An Experimental Study on Island Effects in Korean Relativization

Abstract

One of the most important issues in syntax is whether so-called islands are universal or not. This issue is important because the nature of Universal Grammar (UG), including the issue of whether it exists or not, partly depends on the (non-)existence of islands in every language. The goal of this paper is to shed light on this issue by using a quantitative method. Particularly, the paper focuses on the effect of Complex NP Constraint (CNPC) on the acceptability of Korean relative clause constructions (RCCs). The quantitative method used for this purpose is experimentation based on questionnaires. The results of the experiment strongly support the view that sees islands as non-universal constraints and classifies Korean as a pragmatic (or discourse-oriented) language.