Processing the Clause-Mate Condition Effects in Korean

Abstract

Bae, Suyoung & Park, Bum-Sik. 2018. Processing the Clause-Mate Condition Effects in Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 43-3, 545-569. In this paper we examine the Clause-Mate Condition (CMC) effects in Korean multiple fragment answers (MFA). We first observe that Korean MFAs do not always obey the CMC, and show that a syntactic account would fall short of capturing the variability. In this paper, we attempt to provide a direction towards an account. In particular, we claim that the variability arises due to intricate interactions of ellipsis and processing. Observing a close correlation between MFAs and what we call alternative long answers, we first claim that MFAs can be derived by double clausal ellipsis, where ellipsis of the matrix TP is followed by the fronted embedded CP. In terms of processing, the parser strongly tends to process the overt fragments as arguments of the first predicate that it encounters in the linear order, i.e., the (elided) embedded predicate. In some cases, however, this induces wrong parsing, giving rise to the CMC effects in question. The processing effect is unique to ellipsis and thus the non-elided counterpart does not exhibit the same CMC effects. We suggest that the uniqueness of the processing effect might be due to the covertness of predicate. (University of Maryland & Dongguk University)