I propose that the dative and locative case particles are not postpositions but morphological case markers, quite in contrast to the common view in the literature (Yang 1972, Cho and Sells 1995, and Suh 2013 among many others). I will show the difference between the nominative and the accusative and the dative and the locative in case drop, case stacking, and case spreading is attributed to the fact that the dative case and the locative case are inherent case, as compared with the nominative and the accusative, which are structural case par excellence. The present proposal has a nontrivial implication regarding the other case particles typically argued as postpositions in Korean.
Language is a crucial and complex lifelong capacity that is constrained by cognitive aging. Aging is thus regarded to be associated with poor performance particularly in the receptive and expressive language abilities. There are, however, some recent proposals that normal aging impairs specific aspects of language production, while most comprehension abilities remain stable as we age. This paper investigates how cognitive aging affects language performance, focusing on syntactic and semantic processing. Based on the experiments of structure choice and modification, it finds that both the syntactic and semantic systems remain largely stable across the life span and the semantic processing is rather preserved longer with age than the syntactic processing. This finding is consistent with the recent research on the compensatory neural recruitment as we age.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the early wh-movement acquisition of English native speakers from the perspective of Minimalist Program. Guasti and Rizzi(1996) propose the null auxiliary hypothesis that the structure of the questions where the verb is inflected with -ing includes a null auxiliary, the counterpart of the lexical be. They draw a parallel between the null auxiliary and the early null subject. Rizzi(1997) proposes that the CP system, like the IP system, is layered. ForceP is the highest project which determines the clausal type and FocusP's specifier is the landing site for wh-operators and whose head hosts inverted auxiliaries. Guasti and Rizzi(1996) argue that children's auxless questions are structures truncated below ForceP. Thus, the null auxiliary, like other early phenomena, finds its source in the mechanism of clausal truncation. The phenomena of early language acquisition reflects the process of acquiring functional categories as children grow.
This study is to discuss the characteristics of Korean by which English passives are translated into Korean actives. Cho (2005) suggests the three major characteristics of Korean responsible for the voice modulation found in English-Korean translations: i) free word order, ii) a non-subject topic in the sentence-initial position, and iii) ellipsis of subject. This statistical study, however, reveals that the first two features play no role and the third one plays a limited role. It shows that the voice modulation is significantly affected by other typological characteristics of Korean such as BECOME-language (Ikegami 1991) and high-context language (Hall 1976), and also by the use of the combination of ‘noun + delexicalized verb’ caused by lexical gaps between the two languages.
This study seeks answers to the following two questions on olfaction and odor. First, what is the olfactory lexical gap phenomenon? Second, given lack of odor lexicon, how do English speakers express smells? In order to answer these questions, first, we explained the olfactory lexical gap phenomenon from neuro‐physiological, socio‐cultural, and lingua‐cognitive aspects, and confirmed that English speakers, in order to express smells, use linguistic tools such as hedonic judgments, the sources of odor, denominal adjectives, deverbal adjectives, adjacent senses, and reliance on memories, experiences and situations.
This study investigates whether L2 learners employ similar processing strategies as native speakers when disambiguating attachment of a relative clause (RC) in Korean as a second language (KSL). Different processing strategies were tested with temporarily ambiguous sentences containing RCs when the head NP is a complex NP (NP1 of NP2), in which either NP1 (low attachment, LA) or NP2 (high attachment, HA) can be an antecedent. The RCs were controlled for length (short vs. long) and position-sentence initial (scrambled word order) vs. sentence medial (canonical word order). Native speakers consistently showed a clear HA preference regardless of the length or the position of the RCs, whereas KSL learners showed a clear LA preference. The attachment differences between L1 and L2 are discussed in terms of transfer and prosodic sensitivity.
Many researchers called for a need to expose L2 learners to diverse writing contexts, and L2-L2 interactions using English as a communication tool became more common than communication with native English speakers. The present study introduced two groups of Korean university students to a task, for which they were grouped differently: the first with a group of students at a Chinese university and the second with Chinese students as well as students of a different Korean university. These groups performed a task that they selected from among three choices. In the process of their e-mail exchanges, the students' pre- and post-task perspectives were explored through two surveys. In addition, the students expressed their reflections regarding this experience in writing. Overall, the students seemed to consider this experience of exchanging emails with L2 students speaking a different L1 useful and it helped some students gain confidence in their ability to use English as a communication tool. This study provided an opportunity to expand the writing context in EFL classrooms.