A Construction Grammar Approach to Korean Double

A Construction Grammar Approach to Korean Double Accusative Construction

Eugene Chung(Korea University)

Chung, Eugene. 2015. A Construction Grammar Approach to Korean Double Accusative Construction. Language Information 21. 41-66. This paper studies Korean double accusative constructions within the frameworks of the Construction Grammar (CxG). We first investigate the syntactic and semantic properties of English double object construction followed by the Korean double accusative examples. Yoon (2015) classifies Korean double accusative construction into six different types based on the characteristics of two noun phrases: double object, inalienable possession, object and accusative marked adverb, object and quantifier/classifier, type-token and modifier-modifiee type. This study adopted Goldberg's construction grammar to analyze Korean double accusative constructions. Goldberg (1995) proposed the central sense of the ditransitive construction is when “the agent successfully causes the recipient to receive the patient.” The verbs Goldberg specifies as arguments to this central sense are verbs of giving, verbs of instantaneous causation and verbs of continuous causation. Because these verb types have substantially different semantics, the central sense needs to be represented into different constructions. Korean double accusative constructions are not limited to the semantic constraints such as transfer of possession. The study shows diverse thematic roles of the arguments are involved in the Korean accusative constructions.

Key words: Construction Grammar, CxG, double accusative construction, double object construction, classification, ditransitive construction, thematic role.

42 언어정보 21호

1. Introduction

The aim of this study is to discuss Korean double object / accusative construction within the framework of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2002). Double Object Construction (DOC, henceforth) belongs to a ditransitive construction which is defined as a construction consisting of a (ditransitive) verb and three arguments which are an agent argument, a recipient-like argument, and a theme argument (Haspelmath 2007). The accusative case is the grammatical case which is used to mark the object of a verb. Although Korean allows multiple accusative case marking, all the accusative marked items are not always an object in an expression. I prefer double accusative construction to double object construction for the Korean examples in this study.

The double object / accusative construction occurs in English, Korean, Modern Greek, Chinese, and some other languages. The number of ditransitive verbs is far fewer than that of transitive verbs in a language (Malchukov, Haspelmath, and Comrie 2010). The construction can be illustrated with the following examples.

(1) English John gave Mary a book.

(2) Korean1) Chelswu-ka Yenghuy-lul chayk-ul cwu-ess-ta. C-NOM Y-ACC book-ACC give-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu gave Yenghuy a book.'

(3) Modern Greek (Malchukov, Haspelmath, and Comrie 2010)2)

didásko to pedí mathimatiká

1) The Korean data in this paper are transcribed using the Yale romanization system (Martin 1992). The following is the list of common abbreviations used in morpheme glosses throughout the paper:NOM=nominative; GEN=genitive; ACC=accusative; DAT=dative; DECL=declarative; PRES=present; PAST=past; FUT=future. 2) Compare to the Korean and English, the Modern Greek language allows only a limited number of ditransitive verbs in the double accusative construction. The verbs for the double accusative construction include didásko 'teach,' servíro 'serve' and pliróno 'pay.' They differ from the dative construction in that Goals and Themes are both realized as accusatives.

A Construction Grammar Approach to Korean Double Accusative Construction 43

I.teach the child.ACC mathematics.ACC 'I teach the child mathematics.'

The basic form of English double object construction is [Subject [V Obj1 Obj2]] as in (1a). Korean DOC contains a verb which takes two accusative case marked NPs; we may call this construction Double Accusative Construction (DAC). Modern Greek in (3) also takes two accusative nouns with a verb in DAC. From the syntactic point of view, all of these examples take two objects. Concerning the meanings of the constructions, they denote the direct transfer of an object to an individual denoted by the first noun.

Double Object Constructions belong to ditransitive constructions which are defined as a construction consisting of a (ditransitive) verb and three arguments which are an agent argument, a recipient-like argument, and a theme argument. Although the following constructions have three arguments, they are not regarded as a ditransitive construction. For example, the following sentences are not the ditransitive construction, since the sentence takes two non-agent arguments which are not recipient and theme. (4) a. I put the pen in the box. b. They accused me of the crime. c. They called her Vera.

The sentence takes two non-agent arguments which are not the recipient-like argument and the theme argument (Haspelmath 2007).

