earticle

영어

This paper takes up the topic of NPI-contained replacement in modal constructions and discusses its theoretical implications. It is well-known that an NPI contained within a replacement site cannot be licensed by negation outside of it. But, surprisingly, such NPI-contained replacement is allowed in the Korean li eps- modal construction. Thus, we have two conflicting sets of data regarding NPI-contained replacement. We examine Chung’s (2007, 2017) and Kim’s (2014, 2015. 2018, etc.) analyses to see whether they can account for these seemingly conflicting sets of data. As it turns out that Chung and Kim cannot give a satisfactory account for the relevant data, an alternative account is proposed. The proposal is based on the following two main ideas: (i) li in li eps- construction is a negative complementizer and (ii) the selection of a category is based on a head-to-head relation. With these two assumptions, we can account for the seemingly contradictory the state of facts regarding NPI-contained replacement and the subject-object NPI asymmetry in the relevant replacement phenomena. The proposed analysis gains support as it can be extended to the canonical negative complementizer contexts in Korean.