Syntactic and Semantic Constraints on Noun Incorporation

Syntactic and Semantic Constraints on Noun Incorporation

In this paper we discuss the noun incorporation phenomenon based on the data from Korean. We show that noun incorporation of Korean occurs at D-structure and obeys the Head Movement Constraint (HMC) by Travis (1984) and Chomsky (1986) syntactically and the Theme-Only Constraint semantically. For the discussion, we first identify the structure of ‘hæ-tot-i’ sunrise- type words, and show that before derivation, through attachment of the nominalizing affix ‘-i’, compounding between ‘hæ’sun and ‘tot’ to rise should occur in syntax. This observation is used as direct evidence for noun incorporation which is a word formation process in syntax. Based on the structure identified, we show that every noun which goes through noun incorporation in syntax should possess the thematic role of Theme . This observation is captured by the Theme-Only Constraint.