DOCs / DACs have been the subject of extensive investigations from syntactic, semantic and even pragmatic point of view. Much research has focused on syntactic analysis such as case-marking, alternation, shift, the interface of syntax and semantics as a kind of thematic roles (Chomsky 1975; Barss and Lasnik 1986; Larson 1988; Jackendoff 1990), the object condition (Siewierska 1998), typology of double object languages (Malchukov, Haspelmath & Comrie 2010), the characteristics of two NPs (Yeon 2010; Yoon 2015), contrastive study of DOC between English and Korean (Oh & Zubizarreta 2005) as well as language acquisition (Oh & Zubizarreta 2010) and others related to ditransitivity.3)

3) Malchukov, Haspelmath and Comrie (2010) encode transitive and ditransitive constructions


Construction Grammar (Lakoff 1987, Langacker 1991, 1999, Goldberg 1995, 2006) differs from generative grammar in that grammatical patterns are conventional pairings of form and meaning that are analogous to words. The grammar displays rich connection between syntax and semantics. In other words, construction grammar is related to a semantic-based grammatical theory called cognitive grammar. The basic tenet of construction grammar is that schematic syntactic patterns are meaningful entities.4) Constructions are viewed as complex patterns that integrate form and meaning in conventionalized and often non-compositional ways (Goldberg 1995). Thus, if one construction is conventionalized, it becomes a pattern which can be extended to other elements of vocabulary.

As previous research on DOCs suggested, the DOC is the topic of both syntax and semantics. The DOC is involved in two objects and a sense of transfer; i.e., a syntactic constraint and a semantic constraint. Construction grammar postulate that constructions are separate entities in grammar with syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features of their own and with form-meaning correspondences not strictly predictable from knowledge of the grammar. In this paper, we intend to discuss Korean DAC with respect to the patterns of the ditransitive construction as specified by Goldberg's construction grammar (1995, 2006). Based on the construction grammar this paper focuses on various patterns of constructions for Korean DAC. It begins with a basic central type of the ditransitive construction followed by peripheral subtypes.

The organization of this paper is as follows. Section 2 discusses general features of DOCs / DACs based on previous studies on the construction. The categorization of Korean DAC is also given here. Following this, some major debates on DOCs / DACs will briefly be discussed in section 3. This section provides a brief overview

by the notion of alignment. Alignment refers to the comparison of the properties of arguments across constructions. Monotransitive constructions (with an agent or agent-like argument A and a patient or patient-like argument P) are usually compared to intransitive constructions (with a single argument S), and in this way one arrives at the classification into three major alignment types: accusative alignment (A = S ≠ P), ergative alignment (A ≠ S = P), and neutral alignment (A = S = P). Oh and Zubizarreta (2010) suggested that goal direct objects in the English and Korean language are structurally comparable in that they are 'low applicatives.' However, English and Korean benefactive direct objects are structurally distinct: low applicatives in the English and high applicatives in the Korean.4) Construction Grammar was propounded by Fillmore’s earlier work on Case Grammar (1968) and Frame Semantics (1982).


of the framework of construction grammar from which Korean DACs are analyzed. Section 4 presents the analysis of Korean DACs within the framework of construction grammar. Section 5 concludes this study, summarizing the properties and constructions of Korean DACs.

2. The Properties of the Double Accusative Constructions

In this section, I first provide a brief overview of the syntactic and semantic properties of the English DOCs: Chomsky's transformational approach (1975), Larson's derivational approach (1988), Harley's alternative projection approach (2002), and Rappaport Hovav & Levin's verb sensitive approach to analyzing the event structures of the English ditransitive construction (2008). Following this, I describe several types of Korean DOCs / DACs found from the previous research.

2.1. Syntactic Properties of the English DOCs

The English ditransitive construction has been studied by many linguists (Chomsky 1975, Larson 1988, Pesetsky 1995, Harley 2002 among others). The following examples show that English has two syntactic structure for argument realization.

(5) a. John sent Mary a letter. b. John sent a letter to Mary.

Chomsky's argument suggests that a simple dative sentence in (5a) derives from an underlying form. In (5a) the verb, sent, and its indirect object, to Mary, make up a constituent that excludes the direct object a letter. Therefore, the simple dative involves an underlying verb phrase (VP) whose subject is a letter and whose object is (to) Mary. The VP sent to Mary is referred to as an inner constituent. This inner constituent is obscured as S-Structure by V-Raising.

(6) Dative complementation:a. John [VP a letter [V' sent to Mary]] (D-Structure)b. John sent [VP a letter [V' t to Mary]] (S-Structure)


Examples (6a) and (6b) show dative complementation before V-raising (6a) and after V-raising (6b).

