Earticle

This paper aims to investigate “double nominative ‘ka’ construction” based on spoken and written language in corpus which consist of a million words each. Findings; First; the usage frequency of double nominative constructions is only 1% that of the nominative marker ‘ka’. Second; the percentage use of double nominative ‘ka’ construction in spoken language is three times more than that in written language. Third, some adjectives, which require two thematic roles, make double nominative constructions at a rate of only 0.08%. Lastly, save for those adjectives, there are only a few verbs which make double nominative constructions, like ‘nada(나다)’, ‘neomda(넘다)’. According to these results, we suggest that nominative ‘ka’ has distinct functions at the syntactic and pragmatic levels, in addition to a function as a nominative marker at the morphological level. At the syntactic level, it could correspond with subject, on the assumption that sentence constituents and cases should be distinguished. Meanwhile, nominative ‘ka’ could be a focus marker regarding new information at the pragmatic level. Thus, it is unnatural to have double nominative ‘ka’ in a clause, because communication will be more effective when there is only one focus.

This study is on the functional meaning and the combining restriction of ‘-neun’ under the assumption that ‘-neu-+-eun’ is fused into ‘-neun’. The functional meaning of ‘-neun’ conveys the meaning and logical oder of the events of the adnominal clause and the main clause in utterance time. ‘-neun’ is combined when the utterance time precedes or is concurrent with the event of the adnominal clause or when the events of the adnominal clause and the main clause are concurrent. The study reveals that the combining restrictions of ‘-neun’ and pre-final ending come from the persistence of the combining restriction of ‘-neu-’ and with the new functional meaning of ‘-neun’. It isn't combined with ‘-deo-’ due to the persistence. It is caused by the new functional meaning that it isn't combined with ‘-eot-, -get-.’ It can be explained by the persistence or the new functional meaning that it isn't combined with an adjective or ‘-ida.’

The present dissertation, as a comprehensive discussion on the hearer honorific ‘-시-’, meticulously examines the various types of example sentences using the hearer honorific ‘-시-’, verifies its adequacy, and explains the reason for using ‘-시-’ to honor the hearer. It also attempts to explain example sentences that incorrectly restore omitted properties as well as sentences that are incorrectly interpreted by researchers in preceding studies. Consequently, the study was able to confirm a conspiracy between various Korean grammar elements and vocabulary elements, which aimed at honoring the hearer close at hand as much as possible in a particular discourse. Furthermore, the study claims the necessity for discussion and agreement regarding the issues of example sentences and subjects in order to resolve the issue of ‘-시-’

The purpose of this study is to explore and then visualize language networks between the semantic domains of the noun collocates of the English synonymous verbs such as stop, end, complete, and finish to investigate similarities and differences among four synonymous verbs with regard to key semantic domains. This paper demonstrates how semantic domains are shared with four synonyms and how they are connected in terms of weight degree. The Wmatrix web tool was used to analyse the semantic domains, and the Netminer 4.0 program was used to identify preference in the pairing of a key verb and the semantic domains of its collocates. It was found that even if a certain semantic domain is shared with all four synonyms, there are some differences in the strength of connection between semantic domains and those synonyms according to the meaning characteristics of those verbs.

The current study aims to examine whether or not there are any perceptual differences in learning English between students taking EGP courses and those taking ESP courses, and then, to find out whether or not the usefulness, their perception and attitudes towards English studies in the ESP group do not differ from each other across students in differing years. The subjects were 150 students from a university in Busan, Korea. For the instrument, the self-developed questionnaire survey was used to highlight their perceived needs and attitudes. The key findings were as follows: First, the comparison between the two groups showed that the ESP group is much more aware of the needs of ESP courses for their future career choices and the importance of specialized English than their counterpart. Second, the ESP group did not demonstrate statistically significant differences among freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, which suggests that they share the same perception and attitudes towards studying ESP courses. Based on the results from the study, suggestions will be made for the improvement of ESP programs in Korea

