The grammatical status of –eykey and its implications on the syntax of Korean morphological passives

Myung-Kwan Park

doi:10.1515/opli-2021-0006

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates the grammatical status of the so-called Dative particle –eykey and its implications on the syntax of Korean morphological/lexical passives. We first argue that this type of passive derives from causative/experiential constructions in this language. The former and the latter involve the same form of verb, but in the process of passivization the null passive morphology on the embedded transitive verb phrase selected by the matrix causative/experiential morpheme demotes the Dative –eykey-marked Causee in embedded [Spec, VoiceP] position from an argument to an adjunct, besides the embedded transitive lexical verb losing the ability to assign Accusative Case. The so-called animacy restriction on the Nom-marked subject a noun phrase (NP) in –eykey passives is ascribed to the requirement that it takes the Causer/Experiencer role in –eykey passives. In contrast, –ey uyhay passives are derived from the null passive morphology attached to the matrix causative verb complex, thus the matrix Causer/Experiencer subject being demoted and realized with the particle –ey uyhay.

Highlights

In Korean, the particle –eykey attached to a noun phrase (NP) is known to have structurally and functionally multiple roles
Concentrating on its realization in Korean passives, we argue that it most plausibly has an intimate connection in syntactic derivation with its counterpart of the same form in causatives/experientials of Korean,2 but not with the by-phrase-like grammatical function
A question is what change in grammatical function arises in the process from causatives to experientials and direct passives? As suggested earlier, on the analogy of Korean –eykey passives to English have passives, we suggest that the passive/passivizing morphology (PM) is attached to the lexical verb phrase,15 forming the small clause complement VoicePPAS that the experiential morpheme selects as its complement, as in (21):

Summary

Introduction

In Korean, the particle –eykey attached to a noun phrase (NP) is known to have structurally and functionally multiple roles. First and foremost, it represents a Dative Case/case marker in the ditransitive verb construction (1a), but it represents either an ablative case marker (1b) or an Experiencer Case/case marker in the stative psych adjective construction (1c). Besides these grammatical roles, another peculiar manifestation is its use in morphological/lexical passives such as (2), where –eykey as well as its sibling –ey uyhay has been analyzed on a par with the preposition by in English passives. Concentrating on its realization in Korean passives, we argue that it most plausibly has an intimate connection in syntactic derivation with its counterpart of the same form (i.e., the particle –eykey) in causatives/experientials of Korean (to gain a quick understanding of them, they correspond to causatives/experientials of English that are constructed with the causative/experiential verb have), but not with the by-phrase-like grammatical function

An outstanding issue raised

68 Myung-Kwan Park

The syntactic derivation of morphological passives

Passivization of ditransitive verbs

Conclusion