The Syntax of the Plural Marker -tul and Classifiers in Korean

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the syntactic function of the plural marker -tul and classifiers in Korean. The plural marker -tul is not always obligatory for the expression of plurality, but is characteristic in its distribution of duplicated or multiple affixation to non-nominal categories, such as adverbials and sentence final elements. We focus on the distribution and the function of -tul and the classifier phrases. Classifier is used for counting the number or quantity of an entity, but is number neutral. Affixation of -tul to a classifier results in ungrammaticality. To investigate and to give evidence for the different syntactic behaviors of the plural marker -tul and the classifiers, empirical studies were made and the analytic discussions are made in support of the assumptions made in this paper.