Milestone for Null Pronominalization in the Ciman-Construction: A Reply to An (2013)

Abstract

The marker nun attached to the relevant nominal in the subsequent clause of the ciman construction is not a plain topic one, but rather a contrastive topic one (Lee 2013a). This induces its contrastive counterpart to be retrieved out of the preceding clause. If the counterpart is identified and may be syntactically independent of its following nominal, the next step is that the nun-marked remnant allows null pronominalization. Beyond the multiple case marking construction (i.e., MCM) context, this may even be extended to the non-MCM context. The nominative- or accusative-marked genuine possessor or the adjunct, which can be replaced by the genitive-marked element, acts separately from its immediately following nominal in the sentence-level context, which induces the nun-marked remnant in the second clause to allow null pronominalization. This is also what the nun-marked goal in the subsequent clause of the ciman construction allowing the double accusative construction shows. As a result, the null pronominalization of the Minor Argument (i.e., null pronominalization of sonkalak-ul in Tom-uy sonkalak-ul Tom-GEN finger-ACC which is Minor Argument Pronominalization (i.e., MAP) in Ans (2012a) term) in the MCM context and the other null pronominalization in the non-MCM context are both the same null argument phenomenon even though the former is involved in the nun-marked remnants ownership of the Minor Argument.