한국어 명세화 의사분열 구문: ‘것’-분열절의 허사적 성격

Abstract

This paper investigates specificational pseudoclefts and their inverted counterparts in Korean in light of the difference that kes-cleft clauses in the former have with those in the latter. We argue that the kes cleft clause in specificational pseudoclefts has a null operator displaced to its left periphery and enters into labeling, its label thereby being composed of uninterpretable formal features. This is how the kes cleft clause in point behaves like an expletive. The consequence is that it is not allowed to occur in a theta-marked position such as the complement of a copula or others. We also show that the kes clause can be analyzed not as a cleft clause, but as a relative clause construction where kes is a relative head. It will be shown that unlike the kes cleft clause, the relative clause construction with the kes head is evidently not an expletive, denoting a non-human entity.