The Demonstrative Ku ‘He' Binding in the Dative Construction

Abstract

The dative marker -eykey 'to' can be attached to the experiencer or goal in Korean. There are two kinds of eykey-marked elements or phrases: a dative experiencer and dative goal. There are big syntactic differences between the dative experiencer and the dative goal: that is, the dative experiencer can be responsible for the agreement of the subject honorification and the subject-oriented binding, but the dative goal cannot. The dative experiencer is a syntactic subject, whereas the dative goal is an indirect object. The demonstrative ku 'he' can appear as a bound variable which Principle A regulates (cf. Kang 2010). The dative goal can bind the demonstrative ku, but not the reflexive caki 'self' in the complement position of the dative construction. While the reflexive caki in the complement position triggers a binding-freezing effect of the goal, the demonstrative ku in the complement position drives the binding-thawing effect of the goal.