‘-Tul’ in Korean not as an Additive but an Associative Plural Marker

Abstract

This paper argues that the nominal suffix ‘-tul’ in Korean does not form an additive plural but rather an associative plural (AP). We first examine ‘-tul’ on pronouns and proper nouns in Korean, which makes a strong case for the analysis of ‘-tul’ as an AP marker. We also note that ‘-tul’ on common nouns in Korean not only gives rise to an AP reading, but also an additive plural-like reading. We suggest that the latter reading arises because complying with its semantico-pragmatic characterization, ‘-tul’ takes as a focal referent one specific member in the set of all possible referents denoted by a common noun, still associating the member at hand with other members in the set. Concurrently, we argue that unlike its English counterpart composed of phi-features, Korean ‘-tul’ composed of pragmatic features adjoins to the periphery of a nominal projection that Ritter and Wiltschko (2019) postulate as a nominal Ground Phrase.