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This paper explores the aspects of the underspecification of inherent and grammatical aspects in Korean predicates with special reference to Vendler’s(1967) Aktionsart distinctions and grammatical aspect markers ‘-ess’ and ‘-ko iss’ in Korean. It is claimed in this paper that the western concepts of the terminologies such as inherent and grammatical aspects should be newly defined in Korean with the concept of underspecification. The followings are discussed in this paper. First, the four kinds of Aktionsart proposed by Vendler are not clearly defined in terms of features and hence underspecified in Korean for ‘telic’ and ‘durative’ features in Korean predicates, while the feature ‘dynamic’ has the significant effects on the distinctions for verbal classes in Korean. Second, the periphrastic markers ‘-ess’ and ‘-ko iss’ which are frequently considered as the grammatical perfective and imperfective aspect markers respectively do not specify the specific domains of function or meaning for the grammatical aspect markers, and hence are underspecified for the specific functions of grammatical aspect markers.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to study the null subject phenomena in early child English with Schutze and Wexler's (1996) underspecification analysis. We consider some problems of their analysis. Alternatively, I present the Revised Underspecification Assumptions based on Chomsky's minimalist program.

This paper proposes a morphosyntactic analysis of grammatical aspect, with two functional heads Asp and Telic dedicated for yielding the array of grammatical aspect patterns observed in Korean. This approach is capable of accounting for why iss-headed periphrases diverge from the other compositionally well-behaving periphrases that maintain a one-to-one correspondence between the aspectual exponents and the resulting grammatical aspect. As opposed to “compositional” aspectual auxiliaries, iss- is neutral and realizes Asp bearing [?PERFECT], an underspecified functional head. This underspecified head is responsible for ambivalence of iss-headed periphrases.

This study examines the strategic restriction of information in contemporary news headlines by identifying violations of Grice’s Maxim of Quantity. A corpus of 300 headlines was sampled across six domains: business, health, technology, politics, entertainment, and crime. The analysis employed a mixed methods design. Quantitative analysis in SPSS measured the frequency of linguistic strategies and confirmed strong interrater reliability. Qualitative content analysis explored the discursive and ideological functions of these strategies. The research addresses two central questions: (1) Which strategies are most commonly employed to withhold information in headlines? (2) How do these strategies violate the Maxim of Quantity by limiting explicit detail? The analysis utilized five categories of underspecification: vagueness, ellipsis and omission, sensationalism, questions(interrogatives), and presuppositions. Findings indicate that presuppositions and sensationalism are prevalent, particularly in politics and crime, while vagueness is the least frequent. These patterns demonstrate that pragmatic violations reflect systematic practices that enhance salience, obscure agency, and shape interpretation. The study contributes to pragmatic theory, advances discourse analysis of journalistic language, and highlights the ethical importance of critical media literacy in resisting manipulative headline strategies.

Chung, Chan. 2006. English Coordiantion: Underspecification and Ellipsis. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 14(1), 1-35. From a phrase structure grammar perspective, the mechanisms of underspecification and ellipsis are crucial in that they provide efficient ways of analyzing unlike-category and non-constituent coordination constructions (Sag et al. 1985, Sag 2002, Beavers and Sag 2004, among others). However, those approaches, as they are, are too powerful and have serious overgeneration and spurious ambiguity problems. Exploring a solution to the problems, this paper proposes to impose more constraints on the ellipsis through the type inheritance hierarchy. Some of the constraints interact with each other and eliminate the spurious ambiguity between constituent and non-constituent coordination structures.

In minimalist frameworks such as those of Chomsky (1998, 1999, 2001) interpretable formal features are lexically valued and uninterpretable formal features are nzot lexically but syntactically valued. This study points out four critical problems of such correlations between interpretability of the formal features and lexical valuation or lexical underspecification of the formal features, and suggests an alternative solution for underspecification of the formal features. The alternative solution is that feature optionality should determine whether the formal features are lexically valued or syntactically valued. This alternative is a better solution than the current style of underspecification in that it dispenses with the four critical problems of the current feature system.

