Sigrid Beck & Shin-Sook Kim
On Wh- and Operator Scope in KOREAN
Arbeitspapiere des SFB 340, Bericht Nr. 73 (1996), 43pp.
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Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of the interaction of
wh-phrases and negation in Korean. We observe that a
wh-phrase must not be preceded by a negative polarity
item. This is related to the observation that in German, a
wh-phrase must not be preceded by negation or a negative
quantifier. We sugest that both languages are sensitive to a
restriction that prohibits LF movement across a negation, the Minimal
Negative Structure Constraint MNSC, proposed in Beck (1995a). Since a
negative polarity item must always be in the scope of a negation, the
MNSC covers the Korean data as well as the German facts.
Our analysis has several interesting implications for LF structures in
Korean. One is that negation cannot be interpreted in its S-structure
position. Another concerns the semantic effect of scrambling. Contra
Saito (1989; 1992), we argue that scrambling serves to identify
intended relative scope, and is thus by no means vacuous. We propose
that short scrambling is never reconstructed.
Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft
University of Tuebingen
Wilhelmstr. 113
72074 Tübingen
Germany
sigrid.beck@uni-tuebingen.de
shin-sook.kim@uni-tuebingen.de