문장성분으로서의 주제어

Abstract

This paper aims to consider the system of sentence constituent in Korean critically and to argue the syntactic status of topic. The current system of sentence constituent in Korean does not consider topic as a sentence constituent, because topic is discourse-pragmatic constituent. However, we cannot analyze syntactically Korean sentence exhaustively on the system. In order to acquire the completeness of the Korean grammar, it is necessary to set topic as a sentence constituent. In the process of forming Korean sentences, various constituents can be syntactically realized by not only the argument structure of the predicate but also the speaker’s communicative need. Topic as a sentence constituent has to be set a constituent which is not analyzed by the argument structure of the predicate. And topic as a sentence constituent is a syntactically realized constituent which was the semantic elements relating to comments. As regards topic as a sentence constituent, we can establish the concepts such as constituent topic, restructuring from constituent topic to sentential topic, topicalization of an argument of a grammatical subject, the optionally realized grammatical subject.