It is well-known that Korean/Japanese IHRCs have definite force (Hoshi 1995; Shimoyama 1999, 2001; M. Kim 2004, 2007; Lee 2006). As such, Grosu and Hoshi (2019) argue that they should be treated as predicate-denoting relatives since all the other definite relatives denote predicates. Accepting this argument, Korean and Japanese IHRCs are restrictives rather than appositives since it is a general assumption that restrictives denote predicates, while appositives denote propositions. This paper claims that Korean(Japanese) IHRCs are non-restrictives in line with Kitagawa (2005, 2019) and Lee (2006), based on the similarities between Korean(Japanese) IHRCs and the best-known cases of appositives, i.e. the English cases. Presenting the dissimilarities at the same time, this paper argues that Korean(Japanese) IHRCs are not simply non-restrictives but rather ‘integrated’ non-restrictives in Cinque’s (2020) sense, while the best-known cases of appositives are ‘non-integrated’ non-restrictives. Deriving the similarities and the dissimilarities from the structural grounds, this paper comes to imply that kes in Korean can be used as a kind of saving device, i.e., a resumptive pronoun in Cinque’s (2020) sense, which is employed when deletion does not work due to lack of identity.
1. Introduction
2. The Similarities between IHRCs and Appositives
3. The Dissimilarities between IHRCs and Appositives
4. IHRCs are Integrated Non-restrictive RCs in Cinque’s (2020) Sense
5. Speculation: Deriving Resumptive Pronoun kes from the Unified Double Head
6. Summary and Implications
References