Interpretation of noun phrases and its syntactic and semantic implications

This thesis addresses two types of noun phrases, quantifiers and Sino-Korean verbal nouns. Among quantifiers, I focus on the interpretation and scope of the weak NPs. Their ambiguity between cardinal and presuppositional interpretations is confirmed by morphologically distinct Korean data. I argue that floating counterparts of weak NPs in Korean reflect only cardinal aspect of them. The morphologically distinct data shed light on the semantic phenomenon of maximality effects of E-type pronouns. I demonstrate that the source of maximality is the antecedent quantifiers, not the definiteness of the pronouns.;The interpretation of quantifiers turns out to be closely linked to judgment forms of the sentence. I argue that judgment forms of sentences, whether they are categorical or thetic judgments, affects the interpretation of subject. I propose that the distinction between stage and individual-level predicates has to be recast as distinction between specific and non-specific predicates. I demonstrate that only specific predicates are compatible in thetic sentences and that only thetic sentences contain an event argument. I propose a syntactic analysis incorporating the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis to account for two subject positions in English and Korean. The lcoative inversion construction, the existential sentences and the internally headed relative clause construction provide evidence for this analysis.;I demonstrate that the notion of presuppositionality plays a crucial role in Weak Crossover phenomenon. Precedence between the quantifier and the anaphor turns out to be essential. I propose the Presuppositionality Constraint to accomodate all the relevant data and show its advantage over the previous studies.;Turning to verbal nouns, I observe that Sino-Korean verbal nouns are selective in terms of their genitive modifier. I demonstrate that this selection is constrained by the aspectual property of the verbal noun. The difference resulting from aspectual property of the verbal nouns is evident in passive and causative constructions as well. I also propose that passive construction in Korean can be a diagnostic for unaccusativity by showing that unaccusative verbal nouns can undergo passivization.