appears to be
nothing defective syntactically as a noun; it can be modified by specifiers of N
such as i/ku/ce/etten (this/the/that/which), and it can occur in all possible
syntactic positions for an NP. Although its semantic content is minimal, as
represented in a single feature, [N, THING] it is consistently maintained in all
these positions.
Noun kes, furthermore, does play several morphosyntactic roles from which
ordinary nouns and other ‘dependent’ nouns are excluded; it can be a
nominalizer of a clause in addition to other functional roles.8
9
The syntactic
8. Kes is also a part of inflectional elements such as the future tense complex -ul kes iand the conjecture modal complex ss-ul kes i-.
9. Therefore, it is treated as a ‘grammatical noun’ which is the nominal counterpart of a
‘grammatical verb’ such as ha ‘do’.
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
445
contexts for these grammatical roles can be formalized as in (17))10 :
(17) If kes in the head position of an NP has no argument status in its
complement clause (and an S), then it will undertake a certain
grammatical role.
The minimal semantic content of kes is neutralized precisely in the contexts
described in (17). A construction like (18a) meets the condition in (17), where
noun kes bears no relation to an argument in the preceding clause; it functions
as a clausal nominalizer, being totally devoid of meaning. Noun kes in a
construction like (18b), however, is related to an argument(i.e., coindexed with
an empaty NP) in a relative clause as are other relativized NPs11 , and thus,
this construction is excluded from the context described in (17); it retains its
semantic content, [THING]12 :
(18) a. Sunae-nun [S Suil-i kot
TM
ttena-l]
kes(*sasil)-ulo
Nom soon leave-Adn(future) thing(fact)-as
po-n-ta
see-Pres-Dec
‘Sunae regards that Suil will leave soon.’
10. It is the revised version of (14) in (Jo, M.-J.(1999):460).
11. This is not the restriction particularly limited to kes, but the general one to all
relativized NP. Thus, a predicate NP, which is a non-arguement cannot be relativized:
(1) * [S Sunae-ka 0i toe-n] uisai
12. Yang D.-W. (1972:133) and Fukui and Speas (1987:135) deal with a relative NP
headed by a pronoun in Korean and Japanese, repectively. The latters presents the relative
NP headed by a pro-form such as sore ‘it’ in order to show that such a pro-form is not
‘closed off’ as the English counterpart. However, the relative NP headed by -kes is different
from that headed by a pro-form in Korean such as ku ‘he’, ku-kes (lit. the-thing) ‘it’; it can
independently occur in an S, while -kes should be modified by a complement clause or other
elements.
446
Mi-Jeung Jo
b. [S Sunae-ka 0i coha-ha-nun]
Nom
kesi-i
mues-i-0-nya?
good-do-Adn(Pres) thing-Nom what-is-Pres-Q
'What is the thing(s) that Sunae likes?'
Noun kes cannot be replaced by a noun which selects a clausal complement
such as sasil ‘fact,’ as in (18a), and therefore, it is not a proform of a certain
noun. It is a noun which behaves like a functional category even in the head
position of NP.
Given the explicitly pronounced context for its grammatical roles in (17), we
can treat kes as a legitimate nominalizer for clauses (and VPs/APs) like the
nominalizing affixes in Korean -um and -ki. However, Yoon, H.-S.(1989: 213-5)
excludes the noun-complement structure like that in (18a) from nominalization
in Korean, limiting it to those with the two nominal affixes; he simply treats
kes like other ‘defective nouns’ which lack a clear meaning. As for a functional
category, the ‘lack of a clear meaning’ may not suggest an insignificant role; it
would rather be its quintessential property. The categorial identity of kes as an
N, however, remains intact in a construction like (18) despite the neutralization
of its meaning.
We will show that a clausal-nominalizer, kes is amore generalized one than
the two nominal affixes -um and -ki; while selections of the affixes for in
object NP are lexically controlled by a verb, kes is free from such a restriction.
-Um and -ki are in the complementary distribution in the following sentences
because of the different selectional features of the two verbs in the sentences
of (19):
(19) a. Suanei-ka [0i Suil-ul manna-ss-um(*ki)]-ul huwhoeha-ess-ta
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
Nom
Acc
447
meet-Past-Comp-Acc regret-Past-Dec
‘Sunae regretted that she met Suil.’
b. Suil-i [Sunae-ka tola-o-ki(*m)]-lul
Nom Nom
kitaeha-ko-iss-0-ta
return-come-Comp-Acc expect-ing-is-Pres-Dec
‘Suil is expecting that Sunae comes back.’
