한국어 서법 표지들의 근문/비근문 제약

Root/Non-Root Constraint on Mood Markers in Korean

Korean mood markers are classified into two types: root mood markers, which are restricted to main clauses, and non-root mood markers, which can occur in both main and embedded clauses. This paper aims to account for the root/non-root constraint on these mood markers. We first review previous analyses, including the binding/control approach and the checking/agreement approach based on mood semantics, highlighting their limitations in capturing the root/non-root constraint. Building on this critique, we propose a novel checking/agreement analysis grounded in the addressee honorification system of Korean. Our proposal rests on two key claims. First, the Korean addressee honorification system is not a simple framework that considers only the addressee-related honorific feature, [+/-Addressee Respecting]. Rather, it is a fine-grained system that also incorporates the speaker-related honorific feature, [+/-Speaker Self-Lowering], structured through the combination of these two features. Second, root mood markers inherently include a speaker-related honorific feature, [-Speaker Self-Lowering], realized as a zero morpheme along with mood features, forming an inseparable unit. In contrast, non-root mood markers lack this feature. Under this proposal, root mood markers cannot appear in embedded clauses because their uninterpretable [-Speaker Self-Lowering] feature cannot establish Agreement with the head sa of the speech act projection (saP), located at the top of the sentence structure. Non-root mood markers, however, which lack the uninterpretable [-Speaker Self-Lowering] feature and contain only mood features, are not subject to this restriction and can therefore appear in both main and embedded clauses. By incorporating these insights, our checking/agreement analysis, rooted in the honorification system, successfully accounts for the root/non-root constraint in Korean mood markers and sheds new light on the intricate interplay between mood, syntax, and honorification in Korean grammar.