The purpose of this paper is to compare so-called tense-less constructions such as secondary predicates, complex predicates and serial verb constructions in natural languages. These constructions are peculiar in the sense that they do show non-canonical mechanisms of case licensing as well as non-canonical argument structure. For example, the secondary predicates in English resultative constructions seem to assign theta-roles, while the intransitive verbs of the main clause seem to assign case to the subjects of the secondary predicates. This kind of case-theta role dissociation is not witnessed in other constructions. As for case assignment, the subjects of the resultatives in Korean do get default nominative case (see Jang & Kim 2001), while they get case from the main verbs of higher clauses. Furthermore, the subjects of complex predicate constructions, otherwise called serial verb constructions, seem to share the same argument structure with both parts of the complex predicates. In this paper, I will compare secondary and/or complex predicates in English and Korean and argue that case licensing mechanisms in these two languages differ from each other.
1. Introduction
2. Case Licensing
3. Structure
4. Argument Structure
5. Concluding Remarks