Kes-copular construction in Korean

Abstract

Jae-Il Yeom. 2020. Kes-copula construction in Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 45-4, 941-976. In this paper, I discuss what I call a kes-copula construction (KCC) and propose how the construction is analyzed. A KCC characterizes a situation described by a previous sentence in a different way by replacing an expression in a previous sentence with a new one. The new expression can be a word or a phrase. There are two mechanisms involved in this characterization. One is a predication relation which is expressed by the copula and the kes-phrase. The copula has a subject, null or overt, which refers to a situation described by a previous sentence and the kes-phrase denotes a property of situations. Therefore the two sentences describe the same situation. The other is that the new expression is focused. It introduces an alternative and the KCC triggers a presupposition from that alternative and the rest of the kes-phrase. If the presupposition is satisfied by a previous sentence, we can identify correspondence relations between expressions in the previous sentence and those in the kes-phrase. The new expression in the kes-phrase is predicated of the semantic entity introduced by the corresponding expression in the previous sentence in a different way. I call the new expression a dynamic predicate, which is a new notion, and the semantic entity introduced by the corresponding expression the target subject. (Hongik University)