초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This paper aims to provide an account for the distribution of topics in Korean, inspired by the leading idea that no syntactic operations may be optional. Developing on Basilico's (2003) claim that all clauses have topics, I propose that a topic projection is an integral part of clausal structure, regardless of types of clauses (categorical or thetic), and that it must hold an eventive topic (as opposed to a predicational topic). While conforming to the leading idea, the given analysis is shown to gain empirical support from a particular reading of a nominative subject in clauses with individual-level predicates and reconstruction effects in scrambling constructions. As for reconstruction effects, I suggest that they might as well be understood as reflections of some syntactic procedure, pertaining to both A' and A movements, triggered by 'last resort' considerations. Based upon the current analysis, I also make a (tentative) conclusion that information foci in Korean do not undergo overt focus movement.
