Gapless Adnominal Clauses in Korean and their Interpretations

Abstract

In Korean there are various gapless adnominal clauses. One common morpheme they share is the adnominalizer -(u)n. Assuming that only a relative clause has a gap that is coindexed with the adnominalizer, the meaning of a gapless adnominal clause is determined locally. A NP with an adnominal clause can denote an abstract thing like a situation, a fact or a proposition, except for so-called gapless relative clauses, which denote concrete things. A situation-denoting clause and a gapless relative clause allows no mood marker. A mood marker is required by a proposition-denoting clause, but optionally allowed in a fact-denoting clause. To explain the four meanings, I claim that a clause without a mood marker denotes a property of situations, separate from an event introduced by a verb. A mood marker converts a property of situations to a proposition. A fact is an extensional realization of the corresponding proposition.