Licensing case (mis)matching in Korean fragments: Evidence from acceptability judgments

Abstract

This study examines how case connectivity in Korean fragments is shaped by the interaction between structural licensing and cue-based interpretation. Two acceptability-judgment experiments tested whether case (mis)matching between a remnant and its correlate is modulated by the case-licensing range of the elided predicate. Across both sluicing and why-stripping, we found a robust main effect of case matching and a strong MATCH × VERB interaction: mismatch penalties were substantially smaller when the predicate licensed both dative and accusative case, but sharply degraded when it licensed only dative case. To evaluate competing theories, we compared models representing the silent-structure approach, the interpretive approach, and a hybrid approach. Structural models captured the categorical unacceptability of mismatches with non-alternating verbs, whereas interpretive models captured the general MATCH advantage and the presence of non-categorical mismatch penalties, but did not predict the categorical verb-conditioned interaction. Neither approach alone accounted for the full pattern. Hybrid models, which incorporate both categorical licensing constraints and gradient cue-based effects, provided the best overall fit. The findings show that fragment interpretation in Korean is jointly determined by structural and processing mechanisms: argument-structure identity restricts the set of grammatically licit cases, while cue-based retrieval yields gradience within the structurally permitted domain. These results situate Korean within broader cross-linguistic theories of case connectivity and the syntax-processing interface.