This study analyzed Korean elementary school students’ ‘essential components of reading ability achievement in national curriculum’ and the achievement of students’ reading ability and its empirical application to English education in Korea. Participants consists of 117 students: 53 in grade 4, and 64 in grade 6. After pre-testing them in the essential components of national curriculum, the results were compare and analyzed with the results of DIBELS(Dynamic Indicator Basic Early Literacy Skills) Next. The students showed significant achievements, in reading ability, in terms of the index of national curriculum, but these scores equal to the level of reading ability of kindergarten, grade 1, and benchmark scores in DIBELS Next. The study also showed various broad gaps between participants’ reading achievement scores and the benchmark scores. The study suggests the need for specific diagnosis of reading ability index and the development of curriculum-based measurement in order to propose the essential components of reading in national curriculum.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of topic familiarity enhancement strategies(i.e. text-based topic familiarity enhancement strategy, concept map-based topic familiarity enhancement strategy) on English reading comprehension as well as the relationship between English proficiency and topic familiarity enhancement strategies. A total of 177 college students who were divided into three groups(high, middle, low English proficiency groups) participated in the study and one-way ANOVA and two-way ANOVA were employed to analyze the collected data. The results showed that a concept map-based topic familiarity enhancement strategy had influence on English reading comprehension while a text-based one did not. Also, there were an interactional effect between topic familiarity enhancement strategies and English proficiency on English reading comprehension. Pedagogical implications and directions of further studies were presented.

The aim of this study is to compile an Offshore English corpus as English for specific purposes and develop an online web concordance program for learners of Offshore English. The Offshore English Corpus(OEC) was comprised of one hundred million words. It includes four major genres such as academy, news, law, training and consulting texts to represent this field. In order to compile the OEC, we consulted with some experts of academic and industry fields in offshore industry. For building the large corpus, we used natural language processing tools such as Python tool kits and created customized Python programs to automatically extract a lot of texts from various Web sites and PDF files. Unnecessary symbols and characters are eliminated through filtering process. Along with the Python program, we used free softwares such as Wget for crawling texts from various Web sites and nPDF for extracting only texts. After building the OEC, we developed an online web concordance program with which learners of Offshore English can search for collocations, genres, and concordances. This study will be expected to contribute not only to Offshore English education but also to other ESP education fields.

The purpose of this paper is to find out the reasons that a nasal stop /n/ is remarkably sensitive to plenty of assimilations in both place and manner of articulation in English. Through perceptual approach and voice analysis program of Praat, this study explores the unique properties of a nasal stop /n/ in English that becomes the target as well as the trigger of assimilations. Also it can be assimilated both regressively and progressively. Perceptual approach based on Steriade(2000) provides the proof that the perceptual cues of nasal stops determine whether assimilation would occur or not. The sound with stronger perceptual cue makes its adjacent sounds assimilated to it. It is argued that the perceptual cues of /n/ in English are dependent on its resonance similar to vowels, nasal murmur and CV transitions

The purpose of the study is to analyze the semantic structures of light verbs and their deverbal nouns based on the Generative Lexicon by Pustejovsky and to examine the compositional mechanism on the light verb constructions. This study also aims to show the interactions between light verbs and deverbal nouns, as well as that light verbs do not place limits on the selection of deverbal nouns in terms of meanings. The compositional mechanism on the light verb constructions are as follows: First, the subject in the constructions is a human being with intention and volition. Second, the deverbal noun is represented as an event-entity in that it has both specificity and eventivity. Third, the event structure in the light verb is reflected in that of the construction. Fourth, the qualia structure in the deverbal noun is mirrored in that of the construction, which provides the relevant interpretation of the whole construction.

This paper argues that centring diphthongs in Received Pronunciation(RP) result from the sequence of a non-low tense vowel and /r/. When a non-low tense vowel is followed by /r/, the sequence is realized as a diphthong which consists of the corresponding lax vowel plus the off-glide [ə]. In terms of Optimality Theory, this can be dealt with by positing a markedness constraint that prohibits non-low tense vowels in the pre-r position. The newly proposed markedness constraint outranks the faithfulness constraints that militate against diphthongization or breaking. The analysis put forward in this paper can account for the occurrence of centring diphthongs whether the following /r/ is in the coda or in the onset.

A sentence like #Jane assigned an A to some of her students is odd in the context where every professor always assigns the same grade to all of his students, and Jane is a professor. Magri(2009, 2011) suggests that its oddness comes from the mismatch between the scalar implicature that Jane did not assign an A to all of her students and the contextual information. In Magri(2011) the focus moves from the analysis of unembedded cases to embedded cases, especially in downward entailing contexts. He argues that his mismatching implicature reasoning can also explain oddness of embedded cases. In this paper, after discussing empirical problems of Magri’s theory, I propose an alternative analysis. More specifically, I show that two conditions − Ban on Underinformativity and Ban on Overinformativity − can successfully account for the data in question. Finally, I discuss Spector(2014), and point out a conceptual question arising from his proposal.