Earticle

Kim, Jeong-Seok. 2011. Depictives in VP Anaphora. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 843-862. The issue of predication enters the syntactic research through the seminal work of Halliday (1967), who draws attention to secondary predicates, which express properties of local subjects. Setting resultative predicates aside, this paper examines the structural height of depictive predicates in relation to VP anaphora such as do ellipsis and do so proverbalization. It is argued that the stranding paradox of depictives results from the adjunction height: subject depictives are adjoined to vP, and object depictives to VP. Given the light verb structure (Chomsky 1995), VP ellipsis elides the VP containing object depictives, thus stranding subject depictives, whereas vP ellipsis elides the vP containing subject depictives. (Korea University)

Kim, Jong-Bok. 2011. Ambiguities in the Korean -KO ISSTA Imperfective Construction. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 863-885. Of the imperfective constructions in Korean, the -KO ISSTA construction is used to represent a progressive state, but the complexities arise from limited cases where the construction induces a resultant state reading. In this paper, we suggest that licensing conditions for the progressive and resultant state reading of the construction are closely related to interactions among the three perspectives of aspect: lexical, grammatical, and phrasal properties of the eventuality in question. These properties also lead us to posit different syntactic structures for each of the two possible readings. (Kyung Hee University)

Kim, Jee-Hong. 2011. A Critical Review of Levelt's Model of Language Production. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 887-901. The 1980s witnessed the emergence of several models of language production. Among those, Levelt’s (1989) was particularly comprehensive. Its revised version (Levelt, 1999) is composed of two modules, namely, the rhetorical/semantic/syntactic system and the phonological/phonetic system. This paper argues that the revised model needs to be further augmented to allow multiple processing of production to account for dynamic communication. It is suggested that a multiple layer could include decision procedure of meta-intention, choice of expression, immediate checking of audience reaction, and theme advancement strategies, all of which could be activated simultaneously during online production. (Geongsang National University)

Kim, Haeyeon. 2011. A Study of Homonymy in Texts: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Tali 'Leg' or 'Bridge' in Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 903-924. In semantics, polysemy and homonymy are two of the major topics which attempt to characterize lexical meanings. The purpose of this research is to explore how a homonymous word is used in texts thorough an examination of the word tali 'leg' or 'bridge' in the Korean corpus database. To achieve this goal, this work examines polysemous meanings of tali used as a body-part name (ie, leg) and as a built structure (ie, bridge). Examination shows that tali as a body-part name has the following meanings: (i) human legs, (ii) legs of animals or insects, and (iii) upright supports for furniture. It also shows that tali as a bridge has the following meanings: (i) a bridge, and (ii) a connection between two things. Based on this observation, this work claims that the metaphorically extended meanings of tali can be explained in terms of metaphor theory in cognitive linguistics. After that, this study examines how problems of ambiguity are resolved when homonymous words are used. Examination shows that ambiguity caused by homonymy is resolved by the interaction of the following factors: (i) collocational use of specific predicates, (ii) collocational use of modifiers (adjectives, modifying phrases or clauses, etc.), (iii) circumstantial/textual contexts, and (iv) topic continuity. Finally, this research shows that a text-based analysis is one of the fruitful methods in exploring the relationship between homonymy and polysemy. (Chung-Ang University)

Park, Myung-Kwan & Na, Yoonjoo. 2011. A Neurolinguistic Study of Syntax-Semantics Dynamics: ERP Evidence from the Processing of 'Semantically Coerced Complement' by L2 English Learners. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 925-951. This paper investigates, by using the event-related potentials (ERP) paradigm, how Korean L2 learners of English process complement coercion as an instance of semantic coercion. It has recently been reported by Pylkkänen and McElree (2006) and Kuperberg et al. (2010) that when a verb and its complement mismatch apparently in terms of semantics, it incurs a processing cost. In particular, in Kuperberg et al.'s (2010) ERP-based study of complement coercion, the complement in question elicited N400 as an index of semantic anomaly. This response is contrasted with the other response from the complement that violates the Ɵ-role requirement; it evokes both N400 and P600. We replicated this experiment for Korean L2 learners of English with a view to examining how they process complement coercion and the Ɵ-role requirement. It was found that for Ɵ-role violations the L2 learners elicited N400, but they didn't elicit P600 as an index of syntactic processing. However, for complement coercion, they didn't elicit N400. In conclusion, our experiment shows that Korean L2 learners of English cannot process syntactic information needed for Ɵ-role violations nor more sophisticated semantic information of complement coercion. (Dongguk University)