This paper focuses on aspectual progressives in English and accounts for the interaction of the progressive aspect and Aktionsart by treating verbs as lexically underspecified for stativity and punctuality. Since Vendler (1957), it has largely been assumed that state and achievement verbs are incompatible with progressives (e.g. *I am knowing the answer and *I am recognising a mistake). Yet, according to Dowty (1972, 1979), Mourelatos (1978), Bach (1981) and Biber et al. (1999), among others, there are progressives that are resistant to this line of analysis (e.g. We are living in London and John is dying). The present account reconciles these positions by proposing that verbs are partially underspecified for aspectual type in the lexicon. More specifically, the proposed account follows Van Valin & LaPolla (1997) in treating Vendler’s (1957) verb classes in terms of bundles of binary-valued features, namely [±static], [±telic] and [±punctual]. However, unlike in Van Valin & LaPolla (1997), these features are not fully specified in lexical entries. States are lexically unspecified for the distinctive feature [static]. The feature [punctual], which characterises achievements, likewise remains unspecified in the lexicon. The key idea of the present account is that the value of any unspecified feature F is resolved once in a given context by the use of certain adverbials and so on. By invoking the notion of ‘underspecification’, it is possible to accommodate counterexamples to Vendler’s (1957) claims.

In his tragedies Shakespeare portrays the fall of good men into evil as a result of human corruption, leading to crimes and human misery. This paper examines the evolution and actions of Shakespearean villains, illustrating the consequences of evil through the characters of Iago in Othello, Richard in Richard III, and Macbeth in Macbeth. Through an in-depth analysis of these plays, the paper sheds light on the different manifestations of evil and their implications for human nature and society. Shakespear’s evils often exist outside the individual, such as societal injustice, oppression, or harmful systems and institutions. However, something imposed on individuals by external forces soon turns into the evil that comes from within an individual, such as deceit, cruelty, ambition. These internal evil often associated with personal choices and moral failings. As a necessary counterpart to good, the manifestation of evil is what allows us to recognize and appreciate goodness. This duality of Shakespeare’ tragedies is often explored in the context of moral dilemmas and the balance between opposing forces in the universe.

Underspecification and Optimality in the Analysis of Assimilation in Russian Kim, Sin Hyo The purpose of this paper is to analyze assimilation in Russian by the Underspecification theory and Optimality theory. Underspecification theory is rule-based that was proposed with feature minimization in underlying representation. In this theory, certain values for all features are supplied by redundancy rules, and underlying representations are simplified. In process of assimilation in Russian underlying segments [m, n, l, r, j] are underspecified for feature value of [voiced]. Optimality theory is constraint-based and output oriented that provide optimal candidates by constraints and their hierarchy. This theory successfully provides optimal representations in process of assimilation in Russian. But it is still difficult to explain exceptions of assimilation, involving the softening. This paper deals with assimilation within morphemes with underspecified segments in the frame of Optimality theory and proposes the base of under- specification of sonorants by LICENSING. Finally, this paper presents that underspecification is necessary for descriptive adequacy in Optimality theory

Based on numerous areas of studies including myth, religion, philosophy and neuroscience, this paper suggests that lexical items lack both a concrete semantic meaning and categorial information in mental lexicon. In support of this hypothesis, termed as 'lexical underspecification,' this paper presents two important pieces of evidence: (i) object movement in Korean, and (ii) the ban on quantifier floating in Θ-positions.

This study investigates verb-related errors produced by Korean elementary school learners of English, focusing on the omission and overuse of the copular and auxiliary be, subject?verb agreement errors, and tense mismatches. While some of these errors can be explained by the same developmental mechanisms observed in English-speaking children’s early grammar, the analysis, grounded in the Underspecification Model (Wexler, 1998, 2003), reveals both shared and divergent patterns. The model assumes that functional category T is present in early grammar, but that the associated tense and φ-features of T are not yet fully specified in early grammar. The results show that English-speaking children frequently produce null subjects and default Case subjects, whereas Korean elementary learners rarely do so. In contrast, Korean learners systematically overuse or misplace auxiliary be, a pattern largely absent in L1 child data. The results suggest that these asymmetries reflect asymmetric feature re-specification shaped by prior L1 acquisition. Korean learners enter L2 English learning with tense features already established, while English-style φ-feature agreement must be newly specified.