The purpose of this study is to evaluate the empirical adequacy of the event-based language typology with special reference to English and Korean. The event-based language typology classifies languages into I- and D-languages based on the importance of the initial and terminal bounds of an event with respects to the way the relevant languages use in the recognition of eventiveness. In I-languages, in which the initial bound of an event is important, activity and accomplishment are recognized as events, while in D-languages, where the terminal bound of an event is important, achievement and accomplishment are so recognized. English and Korean, the target languages of this study, show the characteristics of I- and D-languages respectively. In the case of English, we can confirm that it falls into D-languages based on the fact (1) that event cancellation is impossible and (2) that causative reading is possible in terms of the delimitation of predicates. In the case of Korean, we can tell that it belongs to I-languages as (3) event cancellation is possible and (4) only NPs that can work as an initiator can be the subject in the position of [Spec, FP-init].

• Juhyun Back(Busan National University of Education)
• Eunsuk Lee(Daegu University) Corresponding author