Non-Serializing Approach to the So-Called Serial Verb Constructions in Korean

Abstract

There have been many linguists who studied Korean two-full-verb constructions. Some of them found an apparently meaningful similarity between these constructions in Korean and other serializing languages with respect to tense sharing and argument sharing and proposed serial verb constructions (SVC) in Korean. However, there are several phenomena which cannot be accounted for within the SVC framework, and one of the important properties of the SVC―the unaccusative second verb which takes the object of V1 as its subject―does not exist in Korean. In this paper we analyze the so-called SVCs into compound verb constructions (CVC) and covert coordination constructions (CCC) which already exist in Korean syntax. We also propose adequate structures for them without introducing a new structure to an already existing system. Based on this structural analysis, we not only explain the problems that the previous analysis could not solve but also provide further evidence for our non-serializing approach.