Title
Predicate Decomposition and Verbs of the ‘Put-On’ Class in Korean

Minjeong Son

Date:  17.11.2005

Time:  19:15

Venue:  E010 1

Description
Predicate Decomposition and Verbs of the ‘Put-On’ Class in Korean

The event of ‘putting x on one’s body’ is expressed in Korean by different lexical verbs depending on which body part is involved, as listed in (1).

(1) Verbs of ‘Putting-On’ (one’s body) in Korean (not an exhaustive list)

a.
an-
‘put x in one’s arms’
b.
ep-
‘put x on one’s back’
c.
ssu-
‘put x on one’s head/face’
d.
cha-
‘put x on one’s wrist’
e.
mwul-
‘put x in one’s mouth’
f.
ip-
‘put clothes on one’s body’
g.
kki-
‘put x on one’s finger’
h.
sin-
‘put x on one’s foot’

I categorize these verbs as verbs of the ‘put-on’ class (Son 2004). The verbs in (1) often display argument structure patterns that differ from typical transitive verbs in a number of constructions (e.g., morphological causatives, morphological passives, the -ko iss- construction that prototypically expresses a progressive meaning). In this talk, I will provide explanations for the peculiar argument structure patterns associated with verbs of the ‘put-on’ class. This talk also attempts to offer empirical support for a (syntactic) decomposition approach to predicate formation by demonstrating that the peculiar verbal behavior of the verbs of the ‘put-on’ class can only be explained by decomposing verbs into smaller syntactic pieces.