earticle

영어

Cross-linguistically there are different mechanisms for alternate syntactic coding of semantic roles. Typological studies show that alternate syntactic frames are a recurrent feature of human languages. In this article, we have examined space-object constructions and possessor-ascension constructions in Korean, in which alternate syntactic frames are available with verbs undergoing no morphological change. In space-object constructions, a semantic difference is manifested depending on which semantic role is chosen as direct object. In other words, accusative-space and locative-space constructions contain the same semantic roles (agent, theme, locative) and differ only with respect to which role is chosen as direct object and thereby presented as more central. Many languages, including Korean, generally show a semantic contrast between total affectedness of accusative-space and partial affectedness of locative-space. This is consistent with the typological universal that the marking for the wholly affected patient is the accusative and the marking for the partly affected patient is usually non-accusative (whether it is locative, genitive or partitive). Possessor ascension is a device which promotes a possessor NP to the status of affected object. When possessor ascension takes place, the possessor NP is turned into the Primary object of the verb, and the original object becomes the Secondary object. The possessor marked as accusative behaves like a typical direct object and the possessee loses the status of direct object to have a secondary object interpretation.