Barss and Lasnik (1986) point out a number of asymmetries in the behavior of the two NPs in double object construction. All of their findings point to the same conclusion: in constructions involving a verb phrase of the form V-NP-NP, the first NP c-commands the second, but not vice versa. Specifically, NP1 can bind NP2, but the opposite cannot occur. The study provides significant evidence for rejecting linear phrase structure trees in (7). The structure in (7a) shows the hierarchical relation between the two NPs is utterly symmetric. The left branching in (7b) makes backward predictions with respect to domains where the first NP will be in the domain of the second, and not conversely.

(7) Assumed Structures for Double Objects

Larson (1988) proposes that both the oblique dative form and the double object construction are surface representations. He relates the oblique dative and double object structures transformationally.

(8) John sent Mary a letter.


Larson's motivations for V-Raising are used to derive the surface order of raising in VSO languages. Specifically, the subject NP can receive case from the V, when V governs the NP. Larson provides an intuitive explanation of oblique datives, to Mary forms the small predicate sent-to-Mary. This small predicate is predicated of an "inner subject" a letter, forming a clauselike VP, a letter send to Mary. Larson (1988) states that double object constructions can be syntactically derived by a modern form of dative shift. He argues that properties of the double object construction structured can be explained under a derivational approach, and describes his challenge as one where he must bring the dative shift derivation within the scope of established theoretical principles and constrain it in appropriate ways. Larson strengthens the argument that the two NPs relate to subject and object position. He states that the governed preposition to has the status of dative case marking. This is similar to case marking appearing on an indirect object in more highly inflected languages.

Harley (2002) argues that ditransitive verbs such as give decompose into two heads: an external-argument-selecting CAUSE predicate (vCAUSE) and a prepositional element (PHAVE). Hence, for a sentence such as John gave Mary a book, the argument structure associates the meaning, ‘John CAUSED Mary to HAVE a book.’ She suggests the following structure for the double object construction, adopting the structure suggested by Pesetsky (1995), where PHAVE raises to vCAUSE and is ultimately spelled out as a double-object verb.

(9) John gave Mary a book.


Harley (2002) presents for HAVE as a component of decomposition are the Goal argument of the double object construction must bear a possessor role which essentially restricts it to animate entities (Bresnan 1982, Gropen, Pinker et al. 1989). When the Goal argument is inanimate, it cannot bear a possessor role. The only grammatical reading available for the inanimate Goal argument is when the Goal argument is an organization or corporate body, where the argument is somehow interpreted as an animate entity.

2.2. Semantic Properties of the English DOCs

The English DOCs is closely associated with dative alternation. Verbs like give, send, and throw can occur in both the double object and the prepositional object construction. Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2008) identify differences in the meanings of the English verbs give, send, and throw on the basis that they correlate with the distinct verb-event schema as illustrated in (10)−(12).

(10) a. Terry gave Sam an apple. b. Terry gave an apple to Sam. [Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008]

(11) a. Martha sent Myrna a package.b. Martha sent a package to Myrna. [Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008]

(12) a. Leigh threw Lane the ball.b. Leigh threw the ball to Lane. [Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2008]

They provide evidence that verbs like give have a 'caused possession' meaning in both kinds of constructions. The send and throw verbs, by contrast, lexically entail 'change of location' and allow both interpretations depending on the construction they occur in. The common assumption in literature (Beavers 2011, Foley & Van Valin 1984, Rapport Hovav & Levin 2008, inter alia) is that only give-types necessarily encode a ‘caused possession’ event, while throw-types and send-types do not necessarily encode a ‘caused possession.’ However, the ‘caused possession’ meaning can be added to these verbs via different argument realization strategies as with the English dative alternation.


Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2008) observe that there are two classes of verbs entering into the dative alternation. These are illustrated in (13) and (14).

(13) Dative verbs having only a caused possession meaninga. Verbs that inherently signify acts of giving: give, hand, lend, loan, pass, rent, sell, ...b. Verbs of future having: allocate, allow, grant, offer, owe, promise, ... c. Verbs of communication: tell, show, ask, teach, read, write, quote, cite, ...

(14) Dative verbs having both caused motion and possession meaninga. Verbs of sending (send-type verbs): forward, mail, send, ship, ...b. Verbs of instantaneous causation of ballistic motion (throw-type verbs): fling, flip, kick, lob, slap, shoot, throw, toss, ...c. Verbs of causation of accompanied motion in a deictically specified direction: bring, take, ...d. Verbs of instrument of communication: e-mail, fax, radio, wire, telegraph, telephone, ...

