What Can Korean Say About the Minimalist Program?

초록

In this paper we try to show what evidence the Korean language can provide for or against various proposals concerning Universal Grammar that are conceived particularly under the principles-and-parameters approach and have critically been re-examined in the Minimalist framework (cf. Chomsky 1995 and others). More specifically, we focus on proposals on verbal complexes and related lexical semantics and argument and clausal structure. By examining some peculiar properties of passive and causative suffixes and of a light verb construction in Korean, we argue that the Korean language adds up positive evidence for the v-VP structure and more generally the Hale and Keyser's (1993a) configurational approach to thematic relations.