Rare Plural Marking and Ubiquitous Plural Marker in Korean

Abstract

In this paper I intend to discuss two disparate aspects of plural marking in Korean. First, I will make an attempt to show that the traditional belief that marking plural nouns in Korean is optional-whatever is implied by this term-is misleading and in some cases flatly conflicts with the facts. More importantly, a systematic investigation reveals that, contrary to the popular belief, plural nouns, under specifiable conditions, must be marked. It turns out that the phenomenon under discussion is intricately related with much broader questions of specificity of reference, generic vs. non-generic use of nouns, and the type of plurality split that the Korean language exhibits. Secondly; I will treat a language-specific syntactic process which may be unique to Korean. I will tentatively call it 'Plural Marker Copying'. A postulation of a rule for the process not only simplifies the description of grammar in general, but also provides plausible explanations for apparent syntactic and semantic irregularities that they have puzzled many grammarians as well as students of Korean for a longtime.