Relativization is one of the common syntactic operations to merge two different clauses into a single information unit. This operation plays a pivotal role to structuralize multiple clauses cohesively as well as serves to specify the property an individual has within the context. That implies that relativization contributes to information structure of multiclausal sentences. In this context, this paper delves into information structure of relative clauses in English with an eye toward creation of a computational model from a standpoint of machine translation. The current work employs Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG, Pollard and Sag (1994)) as a theory of grammar and Minimal Recursion Semantics (MRS, Copestake et al. (2005) as a meaning representation system. Building upon these formalisms, this paper addresses how information structure of relative clauses can be represented and constrained. The current work makes use of Individual CONStraints (ICONS) for modeling relative clauses with respect to information structure. The current work also investigates which relative clause involves which information structure constraint. The present study argues that non-restrictive relative clauses impose a more specific constraint on information structure than restrictive relative clauses.

The distinction of alienable/inalienable possessions plays a crucial role in determining the acceptability of Multiple Case Constructions (MCCs) in Korean. Recently, Yeon (2003, 2010) introduced so-called contiguous alienable possessions and mentioned that these types of possessions also affect the acceptability of MCCs. This paper experimentally examines how these three kinds of possessions influence the acceptability of MCCs. Since animacy also plays a role in the MCCs, this paper also examines how animacy affects the acceptability of MCCs. The experiments were designed following Johnson (2008), and the native speakers' intuition was measured and statistically analyzed. Through the experiment, the following facts were observed: (i) Both three types of possessions and animacy play a role in determining the acceptability of MCCs, (ii) The contiguous possessions behave close to inalienable possessions, rather than alienable possessions, and (iii) There was an interaction between three types of possessions and animacy.

This paper aims at exploring the processing mechanism of filler-gap dependency resolution and feature checking in Korean wh-constructions. Based on their findings on Japanese sentence processing, Aoshima et al. (2004) have argued that the parser posits a gap in the embedded clause in head-final languages, unlike in head-initial languages, where the parser posits a gap in the matrix clause. In order to verify their findings in the Korean context, and to further explore the mechanisms involved in processing Korean wh-constructions, the present study replicated the study done by Aoshima et al., with some modifications of problematic areas in their original design. Sixty-four Korean native speakers were presented Korean sentences containing a wh-phrase in four conditions, with word order and complementizer type as the two main factors. The participants read sentences segment-by-segment, and the reading times at each segment were measured. The reading time analysis showed that there was no such slowdown at the embedded verb in the scrambled conditions as observed in Aoshima et al. Instead, there was a clear indication of the wh-feature checking process in terms of a major slowdown at the relevant region.

The purpose of this paper is to provide corpus-based quantitative analyses of HEART and HEAD in order to examine their actual usage status and to consider some cognitive linguistic aspects associated with their use. The two corpora COCA and COHA are used for analysis in this study. The analysis of COCA corpus reveals that the total frequency of HEAD is much higher than that of HEART, and that the figurative use of HEART (60%) is two times higher than its literal use (32%); by contrast, the figurative use of HEAD (41%) is a bit higher than its literal use (38%). Among all four genres, both lexemes occur most frequently in fictions and then in magazines. Over the past two centuries, the use of HEART has been steadily decreasing; by contrast, that the use of HEAD has been steadily increasing. It is assumed that the decreasing use of HEART has partially to do with the decrease in its figurative use and that the increasing use of HEAD is attributable to its diverse meanings, the increase of its lexical use, and the partial increase in its figurative use. The analysis of the collocation of verbs and adjectives preceding HEART and HEAD, as well the modifying and predicating forms of HEART and HEAD also provides some relevant information of the usage of the two lexemes. This paper showcases that the quantitative information helps understanding not only of the actual usage of the two lexemes but also of the cognitive forces working behind it.

In a so-called cleft (or, pseudocleft), the kes-phrase seems to refer to a person, even though kes is generally incompatible with human beings. In this paper, I claim that in a cleft, the kes-phrase can refer to a concept, and that a concept of human beings is not a person. I give some pieces of evidence for this claim. In a cleft, the kes-phrase cannot be pluralized only when it is supposed to denote a human being. Moreover, in such a case, the NP before the copula cannot be interpreted as the meaning of a predicate. Furthermore, in a cleft two kes-phrases are not conjoined with (k)wa only when they seem to denote human beings. All the observations can be explained by the claim that the kes-phrase denotes a concept in such cases. A concept cannot be used as a predicate, pluralized, or conjoined to refer to objects that are subsumed under a concept. When the kes-phrase denotes a concept, the cleft sentence is an identity statement.

The aim of this paper is twofold: to identify two types of even if concessive conditionals, standing-ifs and introduced-ifs (Bennett 1982) in terms of whether the truth of the consequent is 'entailed' (the consequent-entailment problem in terms of Lycan 2001); and to analyze these two types of concessive conditionals in a compositional way. Here we argue that, following Guerzoni and Lim (2007), even if conditionals can be analyzed as the cases where even gets its focus in conditionals. We also argue that the consequent-entailment problem can be accounted for in a compositional way if we identify the focus as well as the scope of even in conditionals correctly. We further argue that the analysis presented in this paper supports the scope theory of even, among two theories of even previously proposed in various works. We also consider the possibility where concessive conditionals without even can be analyzed as an extension of the analysis proposed in this paper.

Recognizing spatial information associated with events expressed in natural language text is essential not only for the interpretation of such events and but also for the understanding of the relations among them. However, spatial information is rarely mentioned as compared to events and the association between event and spatial expressions is also highly implicit in a text. This would make it difficult to automate the extraction of spatial information associated with events from the text. In this paper, we give a linguistic analysis of how spatial expressions are associated with event expressions in a text. We first present issues in annotating narrative texts with reference relations between event and spatial expressions, and then discuss surface-level linguistic characteristics of such relations based on the annotated corpus to give a helpful insight into developing an automated recognition method.

This study was performed to assume the Sematic role of the obligatory argument of the predicate in a Korean sentence, and to accomplish the task to attach the assumed thematic role to the real corpus. With this study, the maximum of the Sematic role was determined and the Criterion of the Sematic role was set. The maximum of the Sematic role was determined 22. This study arranged the Sematic role of case marker and attached the Sematic role to the predicate of the sentence within The standard Korean Dictionary. The program to attach the thematic role was developed(UTagger-SR). The Sematic role of case marker and Case frame dictionary was equipped in this program. By attaching the Sematic role, it was found that the most important the Sematic role in the korean sentence is the theme of the predicate and the next is the subject of the predicate.