한국어에서의 동사구 전치의 부재와 대안 구조의 가용

On the Absence of VP Fronting and the Availability of Its Apparent Alternatives in Korean

This study explores comparative syntax by examining the syntactic structures of verb phrase (VP) fronting in English and its Korean counterparts. It argues that due to the different word order in Korean, the Infl position occurs at the end of sentences or clauses, precluding the application of VP fronting found in English. Consequently, Korean VPs are in-situ in their base-generated positions, with topic or focus markers added to the right. This results in structures where the expletive verb ‘ha-’ is attached to support the stranded Infl, or the main verb within the preceding VP is repeated. Ultimately, these constructions reflect the information structural properties analogous to English VP fronting, indicating that VP fronting is obviated in Korean. However, this paper also identifies superficially similar constructions in Korean that resemble English VP fronting. It proposes that these constructions, while similar in their informational structure to English VP focus constructions, form a repeated VP focus structure akin to right-dislocation constructions in Korean. The occurrence of ‘ha-’ in both the base-generated VP and the repeated VP constructions is analyzed, demonstrating a distinction in their functions: in the base-generated VP construction, ‘ha-’ acts as an expletive verb, while in the repeated VP construction, it serves as a substantive verb for VP replacement. This distinction is supported by Yim's (2020) classification of the verb ‘ha-’, showing that its syntactic distribution in repeated VP constructions is restricted.