In Tchoe (2012, 2013) I have argued that the ECMed DP in Korean is in fact a base-generated proleptic argument. In this subsequent work I will tackle a variety of questions contained in this conclusion. But in the first part of the article, I will delve rather into the Multiple Nominative/Accusative constructions in Korean, which have always been assumed to posses distinct syntactic representations and derivations from the ECM constructions. I will show that the Multiple Nominative/Accusative constructions are also a base-generated proleptic construction. Given this, the unique difference between ECM constructions and Multiple Case constructions in Korean is the fact that in the latter types of constructions the grammatical (thematic/narrow, in other terms) subject/ object is always represented by a DP. Upon this observation, four assertions will be made on the syntax of Korean. The first one is that Korean employs two types of syntactic objects to represent in syntax an argument selected by a predicate; the one is a continuous expression and the other a discontinuous expression in the sense of Hale (1981 et seq). I refer, as a continuous expression, the nominal or propositional expressions that function like a single syntactic object with regard to syntactic operations such as scrambling. For nominal or propositional expressions whose parts split off after the Case-checking, I will refer them as a discontinuous expression. I will also show that discontinuous expressions have nothing to do with so-called symmetrically Merged unstable syntactic objects (Chomsky 2013, Moro 2007 and Ott 2011, forthcoming). But I am not ready to propose any tangible idea on the internal composition of the discontinuous expressions. The second assertion put forward is that discontinuous expressions always consist of a proleptic argument and a grammatical subject/object. The third and last assertions are that proleptic arguments are assigned a pragmatically accessible θ-role and that they appear on the left side of the grammatical subject/object at least in Korean.

This paper is to investigate so-called ECM constructions in Korean. It is generally assumed in the literature that the ECMed DP is a subject of a complement clause raised to the matrix landing site. But I will show that Korean ECMed DP is in fact the base-generated proleptic argument on grounds of evidence related to the long-distance relativization. Besides this conclusion, I will examine one alleged property of the Korean ECM constructions. It is quasi unanimously assumed that there exist restrictions on the category and the grammatical function of the embedded clause and on the embedded predicate such as the transitivity restriction. But we will see that such a restriction has no firm basis. I will also reveal one unknown property of these constructions; not only the subject but also the direct object, the indirect object and even the adjunct can be represented by a proleptic argument, c'est à dire can be ECMed.