A pro-drop analysis of verb-echo answers in Korean

Abstract

There are a variety of ways of answering to yes/no questions in Korean. One of them is verb-echo answers (VEAs), whereby speakers use as answers only the verbs which have already been mentioned in the preceding questions. We argue in this paper that unpronounced (or omitted) arguments in Korean verb-echo answers are phonologically null pronominals, namely pros, rejecting the TP ellipsis approach, which proposes that a verb undergoes V-T-C movement, and subsequently, the TP containing its argument(s) is deleted at PF. The current approach is supported by the fact that the recoverability of manner adverbs located inside verbal domains is restricted, and that we can easily find out instances where voice mismatch is allowed in verb-echo answers. In doing so, we propose what follows: First, pro-drop in VEAs needs an appropriate identity domain, whose size can vary depending on information structure. Second, adjunct ellipsis DOES exist in Korean, and it is licensed by a local head Pol in the matrix clause. (Seoul National University and Dongguk University)