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.

Cheong Youn. 1996. he Double Dative Case Ban in Korean. Studies in Modern Grammatical Theories 9: 97-117. This paper explores data involving sequences of two dative-marked NPs in Korean. Sometimes such sequences result in the ungrammaticality of the sentence, at least for some speakers. By examining a variety of data, I propose the Double Dative Case Ban, a ban on two consecutive NPs that receive dative case from the same verb. Furthermore, I show that the DDCB applies simultaneously to case markers like eykey, ey, kkey, hanthey. This supports the view that all of these markers should be considered to be dative case markers, regardless of the differences in their form.