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Share Paper 1226

Order and Meaning: Numeral Classifiers and Specificity in Korean
Christina Kim
218-226 (complete paper or proceedings contents)

Abstract

Numeral classifier constructions in Korean exhibit a correlation between linear order and possible interpretation: while the Case-medial order allows for either a specific or a nonspecific reading, the Case-final order can only be interpreted as a nonspecific indefinite. A structural account is given for the missing specific reading, which makes use of Diesing's (1992) Mapping Hypothesis, and an LF condition prohibiting representations containing unbound traces. In addition, a distinct Topic-Comment structure is proposed for sentences in which the Case marker appears to have been copied. In such cases, one instance of the 'Case' morpheme is argued to be a Topic marker. This is in line with existing proposals that the particles that mark Nominative and Accusative case can also mark discourse or information status.

Published in

Proceedings of the 24th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics
edited by John Alderete, Chung-hye Han, and Alexei Kochetov
Table of contents
Printed edition: $375.00