한국어 속격 표지 '의'의 분포와 속격의 본질

It has recently been claimed that the so-called genitive case marker 'uy' in Korean is not a case marker, but a nominal modifier marker. According to Hong (2010) and Hong (2013), 'uy' is not a Case marker; it is a modifier marker, and according to An (2012), the marker 'uy' is not an indicator of Case-licensing, rather it instantiates an abstract prenominal inflection. Their claims are based on two observations; 1) that 'uy' is in an allomorphic relation with some other inflectional morpheme used for marking prenominal verbal and adjectival modifiers, and 2) that 'uy' can attach to elements which, under standard assumptions, do not require Case. The present work, maintaining what most other generative grammarians have assumed, argues that 'uy' is to be analyzed as a case marker. This argumentation is based on the broad definition of case which accommodates various data from many other languages around the world, and it is also based on influential positions of Case in current generative syntax (McFadden (2004) and Bobaljik (2008) among others) that morphological case and syntactic licensing can be separated. Consequently, contrary to Hong's and An's assumptions about Case, nominal phrases such as DPs can bear case even when they are not arguments.