The first meaning, a 'caused possession' meaning, schematized in (15a), is said

to be realized by the double object variant such as the (a) sentences in (10)−(12), while the second meaning, a caused motion meaning, schematized in (12b), is said to be realized by the to-variant as in the (b) sentences in (10)−(12).

(15) a. Caused possession schema: ‘x cause y to have z’ [y is a RECIPIENT] e.g. ‘x act with the hand cause y to have z’

b. Caused motion schema: ‘x cause z to be at y’ [y is a SPATIAL GOAL] e.g. ‘x act with the hand cause z to be at y’

The give-type verbs lexicalize the meaning of 'causing a change of possession,' i.e. lexically selecting a recipient. The send and throw verbs differ in the meaning components they lexicalize: send lexicalizes caused motion towards a goal, whereas throw encodes the caused initiation of motion and the manner in which this is done. A spatial goal is not lexicalized by throw verbs, which accounts for the larger range of directional prepositional phrases allowed for these verbs.


Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2008) consider this to be a verb sensitive approach to analyzing the event structures of the English dative alternation. The idea behind the verb sensitive approach is that the event can be augmented to add meaning when a different alternation is used. For English, the event that is lexicalized onto the verb is the event template found for the dative to construction. However, the double object construction can be used to add the ‘caused possession’ event to verbs where it is not already lexicalized (adapted from Rappaport Hovav and Levin 2008).

Table 1. Lexicalized Meaning Components

What the table 1 suggests is that for verbs like give which lexicalize the meaning of ‘caused possession’, there is no difference between the dative construction and the double object construction because the ‘caused possession’ meaning is already there. However, send and throw lexicalize the ‘caused motion’ event for the dative to construction, but the ‘caused possession’ event is added when the double object construction is used.

2.3. Types of Korean DACs

Although both NPs take accusative case marks, they are not always objects, thus the term "Double Accusative" is preferred to "Double Object." Yoon (2004) restricts DAC to constructions where double surface accusative markings show up in the domain of a single underived predicate. The construction occurs in a few languages, e.g. in English, in Korean. O' Grady (2001) suggests that even in languages where it is found, relatively few verbs permit double object patterns.

(16) Englisha. I taught Mary Korean.

Dative to Double objectgive-type caused possession caused possessionsend-type caused possession/motion caused possessionthrow-type caused possession/motion caused possession


b. * I taught Korean Mary.

(17) Koreana. nae-ka Yenghi-lul senmwul-ul cwu-ess-ta.

I-NOM Y-ACC gift-ACC give-PAST-DECL'I gave Yenghi a gift.'

b. nae-ka senmwul-ul Yenghi-lul cwu-ess-ta.I-NOM gift-ACC Y-ACC give-PAST-DECL'I gave Yenghi a gift.'

c. nae-ka Yenghi-eykey senmwul-ul cwu-ess-ta.I-NOM Y-DAT gift-ACC give-PAST-DECL'I gave Yenghi a gift.'

As we can see above, (16a) and (17a) have two accusative NPs; in (16a) Mary and Korean, and (17a) Yenghi and senmwul. The accusative case (17a) alternates with a dative example like (17c). Double or even Multiple case markings are a well-known phenomena in the Korean language; not only double or multiple nominative construction, but also many other types of DAC are found. While DAC is commonly restricted to ditransitive verbs such as give-type in English, more variety of verbs allow us DAC in Korean.

Oh and Zubizarreta (2010) examined the syntactic and semantic properties of English and Korean DOC. They suggested that goal direct objects in the both languages are structurally comparable in that they are 'low applicatives.' However, English and Korean benefactive direct objects are structurally distinct: low applicatives in the English and high applicatives in the Korean.

In Korean, double accusative-marked NPs can appear in the domain of a single, underived predicate. A variety of syntactic, semantic and/or pragmatic relations exists among the identically accusative-marked constituents in Korean DOCs. Summarizing previous research on Korean multiple object constructions (Y-J Kim 1990; Maling & S-W Kim 1992; O' Grady 1998; Yoon 1989; among others), Yoon (2015) categorizes Korean MOCs into the following six types.


