The interaction of verb semantics and functional features in Korean syntax

This thesis discusses some grammatical aspects of Korean, which cannot be explained solely by the theory-based analyses in the GB framework, and offers alternative analyses, which assume that certain syntactic and semantic properties can be properly explained only when discourse factors are taken into consideration.; The constructions considered in this study are aspectual constructions with the verb iss- ‘exist’, periphrastic causative constructions, and lexical causative constructions, in which complex verbal forms are commonly involved. In discussing the aspectual constructions, I argue that the aspectual interpretations of -ko/e iss- reflect the interaction between semantic and structural properties of the sentence.; Moreover, I propose that the -ko/e iss- constructions have uniformly a mono-clausal surface structure derived from non-uniform underlying structures, assuming that linking morphemes such as -ko and -e, which have been ignored in previous studies, are indicators of the syntactic structure of lower verbal phrases in the -ko/e iss- constructions.; Along similar lines, two types of Korean causative constructions are analyzed differently depending on whether a linking morpheme is involved, with emphasis on their case marking properties: periphrastic causative constructions involving the linking morpheme -key are derived from a complex underlying structure, whereas lexical causative constructions without any linking morpheme are derived in the lexicon and therefore have a simplex underlying structure.; In discussing case marking, semantic cases (i.e. oblique cases) are distinguished from structural cases (i.e. nominative case and accusative case) in that the former appear in the underlying structure while the latter are inserted by case marking rules according to the canonical syntactic structural position in the surface structure. In addition, I introduce case converting rules such as Subjectivization and Objectivization, which are optional and are triggered only when certain constraints are satisfied, assuming that Subjectivization changes oblique cases into the nominative case, while Objectivization changes them into the accusative case.