Park, Haeil. 2011. Neural Correlates of the Perception of Lexical Levels in English. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 953-977. The primary aim of the present study is to explore the relationship between derivation levels and neural patterns by investigating how level 1 and level 2 derivational forms are processed in the brain using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology. During an auditory discrimination task, more of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG) were involved in the perception of level 2 words relative to level 1 words, with none of the areas activated for the level 1 vs. level 2 contrast although the left STG was activated for the level 1 vs. nonspeech comparison. These results show that level 2 words are perceived through a morphological/rule-based analysis of their stem + affix structure, whereas level 1 words are stored and retrieved as a whole, consistent with the “dual-system” (DS) theory postulating two distinct systems in charge of the perception of regular and irregular inflections. Additionally, the contrast analysis of each speech condition relative to nonspeech baseline elicits stronger effects in the left posterior STG, the left premotor area, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the bilateral middle temporal gyrus, which confirms a common speech perception network as revealed by previous neuroimaging studies on speech perception. (Myongji University)

Yun, Gwanhi. 2011. The Production of German Final Devoicing by Korean Speakers. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 979-1013. This study investigates how Korean speakers produce German final devoicing and whether they have acquired voicing contrast in German obstruents. Korean learners of German produced real German words with the underlying voicing distinction in the five phonological contexts. One is the non-neutralization environment and the others are potential neutralization contexts (syllable-final, word-final, and utterance-final positions). In order to see whether the underlying voicing contrast is retained on the surface, five acoustic correlates of voicing were measured (duration of the preceding consonant, duration of the preceding vowel, duration of stop closure or frication, duration of release portion, and F0 of the preceding vowel). First, the results showed that in syllable initial or intervocalic position, the underlying voiceless obstruents were produced with longer duration of the preceding consonant, shorter duration of the preceding vowel, longer closure or frication duration, and longer release duration than their counterpart voiceless obstruents. Next, in syllable final, voiceless condition, the underlying voicing contrast was retained with respect to closure duration of the preceding consonant, and duration of the preceding vowel. Third, in a word-final position as well, the underlying voiceless obstruents were produced with longer duration of the preceding consonant, shorter duration of the preceding vowel, and longer closure or frication duration than their voiced counterparts. Finally, in utterance-final position, the underlying voiceless obstruents were produced with longer duration of the preceding consonant, shorter duration of the preceding vowel, and longer closure or frication duration than their voiced counterparts. These findings suggest that even Korean L2 speakers show incomplete neutralization in German final devoicing like some of the native speakers of German and can acquire phonemic voicing contrast, which does not exist in their L1. (Daegu University)

Lee, Miseon. 2011. Korean Autistic Children's Interpretive Preferences in Quantifier-negation Patterns. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1015-1029. It is well known that a sentence containing both a negative and a quantifier, such as Mina-ka motun cepsi-lul an takk-ass-ta 'Mina didn't wash all the dishes,' is ambiguous: the sentence has either the full set interpretation (i.e., Jane didn't wash any dishes.) or the partitioned set interpretation (i.e., Jane washed some of the dishes.). Previous studies have shown that normally developing Korean L1 children and adult native speakers of Korean strongly prefer the full set interpretation for this <motun ‘all/every’ + Object NP + an ‘not’> pattern. O'Grady (2005, 2008) accounts for this preference by applying the processor-based emergentist account that the syntactic processor tries to minimize processing load and thus prefers the structures involving less processing load. In Korean, the full set interpretation which is generated in a linear manner requires less processing load than the partitioned set interpretation which involves a reanalysis procedure. The finding that Korean autistic children showed the stronger preference for the full set interpretation as compared to normally developing children can be explained by this processor-based account and further implies that the processor can be underpowered in autism. (Hanyang University)

Lee, Wooseung. 2011. Zero Realization of Arguments Revisited. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1031-1052. This paper concerns itself with the constructions with null arguments. Much has been said as to the analysis of constructions with argument drop in so-called pro-drop languages such as Korean and Japanese. Even though researches have been revolving around the debate for or against pro/ellipsis analysis, given various examples that constitute the evidence for or against either approach, we are not specifically arguing for one single analysis. We admit that Korean is a radical pro drop language with such prevalent absence of arguments, but at the same time, despite a recent proposal against our claim (Ahn and Cho 2011, inter alia), we confirm the validity of our original position that "ellipsis operation" is resorted to as an inevitable extra mechanism of grammar to explain some empirical phenomena found in restricted contexts involving reflexives, polarity sensitive items, indefinite DPs and free choice DPs. As for the specific mechanism to recover the contents of the null arguments, we propose LF (selective) feature copying, which has a major interpretive contribution to the recovery of the contents of the missing elements. (Hyupsung University)

Jun, Jong Sup. 2011. Children's Syntactic Knowledge of English Derivational Morphology: Evidence from Early Suffixes. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1053-1073. Previous studies on the acquisition of English derivational morphology suggest that children acquire the syntactic knowledge of derivational morphemes after Grade 4 in elementary school; that is, children do not learn the parts of speech (POS) change between a root and its affixed form (e.g. drive  driver) until they become nine years old. On the contrary, the present study explores preschool children's knowledge of English derivational morphology, and shows that children have some syntactic knowledge at age 3-5. The evidence comes from English-speaking children's use of so called early suffixes, i.e. -er/or, -ie, and -y. We extracted preschool children's derivatives from the HSLLD corpus (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001) in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney & Snow, 1985). We then cross-classified the words in terms of children's age, the semantic transparency, the POS change, and the suffix type. The log-linear regression analysis shows that preschool children use derivational suffixes following the generalization that is sensitive to the POS of the derived words. This finding supports the view that children have the implicit syntactic knowledge of derivational morphology during the preschool years. (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)