In contrast, noun kes can nominalize the constructions in the square brackets in
the above sentences as the head of the noun-complement structure:
(20) a. Sunaei-ka [0i Suil-ul manna-n ]
Nom
kes-ul
hwuhoeha-ess-ta
Acc meet-mod(past) thing-Acc regret-past-dec
‘Sunae regretted that she met Suil.’
b. Suil-i [Sunae-ka tolao-l ]
Nom
kes-ul
kitaeha-ko-iss-0-ta
Nom return-mod(fut) thing-Acc expect-ing-is-pres-dec
‘Suil is expecting that Sunae comes back.’
Therefore, despite Yoon H.-S.'s dismissal, noun kes in the noun-complement
structure appears to be a more productive nominalizer than the two nominal
affixes -um and -ki.
In general, the head position of NP is assumed to be not a typical position
for a functional element. Thus, one can ask the question how noun kes can
occur in head position of the noun-complement construction as a clausal
nominalizer. We assume that it is due to the two parametric properties of
Korean, the head-final parameter and the phrase-final NP subordinator. The
object NP in a sentence like (20a), in fact, has two stacked subordinators, the
nominal subordinator of a clause, kes and the subordinator of NP, K (the
Accusative maker) -ul. Its structure can be illustrated as in (21):
448
Mi-Jeung Jo
(21)
KP
NP
K
S
N
-kes
Nominal
-ul
Subordinator of NP
Subordinator of
a clause
The structure (21) shows that the head-final position is converted into the
subordinator of the preceding complement clause. Since noun kes is dominated
by the N node its syntactic identity must be maintained. A semantically
unspecific noun such as kes performs a grammatical role in the context
formalized in (17); the semantically underspecified noun in the head position of
an NP turns into a clausal nominalizer in the absence of an argument status in
an complement clause.
3. Conclusion
Since the definite determiner functions as the nominalization operator which
shifts a property into a kind reference, its generic use appears to be a general
property of languages with articles despite minor parametric variations (e.g. the
nominalized adjectives in Greek versus adjectives modified by adverbials in
Dutch and English). But such type-shifting operation is not applicable to all
adjectives, and hence the definite determiner is a semantic nominalization
operator. Nevertheless, in Modern Hebrew, according to Ritter(1991), the
Nominal Functional Categories in Korean: ...
449
definite determiner is copied to an adjective modifying a noun.13 Even if this
language has an article system, it seems implausible that the definite article has
the type-shifting function turning an adjective into a kind reference.
As for languages whose superstructure of NP is other than D, they do not
seem to have a common sudordinator and nominalization operator. Korean
happens to be a head-final language, and the subordinator of NP is the phrasal
Case-marker which is adjacent to the head. We have shown that a specific noun
such as kes can function as a syntactic nominalization operator for a clause in
head position. It is due to its consistent syntactic properties as a noun and its
semantic underspecification. It is an open question whether other articless
language such as Chinese and Japanese also has a syntactic nominalization
operator like Korean. Nevertheless, the existence of kes suggests that there can
be at least one nominalization operator within an NP or a functional projection
related to it.
13. According to Ritter's analysis of NPs in Modern Hebrew, a definite noun phrase and
the construct state (CS) constructions such as beyt (ha)-mora (house (the)-teacher) ‘The
teacher's house’ is DPs headed by D gen.
However, modifying adjectives always agree in definiteness as well as number and
gender, with the noun they modify. Definiteness agreement is indicated by the presence or
absence of a copy of the definite article on the AP, as in the following examples (Ritter
(1991:(7)):
(1) a. yeladim nexmad-im
‘nice children’
children nice-Masc-Pl
b. ha-yeladim
ha-nexmad-im
‘the nice children’
the-children the-nice-Masc-Pl
Given the copied definite article on an adjective in (1b), it is unlikely that D in Hebrew
can function as a semantic nominalization operator as that it does in Greek and English.
450
Mi-Jeung Jo
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