Internally Headed Relative Clause in Korean: Structure and Interpretation

Abstract

I suggest that the internally headed relative clause in Korean is an adjunct serving as the topic for the main clause, with pro projecting a separate projection in the argument position of the main clause. I suggest that Korean utilizes two ways of construal for the covert pronoun in the main clause: coreference and e-type anaphora. Korean internally headed relative clause construction allows a proper noun as its head noun as well. This lends further support to the present thesis that the structure in question is not an internally headed relative clause construction, given the cross-linguistic observation as in Williamson (1984, 1987) that the head noun is an indefinite.