Index as a syntactic object: Evidence from Korean

Abstract

This paper examines the distribution of anaphoricdemonstrative and 3rd person singular pronoun in Korean that share the samemorphology, namely ku. I show that evidence building on these referential expressionsprovides support for recent theories in which indices are independent syntactic objectsand head their own functional projection such as idxP (indexP) within the DP (e.g.,Schwarz 2009; Hanink 2021; Jenks and Konate 2022). I propose that the demonstrativeku realizes idxP in the specifier of DP giving rise to an anaphoric interpretation. Itis also proposed that the 3rd person singular pronoun ku instantiates idxP, but thepronominal idxP appears either in the specifier of DP when it has a referential readingor in the specifier of φP with a variable reading. The two indexed definites realizedby the same morpheme ku in Korean provide strong evidence for the syntactic realizationof indices, similar to Washo (isolate) where deictic demonstratives and the 3rd personpronoun are realized by the same morpheme. I extend the proposed analysis to thedeictic demonstratives i (proximal) and ce (distal) in Korean; these demonstratives realizeidxP in the specifier of DP having spatial features (e.g., [+PROX]) unlike the anaphoricdemonstrative ku that bears the feature [+ANAPH]. The consequence of this paper thuscontributes to the syntactic theory of indices developed in recent researches (e.g., Hanink2021; Jenks and Konate 2022).