A study of multi-verb constructions in Korean: A corpus-based approach

Multi-verb constructions in Korean, where two full lexical verbs occur in sequence with the subject shared and with -eo suffixed to the first verb, have been debated in the literature. Also known as complex verb constructions, they have been inconsistently treated as serial verb constructions, covert coordinate constructions, auxiliary verb constructions, or compound verb constructions, typically relying on the researcher's introspective knowledge and theoretical assumptions.;Analyzing 30,849 multi-verb constructions from present-day spoken and written corpus data (6,298,476 words), this study demonstrates that the multi-verb constructions are subordinate verb constructions. The sample constructions show separate scope of negation and VP-adverb, independent do-so substitution for each VP, movement of VP1 into VP2, backward zero anaphora, and semantic asymmetry between two clauses, all of which characterize grammatical properties of subordinate verb constructions in Korean. In particular, the problematic covert connective -eo shows the same syntactic function as that of the overt clausal connectives -eoseo and -eo gajigo, which strongly supports biclausality of the multi-verb constructions. Furthermore, the three connectives, considered as free variations in previous studies, are shown to carry different functions in discourse, having to do with interclausal semantic relations. That is, the form of -eo tends to connect two clauses that have the 'closest' semantic relation. The -eoseo is used for a range of semantic relations, and the -eo gajigo tends to connect two clauses that have the 'loosest' semantic relation.;The findings in this study suggest that looking at actual usage by native speakers can bring new perspectives to the description of multi-verb constructions and can contribute to more accurate analyses.