| The main goal of this thesis is to investigate syntactic and semantic properties of the constructions in Korean that express a causal relation between two predicates. The research mainly examines four types of causal constructions, such as V-V constructions, morphological causatives, periphrastic causatives and resultative constructions. While classifying each construction into sub-types, this thesis shows that the formation of 'complex predicate', which forms a unit (word) in the sense that it is contained under a single set of functional projections, takes place in the two independent components of grammar, lexicon and syntax. Thus, this study especially focuses on behaviors of a bare predicate phrase in syntactic representations of the causal constructions.; Chapter 2 is about V-V constructions in which two bare verbs are connected to express a causal or consequential relation between them. While investigating their interaction with short form negation, this thesis reveals that some V-V constructions are unambiguously lexical compounds, but some are structurally ambiguous between a lexical compound and an adjunction structure. Chapter 3 is devoted to structural properties of causative constructions. While examining sub-types of morphological and periphrastic causatives, this thesis shows that the causatives that have a bi-phrasal structure can be formed in the lexicon as well as in syntax. Thus, this study strongly implies that there is no necessary correspondence between lexical words and a mono-phrasal structure. In chapter 4, the structure of resultatives is examined with respect to the event structure. This thesis points out that the distinction between phrasal and clausal resultatives is closely related to the difference between stative/non-stative result predicates and their licensing through the event structure. The comparison between structures of periphrastic causatives and resultatives shows that there is no direct correspondence between syntactic structures and event structures.; The investigation of causal constructions in Korean suggests that the lexicon and syntax perform an overlapped function in word formation, which in turn indicates redundancies in the language faculty. |
