In this paper I propose the semantics of two modality markers in Korean, keyss and (u)1 kes. I compare the two modality markers with respect to some properties. First, keyss is used to express logical necessity while (u)1 kes can be used to express a simple prediction as well. Second, keyss expresses some logical conclusion from the speaker's own information state without claiming it is true. On the other hand, (u)1 kes expresses the claim that the speaker's prediction will be true. Third, the prediction of keyss is non-monotonic: it can be reversed without being inconsistent. However, that of (u)1 kes cannot. Fourth, (u)1 kes can be used freely in epistemic conditionals, but keyss cannot. Finally, when keyss is used, the prediction cannot be repeated. The prediction from the use of (u)1 kes can be repeated. To account for these differences, I propose that keyss is used when the speaker makes a purely logical presumption based on his/her own information state, and that (u)1 kes is used to make a prediction which is asserted to be true. This proposal accounts for all the differences of the two modality markers.

This study aims to discuss the word sense distinction of Korean middle verbs for restructuring KorLexVerb 1.0. Despite the duality of its meaning and syntactic structure, the word senses of middle verb are not clearly distinguished in current dictionaries. The underspecification causes very often mismatches that a same Korean word sense is used for two different English verb senses. A close examination on the syntactic and semantic properties of middle verb shows us that the word sense distinction and the reconstruction of hierarchical structure are indispensable. Finally, by doing this fine grained word sense distinction, we propose an alternative way of classification and description of the verb polysemy for KorLexVerb 1.0 as well as for dictionary-like language resources.

Application of chunking to English and some other European languages has shown that it is a viable parsing mechanism for natural languages. Although a small number of attempts have been made to apply chunking to the analysis of the Korean language, it still is not clear enough what criteria there are to identify appropriate units of chunking, and how efficient and valid the chunking algorithms would be when applied to some authentic Korean texts. The purpose of this research is to provide an alternative set of algorithms for chunking Korean, and to implement them, and to test them against some English-Korean parallel corpora, which is English and Korean bibles matched sentence by sentence. It is shown in the paper that aligning related texts and identifying matched phrases between the two languages can be achieved through appropriate chunking and matching algorithms defined on the morphologically-tagged parallel corpus. Chunking and matching processes are based on the content words rather than the function words, and the matching itself is done in terms of the transfer dictionary. The implementation is done in C and XML, and can be accessed through the Internet.

This paper discusses the distribution of a null complementizer C, as opposed to an overt counterpart 'that', presenting empirical support both for and against the PF-merge analysis of C proposed by Boscovic and Lasnik (2003, henceafter B&L) who in turn attribute to the proposal in Pesetsky (1992) and Halle & Marantz (1993). In Section I, as a background, I discuss B&L's proposal that a null complementizer C is a PF-affix which undergoes a PF-merger operation at the PF component. In Section 2, after a brief sketch of the distribution of a null C mostly in bare-relatives, I explore the possibility of extending B&L's analysis to accomodate the null C's in the bare-relative constructions. In Section 3, I argue that despite some empirical difficulties, B&L's analysis of a null C as a PF-affix can still be maintained, if Adverb Fronting is an operation to Spec-C position. Furthermore, I propose a rule - PF Spell-Out Constraint - to account for the C-trace (i.e. that-trace) effect in relative constructions. With the PF Spell-Out Constraint and B&L's PF-merge account, the distribution of a null C can better be analyzed.

This study aims at investigating the 'verb-second' phenomena indicated in complex sentences of medieval Spanish. Especially, when the complex sentence is composed of a preposed adverbial clause and its succeeding main clause, the subject inversion is noticeable in the latter. The fundamental motive of this type of inversion is due to the 'verb-second' structure, in which a topic appears in the first position and the verb immediately after the topic. So it can be said that the subject inversion is a prerequisite for a verb to be located in the second position when the adverbial clause functions as a topic to the main clause, as is often the case with Germanic languages like German, Dutch, etc.. On the contrary, modern Spanish complex sentences do not show this phenomenon, with a strong tendency to locate a grammatical subject in the preverbal position. Therefore, medieval Spanish might be typologically closer to Germanic languages than to modern Spanish. In order to argue for this assumption, the formal and functional criteria by which the preposed adverbial clause could be defined as a topic NP will be examined across the comparition with left-dislocation structure.

The impersonal or psyc-predicate construction in Old English (=OE) poses a special challenge for most case theories in generative linguistics. In the OE impersonal construction, the experiencer argument is marked by dative, accusative, or nominative, whereas the theme is marked by nominative, genitive, or accusative, or by a PP. The combinations of possible cases for experiencer and theme are not random, bringing about daunting complexity for possible and impossible case frames. In this paper, I develop a conceptual semantic case theory (a la Jackendoff 1990, 1997, 2002; Yip, Maling, and Jackendoff 1987) to provide a unified account for the complicated case frames of the OE impersonal construction. In the conceptual semantic case theory, syntax and semantics have their own independent case assignment principles. For impersonal verbs in OE, I propose that UG leave an option of determining either syntactic or semantic case to lexical items. This proposal opens a new window for the OE impersonal construction, in that it naturally explains both possible and impossible case frames of the construction.

In this paper I investigate whether Korean-speaking children know the basic meaning of reciprocal anaphors like each other. I further examine whether they have knowledge of subtle differences in the interpretations of such anaphors depending on the two types of verbs. Fiengo and Lasnik (1973) pointed out a contrast between reciprocal sentences with active verbs and stative verbs. For example, a sentence with an active verb like The men in the room are hitting each other, has both a strong reciprocal reading (i.e., everyone of them in the room is hitting every other one) and a weak reciprocal reading (i.e., certain pairs of men are not engaged in the action of hitting each other). In contrast, a sentence with a stative verb like The men in the room know each other allows only a strong reciprocal reading (i.e., everyone of them know every other one). 16 Korean children and 15 Korean adults were tested using the Truth Value Judgment Task methodology. The results of the present study show that like English children, Korean children know the meaning of reciprocal anaphor, and that they also know the semantic difference of reciprocal sentences with active and stative verbs. Therefore, the present study strongly supports the claim that the semantic distinction of reciprocal sentences with active and stative verbs may be universal, and that children's ability of this semantic distinction might be innately given.