V-e V Constructions Redux

Abstract

I address two types of verbal concatenation constructions in Korean in the form of V-e V, which has been a topic of much controversy in the literature with regard to its structure. I argue that what I call type I is ambiguous in structure in that it is construed as either monoclausal or biclausal, whereas type II is always construed as monoclausal. I thus crucially diverge from the common view in the literature, according to which both types are uniformly biclausal or monoclausal (Lee 1976, Yang 1976, Choe 1988, Kim 1993, Lee 1993, Choi 2001). It will be shown that a variety of tests including scope of negation and manner adverbials, along with the distribution of negative polarity items in Korean lend support to the present thesis that the two types are different in their clausal structure.