ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The main purpose of this paper is to theoretically clarify what controls the realization of honorific suffix ‘si’ in Korean cleft construction. It is observed in Korean cleft construction that the suffix ‘si’ does not automatically agree with the honorific element in focus position but appears only when the honorific focus element is the same as the subject of the original clause. Based on this observation, the paper proposes that honorification agreement in cleft construction is one of the connectedness effects. The proposal is presented in perspective of clefting analysis, in which a cleft clause is derived from an ordinary clause with a canonical word order. Supporting evidence for the proposal is provided in terms of four phenomena; (i) binding effect, (ii) impossibility of postposition drop and of case marker deletion, (iii) prohibition of negative polarity item in focus position, and (iv) problems related to underlying structure of inversion analysis. Comparing Korean cleft construction to English it-cleft, the paper concludes that a cleft clause in Korean is derived by clefting method, but not by inversion of an underlying copular clause.

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