Earticle

Due to structural differences between Korean and English, machine translation from Korean to English faces difficulties when it processes multiple case constructions. Korean, a language with overt case markers, can have more than one Nominative/Accusative case-marked argument in a clause while English, whose case realization is abstract in general, restricts the number of Nominative/Accusative case arguments based on properties of valid case assigners in a given clause. After reviewing morphological case as well as abstract case observed in Korean and English respectively, this paper categorizes patterns of multiple case constructions in Korean based on semantic relations between arguments. An error analysis based on actual translation data from two Korean to English translators (Yahoo Babel Fish and PAT transer) makes a suggestion for morphological and syntactic processes of machine translation

This paper discusses the main points of In"]Seok Yang"fs ground"]breaking work, Korean Syntax(1972), which can be viewed as an monumental work in Korean syntax within the early Chomskyan framework, and evaluates its significance within the recent minimalist theory. As it turns out, Yang"fs arguments about Multiple Case Constructions can be re"]illuminated as a cartographic structures of Specs within IP, similar to the cartographic structures recently suggested by Rizzi(1997, 2004). Other important aspects of Yang"fs theory concern sentential complementation constructions, in which he argued for clausal reduction and verbal compounding, and some of which provide significant dilemma in modern GB or minimalist frameworks. Some other Korean constructions involving so"]called Equi"]subject constructions offer other dilemmas, but some of them may in fact be shown to support little v analysis within recent minimalist framework.

Multiple Nominative Constructions (MNCs) and Multiple Accusative Constructions (MACs) have been some of the hottest and interesting topics in Korean syntax. Though there have been lots of previous studies on these constructions, most of them have provided theoretical accounts. Recently, Lee (2013) took an experimental approach and examined native speakers' grammaticality judgment of these constructions. This paper took the same approach to these constructions, but the experiment was performed with 100 native speakers. Ryu (2013) tried to unify MNCs and MACs into Multiple Case Constructions (MCCs) and to classify them into 16 types based on the semantic relations. This paper adopted his data sets and the experiment was performed based on these 16 semantic relations. The experiment was designed following Johnson (2008); and the native speakers’ grammaticality judgments were measured with two scales, numerical estimates and line drawing, though the latter was adopted in the actual analyses. Through the experiment, the following facts were observed again: (i) The grammaticality of the MCCs does not constitute a homogeneous group, (ii) The grammaticality of the MCCs varies depending on which semantic relations hold between two NPs, (iii) MNCs had more grammaticality judgments than MACs if both constructions occurred in the similar contexts, and (iv) the sentences in some MAC types had much lower grammaticality than those in the others, as Ryu (2013) mentioned.

Multiple Nominative Constructions (MNCs) and Multiple Accusative Constructions (MACs) have been some of the hottest and interesting topics in Korean syntax. This paper took empirical approaches to these constructions and examined native speakers' grammaticality judgements of these constructions. Though there are lots of previous studies on these constructions, Ryu (2010, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c) recently tried to unify MNCs and MACs into Multiple Case Constructions (MCCs) and to classify them into 16 types based on the semantic relations. This paper includes experiments which were performed on these 16 different types. The experiments were designed following Johnson (2008); and the native speakers' intuition was measured with two scales, numerical estimates and line drawing, though the latter was adopted in the actual analyses. Through the experiment, the following facts were observed: (i) the grammaticality of the MCCs varies depending on their semantic relations, (ii) MNCs were more grammatical than MACs if both constructions occurred in similar environments, and (iii) the sentences in some MAC types had much lower grammaticality than those in the others, as Ryu (2013b, 2013c) mentioned.

The distinction of alienable/inalienable possessions plays a crucial role in determining the acceptability of Multiple Case Constructions (MCCs) in Korean. Recently, Yeon (2003, 2010) introduced so-called contiguous alienable possessions and mentioned that these types of possessions also affect the acceptability of MCCs. This paper experimentally examines how these three kinds of possessions influence the acceptability of MCCs. Since animacy also plays a role in the MCCs, this paper also examines how animacy affects the acceptability of MCCs. The experiments were designed following Johnson (2008), and the native speakers' intuition was measured and statistically analyzed. Through the experiment, the following facts were observed: (i) Both three types of possessions and animacy play a role in determining the acceptability of MCCs, (ii) The contiguous possessions behave close to inalienable possessions, rather than alienable possessions, and (iii) There was an interaction between three types of possessions and animacy.

This paper presents a unified approach to multiple nominative and accusative constructions in Korean. We identify 16 semantic relations holding between two consecutive noun phrases (NPs) in multiple case marking constructions, and propose each semantic relation as a licensing condition on double case marking. We argue that the multiple case marking constructions are merely the sequences of double case marking, which are formed by dextrosinistrally sequencing the pairs of the same-case marked NPs of same or different type. Some appealing consequences of this proposal include a new comprehensive classification of the sequences of same-case NPs and a straightforward account of some long standing problems such as how the additional same-case NPs are licensed, and in what respects the multiple nominative marking and the multiple accusative marking are alike and different from each other.

This paper examines a unique type of noun-modifying construction in Korean: the backward kes-modification construction. We identify nine grammatical properties of this construction and argue that previous studies characterizing it as an internally-headed relative clause (IHRC) fail to adequately account for them. We propose that kes functions as a nominalizing anti-clitic that subcategorizes for an adnominal clause and saturates one of the theta roles associated with the preceding predicate. Based on this insight, we suggest that this construction is more accurately described as a multiple case marking construction (MCMC), where a noun and one or more kes-nominals are linked via adjunction and share identical case marking. We provide several pieces of evidence supporting this alternative analysis.