• Language and Information
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.55-80
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• 2015

In this paper, I show how oyey 'except' and pakkey 'but' in Korean are semantically different from but/except in English. The exceptive oyey is attached only to a definite NP and shows no restriction on the NP that it is associated with. The referent of the NP is removed from either the restrictor, or nuclear scope, of the associated NP, also giving rise to two different inferences about the exception phrase. The inferences are based on the condition that an expression should make a non-trivial meaning contribution in a sentence. The complement of oyey is really taken to be an exception in one interpretation, but not in the other. The exceptive pakkey is assumed to be a NPI. It does not require a phrase that a pakkey-phrase is associated with. It can be attached to any type of phrases, including a NP. Attached to a full phrase, it is interpreted as a scalar item. Its core meaning contribution is to remove weaker alternatives from the scalar set locally. For a general interpretation, the other meanings are captured globally. A pakkey-phrase with a demonstrative has a conjunctive meaning, and it can be analyzed like oyey in one of the two interpretations.

• Language and Information
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2002

This paper examines existing approaches to exceptive constructions, which typically serve to maintain the use of universal quantifiers by diminishing the domain quantified over. It places a particular focus on constructions involving Korean oyey, Dutch behalve, and English apart from, other than, and aside from. These lexical items all share an interesting semantic property that they mean either 'except' or 'besides' depending upon their linguistic contexts, but they have largely been ignored in the literature of exceptive constructions. An observation is made that the two meanings of the ambiguous exceptive words are in complementary distribution with respect to types of quantifiers and that they are not an isolated fact. Based on this, a unifying formal semantic analysis is attempted for the constructions.