Constructions Sharing Similar Restrictions with MSCs in Korean and the Processing Approach to Island Effects

Abstract

One salient property of multiple subject constructions (MSCs) in Korean is that they need to satisfy various restrictions the nature of which is mainly interpretive. Interestingly, the restrictions identified for MSCs are not confined to them but restrictions similar to them are observed with various other constructions in Korean such as subject-to-object raising constructions, double relative constructions and some topic constructions. A natural question arising from this is why these diverse constructions share similar restrictions with MSCs. In this paper I claim that this is because they all share a common characteristic with MSCs, not because their derivation involves MSCs, as is commonly proposed to be the case. To be specific, my claim is that this common characteristic is the fact that all the constructions in question involve an island configuration and that the reason such constructions are subject to various restrictions is because they incur heavy processing loads.