The Syntax of Multiple Fragments in Korean: Overt Absorption, Max-Elide, and Scrambling

Abstract

In a multiple question and answer pair, the answer sentence in Korean (as in other languages) is composed of the two or more fragment(ary) answer phrases. Following Choe (1987), when an answer phrase is embedded and trapped within an island-forming structure, the unmarked option is to utilize the pied-piping strategy to move the larger constituent of island structure containing the answer phrase. Since multiple fragment (MF) answers to multiple questions are assumed to be calculated anyway via post-QR absorption at the interpretive component (May and Higginbotham (1981)), the syntactic formation of MFs involving (TP) ellipsis is achieved by movement of the answer phrase via an overt instantiation of post-QR absorption (cf. Sohn (1994)). After the syntactic formation of MFs via pied-piping and absorption-accompanied movement, MF answer phrase remnants undergo two additional processes. First, the final larger remnant constituent has its right periphery ‘stripped’ away. We propose that Max-Elide (cf. Merchant (2008)) comes into play in this ‘stripping’ process, eliding both TP and an additional right periphery of the final larger remnant constituent. Second, the answer phrase surviving from the first larger remnant constituent may take the hanging topic strategy, being base-generated at the left edge without a Case-marker/postposition. To boot, we show that in addition to word-order preserving MF formation via absorption-accompanied movement, the potential second or third remnant answer phrase from a non-island structure can scramble over the potential first or second one, feeding into word-order changing MF formation.