한국어 부정극어의 유형과 그 허가조건

Abstract

Since Fauconnier(1975) and Ladusaw(1979) proposed a semantic/ pragmatic account of the distribution of negative polarity items, the issue has been approached from a variety of directions. This paper, observing the fact that different NPIs in Korean are licensed by different negative expressions, supports the typology of NPIs proposed is Nam(1994) and van der Wouden (1994): (i) weak NPIs, (ii) strong NPIs, and (iii) strongest NPIs. This typology is based on Zwarts` (1990) idea that the negative force of natural language expressions is gradable, so the three types of NPIs require different licensors. Thus, (i) weak NPIs are licensed by "monotone decreasing" functions, (ii) strong NPIs are licensed by "anti-additive" functions, and (iii) strongest NPIs are licensed by "anti-morphic" functions. This paper further illustrates and accounts for the fact that before in English and -ki ceney `before` in Korean should be interpreted as an anti-additive function as well as a decreasing one. `this proposal properly develops Landman`s (1991) semantics of before and takes before not as a binary propositional operator but as a function from propositions to predicate (VP) modifiers. There has not been observed any weak NPIs in Korean, but the paper identifies several strong NPIs in Korean and Japanese, and illustrates various constructions licensing the strong ones, e.g., (quasi-)conditionals, comparatives, and negative predicates.