Deriving Null Arguments via Null Article-Stranding Bare Noun Ellipsis

Abstract

It is well acknowledged that in Korean, bare nouns or nouns alone without being supported by an overt article or determiner (as well as a modifier) can be an anaphoric definite or an indefinite; they may or may not refer to the entity or entities that have been mentioned in the previous discourse. The null hypothesis is that there are null determiners associated with null definite or indefinite articles in Korean that correspond to English definite or indefinite articles. Following this logic, we investigate the derivation of null arguments in Korean syntax, concentrating on what Landau (2023) observes: the resistance in retaining generalized quantifiers and their kin on their antecedents in the interpretation of null arguments. Since Korean null definite and indefinite articles are only compatible with bare nouns but not with noun phrases accompanied by generalized quantifiers and their kin, we argue that Landau’s (2023) generalization on the resistance at issue follows nicely. We further argue that predicate nominals are not subject to bare noun ellipsis deriving null arguments, but it is not the case that all of them fail to be.