The Grammar of Doing and Undergoing in Korean

Abstract

.This paper concerns some properties of the Korean sentential construction involving the verbal marker -hi-. A number of Korean verbs have alternate forms without and with this marker, e.g. mək/mək-hi- 'eat.'The verbal form with -hi- is sometimes said to be the 'passive' of the unmarked form, since the subjects of sentences whose verbs have the marker -hi- often correspond semantically to undergoers of the sententially denoted activities. It is important, however, that there are limitations on what can constitute the subject of an 'active' Korean sentence. Some such constraints are reflected in the preference for the use of the marked verbal form in -hi- in the expression of certain types of action; e.g. na-nin tol-e cha-Yəss-ta 'I stumbled on a rock'(literally, 'I was kicked by a rock');compare the unacceptable unmarked counterpart *tol-i naIil chass-ta 'The rock kicked me.' This paper seeks to account for the distribution of -hi- in Korean by investigating the conditions on what can constitute subject in a Korean sentence.