Light Verbs, Unaccusativity, and Relational Grammar

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a relational grammar account of light verb constructions and unaccusativity in Korean. Given the assumption that grammatical relations are primitives of linguistic theory (Perlmutter, 1980), it is argued that the properties of Korean light verb constructions are best accounted for in terms of a clause union analysis. The theta-assigning property of verbal nouns is attributed to the fact that verbal nouns head an initial P-arc. The appearance of an accusative marker on verbal nouns is explained by the assumption that verbal nouns bear a 2 relation in the final stratum. Additionally, it is claimed that such an analysis allows us to offer an identical treatment to the distribution of case marking in unaccusative light verb constructions. That is, unaccusative verbal nouns are accusative marked simply because they bear a 2 relation in the final stratum.