The Nature of AM Markers

Based on H.-S. Lee’s (1991) argument that the AM which links the adnominal modifier and its nominal head is not a tense marker, but an aspectual morpheme indicating either 'perfective' or 'imperfective' aspect of an adnominal modifier, I

propose that the RC having an aspectual (perfective/imperfective) feature is merged into the specifier position of AgrP, and after the head noun is adjoined to Agr°, the

2.3 2.1. Aspect

According to Smith (1991), there are two ways of looking at the aspectual structure of a described situation. The first way is to see the inherent aspectual properties of situations; the other is concerned with how the speaker views a situation. A situation can be presented differently depending on the speaker’s viewpoint. In this Section, I will pay attention to and discuss the second way.

The speaker’s aspectual viewpoint of a described situation can again be divided in two: temporal viewpoint vs. totality viewpoint. In temporal viewpoint a situation is located depending on the temporal location of the speaker’s viewpoint. According to this temporal viewpoint, aspect can be divided into ‘non-completed’ and ‘completed’ aspect. If so, 'nun’ refers to ‘non-completed’ action (aspect) while '(u)n’ indicates ‘completed’ action (aspect), as illustrated in (30) below.

(30) a. [Ce cip-ul cis-nun] John that house-Acc build-AM ‘John who is building that house’ b. [Ce cip-ul ci-wrt] John

that house-Acc build-AM ‘John who (has) built that house’

On the other hand, the totality view is another way to appreciate the speaker’s aspectual viewpoint of a situation in terms of perfectivity (perfective or imperfective). According to Smith (1991), the totality view of aspect is concerned with whether a situation is viewed from outside (external view) as a single conceptual unit or viewed from inside (internal view). If the situation is externally appreciated, the perfective aspect is chosen; if it is internally viewed, the imperfective aspect is chosen.

Based on Comrie (1976) and Smith (1991), H.-S. Lee (1991) argues that the AM marker in Korean adnominal modifiers indicates the perfective or imperfective aspect of an adnominal modifier; '(u)n’ refers to perfective aspect (external view) of a adnominal modifier while 'nun’ indicates imperfective aspect (internal view) of the modifier. In this thesis, I follow H.-S. Lee’s (1991) argument with respect to the status of the AM in Korean adnominal modifiers.

2.3.2.2. The Totality View of Perfectivity

Let us consider the notion of perfectivity, by taking examples (from H.-S. Lee (1991).

( 3 1 ) [r c cekise cacenke-lul tha-n] sonye-ka ililo on-ta.

over there bicycle-Acc ride-AM girl-Nom this way come-Dec ‘A girl on a bike is coming this way.’

According to H.-S. Lee (1991), in (31) tha-n ‘riding’ refers to a current state of affairs (of being on a bike) rather than a completed action (i.e. having ridden a bike). The reason why tha-n in (31) should be interpreted as a current state of affairs rather than a completed action cannot be accounted for in terms of the temporal view (completeness). Notice that in the temporal view of aspect, '(u)n’ indicates the completed action or state; 'nun’ refers to the non-completed (progressive) action. On the other hand, in the totality view of perfectivity, statives cannot take the imperfective aspectual morphology 'nun,’ since the situations described by stative verbs or adjectives do not have an internal view, and thus cannot be expressed with the imperfective form 'nun’. Recall that in (31) tha-n ‘riding’ is interpreted as a current state of affairs and not as an action, and does not allow the situation to have

an internal view. Therefore, the totality view of perfectivity can account for why the verb in the relative clause in (31) must take the perfective form '(u)n,' even though the situation is not a completed action. If the temporal view of aspect is chosen for the interpretation of the relative clause in (31), tha-n cannot be interpreted as a current state of affairs (being on a bike), since in the temporal view, '(u)n’ should refer to a completed action. This observation shows us that with regard to the definition of perfectivity and the exclusive usage of the perfective morphology '(u)n' in the statives, the totality view of aspect has advantages over the temporal view of aspect.

2.3.2.3. Aspect in RCs and Pre-nominal Adjectives

Korean relatives and attributive adjectives show a contrast between perfective

and imperfective aspect. According to the totality viewpoint of aspect (H.-S. Lee,

1991), the perfective aspect views a situation as a ‘wrapped single entity’ and the imperfective aspect appreciates a situation as ‘unfolding as it happens’. In this Subsection, I examine how the totality view of perfectivity is expressed in relative clauses and pre-nominal modifying adjectives in Korean.

As seen above, the distinction between perfective and imperfective is expressed by different suffixing: fu )n /n u n \ fu ) n ’ refers to perfective aspect while 'nun’

indicates imperfective, as illustrated in (32), (33) and (34) below.

(32) a. [Seoul-ey ka-w] John a’. [Seoul-ey ksi-nun] John

Loc go-AM Loc go-AM

‘John who has gone to Seoul’ ‘John who goes/is going to Seoul’ b. [i cip-eyse cam-ul ca-w] Mary b ’. [i cip-eyse cam-ul ca-«ww] Mary

this house-in sleep-Acc sleep-ANI this house-in sleep-Acc sleep-AM ‘Mary who (has) slept in this house’ ‘Mary who (is) sleep(ing) in this house’

(33) Ku-nun yepp-un /* nun cip-ul kacy-ess-ta. He-Top pretty-AM house-Acc have-Pst-Dec

‘He has a pretty house.’

(34) ku-nun cak-un/*nun son-ul kacy-ess-ta. He-Top small-AM hand-Acc have-Pst-Dec ‘He has small hands.’

To put it succinctly, the aspect of RCs and attributive adjectives is determined by the totality viewpoint of the situation but not by the temporal viewpoint of the situation.

The totality viewpoint of aspect can account for the fact that stative adjectives in Korean cannot co-occur with the progressive (imperfective) aspectual morpheme,

'nun,' but can appear with the non-progressive (perfective) aspectual morpheme,

'(u)n' when they are used as modifying the nominal.

In the totality viewpoint of aspect, statives are taken as perfective, since states do not have an internal view. Situations described by stative predicates are always interpreted as an unanalyzable whole. This means that the situations marked by statives have nothing to do with time reference.

From these observations, H.-S. Lee (1991) argues that the AM marker in Korean is not a tense marker but an aspectual marker presenting the perfectivity of adnominal modifiers in term of the totality viewpoint. In this thesis, following H.-S. Lee (1991), I propose that the RC and pre-nominal adjective occur in [Spec,AgrP], to check their aspectual feature (perfectivity) with the corresponding feature borne by Agr°.