Replies to Lee (2009): In Defence of a Double Clause Approach to the Right Dislocated Construction

Abstract

Providing nine kinds of phenomena, Lee (2009: 130-149) tries to disprove the double clause approach (DCA) to the right dislocated construction (RDC) like Tanaka's (2001) elliptical bi-sentential analysis and Chung's (2008a, 2009) elliptical coordination analysis. This paper shows, however, that the phenomena pointed out by Lee (2009) as problems for the DCA do not in fact constitute real problems, either because some alternative analyses are available or because his data is not extensive enough. It will be also shown that Lee's (2007a, b, 2009) single clause analysis based on Kayne's (1994) universal SVO word order hypothesis faces difficulties (in addition to the ones pointed out by Chung 2009) accounting for the existence of subject (as well as object) appendix and for the absence of LCA effects in the gapless RDC. If we stay on the right track, the RDC cannot be taken as evidence for the claim that Korean conforms to the universal SVO word order hypothesis, pace Lee (2007a, b, 2009).