Cho, Youngsoon. 2011. A Corpus-Based Study on Korean Newspaper Headlines. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1075-1099. This study investigates headlines' linguistic characteristics based on corpora with reference to their parts of speech and final forms. Two corpora are exploited: One is built from some <news> files in the Sejong tagged corpus (2009) and the other is from Korean five major newspapers. Analyzing frequencies of parts of speech of headlines and those of corresponding newspaper articles based on the first corpus revealed that nominals and symbols (or marks) are remarkably frequent in headlines unlike articles. Some in-depth investigations which were carried out by the categories of content words, symbols, and function words demonstrate the followings: Compared to the news reporting, nominals are increased in headlines but adjectives and verbs are decreased with bigger degree of decreasing found in verbs than in adjectives; Symbols are widely exploited for purposes of clearing information, emphasizing expressions, and assisting meaning recovery; Function words, which can be easily deleted, are retained when carrying hardly recoverable meanings and when performing some structural or emotional functions. Analyzing frequencies of six kinds of final forms of headlines based on the second corpus showed nominals, sentence endings, and connective endings are preferred as headlines' final forms in that order. From different degrees of preference in different sections we infer that headlines in the <press reportage> section are of a dry and emotion suppressing style, but those in the <press editorial> section are softer and show feelings more readily, and <the others> are in between in the degree. (Chonnam National University)

Han, Jeong-Im & Kim, Jooyeon. 2011. A One-Year Longitudinal Study of Korean Vowel Productions by Chinese Learners. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1101-1115. The present study provides a longitudinal investigation of the Korean vowel productions by Chinese learners over a 1-year period after their first exposure to Korean. The main purpose of the study is to examine the learning trajectory of adult learners' second language segmental acquisition. Productions of five Korean vowels were elicited at 2-month intervals and evaluated by naive Korean listeners. In Experiment 1, the goodness of fit of each vowel was rated on a scale from 1(poor) to 7(excellent), and in Experiment 2, general vowel intelligibility was assessed. Overall the results showed that L2 phonetic learning is not initially rapid which follows the plateau with several months as proposed by Munro and Derwing (2008), nor gradually processed as proposed in exemplar models. However, it was also shown that the exact learning trajectories vary across the five vowels, based on the L1-to-L2 matching relationship. (Konkuk University)

Han, Jeonghan & Jung, Heesuk. 2011. The Grammatical Characteristics of Korean Modal Expressions of “conjecture”: In the Case of Grammatical Collocations. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1117-1142. The purpose of this paper is to find the grammatical characteristics of Korean modal expressions of “conjecture” which are composed of grammatical collocations. The modal expressions dealt with on this paper are 8 kinds: ‘-enga/nunga/na bo-’, ‘-enga/nunga/na sip-’, ‘-en/nun/ul moyang-’, ‘-en/nun/ul gat-’, ‘-en/nun/ul duta-’, ‘-en/nun/ul dusip-’, ‘-en/nun/ul seongsip-’, ‘-en/nun/ul beopa-’. We experimented the syntactic phenomena like the combination restrictions of tense pre-final-endings in pre-verb, the lexical restrictions in pre-verb, the sentence type restrictions, the combination restrictions of tense pre-final-endings in modal expressions, the co-occurrence restrictions to connective endings, the structural dependence of modal expressions of Conjecture. These experiments are designed to investigate whether the modal expressions are the lexical items in the proposition or whether or not they are composed as a grammatical categorization out of the proposition. From the results of the experimental, we found the syntactic characteristics of Korean modal expressions of “conjecture” which are composed of grammatical collocations are closely related with the progression of their grammaticalization type. And we　also found the sentence type implementation may differ based on who is the subject of “conjecture”. (Dankook University)

Hong, Ki-Sun. 2011. English Resultative Construction and Korean “key” Construction. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 1143-1169. This paper compares the English resultative construction with the Korean “key” construction from a typological point of view. It argues that the Korean “key” construction denotes the result states which might be expected in the due process of an event, as well as the actually realized result states as the English resultative construction does. It further argues that the“key” expression constitutes an adjunct clause which might contain a pro, irrespective of the type distinctions generally assumed in previous research. This naturally accounts for its free position within a sentence, the occurrence of the honorific marker “si,” the discourse-oriented selection of the second subject and the so-called extension structures. This paper attempts to relate these differences to the typological characteristics of the two languages, such as the polysemous nature of Korean verbal suffixes, word order flexibility, syntax- or discourse-oriented anaphoric expressions and the repertoire of lexical items and exocentric structures that each language has. (Seoul National University)