Left-to-Right Asymmetry and Early Association in Korean
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Left‑to‑Right Asymmetry and Early Association in Korean Jieun Kiaer1
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper shows Korean speakers’ strong preference for incremental structure building based on the following core phenomena: (1) left–right asymmetry; (2) preverbal structure building and a strong preference for early association. This paper argues that these phenomena reflect the procedural aspects of linguistic competence, which are difficult to explain within non-procedural grammar formalisms. Based on these observations, I argue for the necessity of a grammar formalism that adopts left-to-right incrementality as a core property of the syntactic architecture. In particular, I aim to show the role of (1) constructive particles; (2) prosody; and (3) structural routines in incremental Korean structure building. Though the nature of this discussion is theory-neutral, in order to formalise this idea I will adopt Dynamic Syntax [DS: Kempson et al. (Dynamic syntax: the flow of language understanding, Blackwell, Oxford, 2001); Cann et al. (The dynamics of language. Elsevier, Oxford, 2005)] in this paper. Keywords Incrementality · Case particle · Prosody · Structural routines · Dynamic Syntax · Pragmatic · Syntax
1 Core Data: Puzzles This paper aims to explore two phenomena in Korean: (1) left–right asymmetry and (2) pre-verbal structure building and a strong preference for early association. In particular, I investigate the role of (1) constructive particles; (2) prosody; and (3) structural routines in yielding incremental structure building. In order to explain the incrementality presented in this paper, I shall adopt the Dynamic Syntax framework [DS: Kempson et al. (2001), Cann et al. (2005)]. The key questions I will address are as follows:
* Jieun Kiaer [email protected] 1
Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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(1)
(a) (b)
Freedom at Left and Restriction at Right (1.1) (i) Why are expressions at the left periphery interpreted more freely than those at the right periphery? Pre-verbal structure building and early syntactic association (1.2) (i) How can Korean speakers build a structure without a verb? (ii) Why do Korean speakers strongly prefer early syntactic association and put the arguments in the same local domain? (iii) What happens when prosody intervenes?
In this paper, I will present core data corresponding to each question. 1.1 Leftward Freedom and Rightward Restriction In Korean, expressions at the left periphery can be interpreted more flexibly than those at the right. For instance, a sentence-initial dative NP kilin-hanthey ‘to a giraffe’ in (2) can be interpreted in the three possible structures hosted by a verb malhaysseyo ‘said’ (= 2a), yaksokhayssta ‘promised’ (= 2b) or mantwule-cwukeyssta ‘make-give’ (= 2c). (2)
Dative NP can be interpreted within three different structures kilin-hanthey kangaci-nun twayci-ka mas-iss-nun cookie-lul giraffe-DAT puppy-TOP pig-NOM taste-exist-ADN cookie-ACC mantwule-cwukeyssta-ko yaksokh
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