Left Branch Extraction in Fragment and Truncated Cleft Constructions of Korean

Abstract

This paper investigates into fragment and truncated cleft (or subjectless copular verb clause) constructions in Korean by employing the alleged diagnostics of left branch extraction (LBE). We argue that LBE in these two constructions provide compelling evidence that the fragment expression in the former is derived from Move and Delete, but the fragment-like expression in the latter is simply a base-generated predicate that takes the covert subject pro as its subject. To support this argument, we also used other syntactic tests such as tense realization, predication, and the structural restriction on fragmenting/stripping.