On (Im)Mobility of Predicates in Korean: Some Discrepancies Between Non-elliptical vs. Ellipitical Contexts and Between Matrix vs. Embedded Contexts

Abstract

This paper tries to account for the discrepancies in mobility and deletability between `embedded predicates` vs. their counterparts in sentence fragments and between `embedded predicates` vs. `matrix predicates`. Movement or ellipsis cannot target a so-called `predicate` or its projections since they do not even form a constituent during the syntactic derivation, based on the phrasal affix analysis of verbal endings. On the other hand, sentence fragments composed solely of a `predicate` or its projections are permitted since what undergoes movement, if movement is involved at all, is not a simple predicate with verbal endings but a whole (embedded) clause, satisfying the constituency requirement, while all the elements other than the predicate are suppressed within the fronted clause, probably into pronominal elements. The apparent free mobility of the matrix predicate is another sort of illusion under the bi-sentential or bi-clausal analysis of the so-called right dislocation construction (RDC), according to which the post-verbal elements in the RDC are in fact sentence fragments of the continuing sentence/clause, while the predicate is fixed at the final position of the preceding clause. In conclusion, the so-called `predicates` and their projections in Korean, whether in the elliptical or non-elliptical context and whether in the matrix or embedded clause, are fixed at the clause final position due to the interplay of syntax and morphology, and they do not undergo syntactic operations such as movement or deletion since they do not even form a constituent unless the whole clause is pied-piped .