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The purpose of this paper is to review the previous research on Korean ergative verbs critically by comparison with those of English, and redefine the term of Korean ergative verbs. We have investigated the concept of ergativity in English and Korean and the concept of English ergative verbs has been applied to those of Korean and found out that some Korean scholars have used the term ‘ergative verbs’ in some constructions in Korean inappropriately. This can be sometimes confusing and misleading. We will propose the well redefined term of Korean ergative verbs as follows. First, Korean ergative verbs are derived from transitive verbs with overt morphological change or without that. Although they have natural verb alternation, if they need any agentivity in meaning they can’t be ergative verbs. Second, every ergative verbs must have event argument. So if they don’t have it, they should be ruled out from ergative verbs. Third, in connection with passive sentences, overt morphological change can’t be the criterion to decide whether they are ergative verbs or not. At this time the meaning is very important to decide ergativity. If they make good sense without the help of agentivity they can be ergative verbs.