Abstract: This paper describes the distribution of nominal modifiers in Korean and explores the noun phrase structure accounting for this distribution. There are four nominal modifiers which can be separated by adjacent nominal modifiers from the noun that they modify. We call these modifiers peripheral and these are demonstratives i/ku/ce, quantifiers like motun (all), relative clauses and noun phrases combiend with genitive Case marker uy. They form two different classes in terms of distributional property. One class is composed of demonstratives and quantifiers, which can occur only one time within a noun phrase, and the order of which is fixed in the order of > quantifier. The other is composed of relatives and noun phrases with uy, which can occur more than one time within a noun phrase, and the order of which is free in the way that they can occur before a demonstrative, between a demonstrative and a quantifier, or after aquantifier. Based on their distributional properties, we claim that demonstratives and quantifiers ares pecifiers, specifier of DP for the former and specifier of NumP for the latter, whereas relatives and noun phrases with uy are modifiers and they are base-generated adjoined to DP, NumP or NP. As for the noun phrase structure, assuming the structure proposed by Hong (2006) where NP, NumP, PEP (Postpositional Element Phrase) and KP form extended nominal projections, we add to it one more extended nominal projection DP between NumP and PEP. One remarkable property of this supplemented structure is that DP constitutes a projection separated from KP and generated below it.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-02-28
Language: en
Type: article
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