초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The article argues that a 3rd person referring expression ku in Korean is not a pronoun, but a nominal phrase which consists of a demonstrative ku and a null category pro having a feature [+human]. We first point out that 3rd person ku differs from a 3rd person pronoun he in English in six ways although it can be coreferential with an antecedent in a discourse: (a) non-occurrence of 3rd person ku in colloquial Korean along with its limited distribution in written Korean, (b) no deictic function with finger pointing, (c) no application of Binding Principle B, (d) no application of Binding Principle C, (e) word order effect, (f)unavailability of a variable binding interpretation. We then claim that all these differences cannot be accounted for in terms of a parametric difference between Korean and English and argue that they can be accounted for if it is assumed that 3rd person ku consists of a demonstrative ku and a null category pro having a feature [+human]. We also provide independent pieces of evidence for the postulations of a demonstrative ku and pro. Finally we discuss some implications of the claims in the article for a Korean pronominal system.
