• Language and Information
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.93-125
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• 2009

We examine attributive possessive constructions in Korean in examples like wuli manwula 'my wife' and wuli nala 'my country', where an apparently plural pronoun wuli 'our' is used to convey the singular meaning of 'my.' An example like wuli manwula has been a frequent topic of joke, because it clearly contains the literal sense of 'shared wife.' This type of use and the frequent use of wuli in an exclusive my context led many to claim that these are products of Korean culture which emphasizes groups and group solidarity over individuality, the example wuli manwula being the extreme case. Drawing on the work of Taylor (1989; 1996), Croft (2001; 2003), Haspelmath (1997; 2003), and 윤재학 (2003), we compare the meanings of Korean and English possessive constructions and seek a more linguistically based account for the data. In particular, it is shown that (i) wuli in question is not really the plural form of nay 'my', (ii) the possessive constructions in Korean are more conservative and limited in possible relations than the English counterparts are, and that (iii) these two facts interact to produce the afore-mentioned uses.

• Language and Information
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.163-178
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• 2003

Korean displays an interesting construction (so-called possessor agreement construction), where a possessor nominal and its possessum nominal are marked with the same case as shown in the example Mary-ka John-ul tali-lul cha-ss-ta ‘Mary kicked John's leg’ More interestingly, not all possessors in possessive construction are marked the same case with its possessum as shorn in the ungrammatical sentence ＊Mary-ka John-ul cha-lul cha-ss-ta ‘Mary kicked John's car’. Hence, a simple but non-trivial question arises: In what situation are both possessors and possessums marked with the same case\ulcorner In this paper, we advance three claims: (i) Possessor agreement appears in the situation where entailment is satisfied as follows: If Mary kicked John's leg, it entails that Mary kicked John, (ii) entailment in possessor agreement results from theta-feature sharing; specifically, the whole DP and the possessor DP share the same theta role, and (iii) Possessor nominals are marked with accusative (or nominative) case when they are assigned internal theta role from the predicate directly.