(18) Six types of Korean DOC a. Double Object Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul senmwul-ul cwu-ess-ta. C-NOM Y-ACC gift-ACC give-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu gave Yenghi a gift.'

b. Inalienable Possession Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul son-ul cap-ass-ta. C-NOM Y-ACC hand-ACC grab-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu grabbed Yenghi's hand.'

c. Object and Accusative Marked Adverb Chelswu-ka chayk-lul sey sikan/pen-ul ilk-ess-ta. C-NOM book-ACC three hour/time-ACC read-PST-DECL 'Chelswu read a book for three hours.'

d. Object and Quantifier / Classifier Chelswu-ka sakwa-lul twu kay-lul mek-ess-ta. C-NOM apple-ACC two classifier-ACC eat-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu ate two apples.'

e. Type-Token / Topic-Comment Chelswu-ka kwail-ul sakwa-lul cohaha-n-ta. C-NOM fruit-ACC apple-ACC like-PRES-DECL 'As for fruit, Chelswu likes an apple.'

f. Modifier-Modifiee Chelswu-ka kwutwu-lul kemcengsayk-ul sinessta. C-NOM shoes-ACC black.color-ACC wear-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu wore black shoes.'

All of these types have two NPs that are marked with accusative case and underived predicate, having based form [NP-i/-ka [NP1-ul/-lul NP2-ul/-lul] PRED]. However, each of these Double Accusative Constructions have properties different


from others, though they are not explained here. These constructions have caused lots of debates among linguists working on the Korea language in determining which NP in those constructions are the real objects.

Among Yoon's six types of DACs, the Inalienable Possession Construction has attracted the most attention from scholars. In explaining the syntactic properties of inalienable possession cnstruction, researchers attempted to account for the multiple ease assignment mechanism in diverse theoretical frameworks. The semantic licensing of multiple objects has also been extensively discussed, the possessor ascension analysis (Cho 2000; Chun 1985; Vermeulen 2005) being one such well-known attempt.

3. Construction Grammar

Construction Grammar (CxG henceforth), as a theoretical framework in this study, originates in the work of Fillmore in the 1980s. It has dealt with data which involve different layers of linguistic structure and the interaction between them, such as syntax, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics. In this framework, the basic units of language are taken to be form and meaning correspondences; these correspondences are called constructions. A distinct construction is defined to exist if at least one of its properties is not strictly predictable from knowledge of other constructions existing in the grammar. It is a consequence of this definition that no strict division is assumed between the lexicon and syntax (Goldberg 1995). Lexical constructions and syntactic constructions differ in internal complexity and phonological forms, but words, morphemes, larger phrasal patterns, idioms, and syntactic constructions are all instances of form-meaning correspondences.

CxG does not utilize structure-changing operations in which one construction is derived from the other, like the active and the passive, but assumes rather that the two are independent constructions in their own right, and instead of one being derived from the other, they stand in a systematic relation to each other. The task of CxG is then not to explain how one construction is derived from the other, but rather what the nature of the relationship between them is.

Although different versions of CxG are developed in the field. they share the fundamental assumption that the basic unit of language is the construction, i.e. a form-meaning pairing. The most established and well-known versions of


Construction Grammars are as follows.

(19) Different versions of CxG a. Cognitive CxG (Lakoff 1985, Goldberg 1995, 2006) b. Sign-Based CxG (Boas & Sag 2012) c. Radical CxG (Croft 2003) d. Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 2008) e. Embodied CxG (Bergen & Chang 2004) f. Fluid CxG (Steels 2011).

Many versions of Construction Grammar are usage-based in the sense that they aim to represent speakers’ psychological reality, while some aim instead for formal explicitness and maximal generalizations.

Goldberg’s work (1995) on argument structure constructions was particularly influential. She postulates that constructions like the ditransitive or double object are separate entities in grammar with form-meaning correspondences. She argued the syntactic pattern [V NP PP] itself has a meaning and that verbs in a constructional verb slot elaborate the construction’s meaning; for instance, the prototypical transfer-of-possession sense of give elaborates the prototypical ‘X causes Y to receive Z’ meaning of the ditransitive construction [V NP NP]. This approach denies the transformational relationship between the two structures at issue and holds that neither of them is derived from the other. The second important extension was that constructions, just like words, were assumed to have multiple senses related by polysemy links. For instance, apart from the prototypical sense of the ditransitive, the ditransitive was argued to also have the senses listed in (20) (Goldberg 1995), and other analyses have posited constructional polysemy in other domains.

(20) a. Joe permitted Chris an apple. ‘X enables Y to receive Z’ b. Joe baked Bob a cake. ‘X intends to cause Y to receive Z’ c. Joe refused Bob a cake. ‘X causes Y not to receive Z’

The analysis of a linguistic expression under the CxG approach begins with the associating of a particular construction with a particular meaning. Constructions which correspond to basic sentence types encode as their central senses event


types that are basic to human experience (Goldberg 1995:39). As one of the basic clause-level constructions, double-object expressions typically

imply the sense of successful transfer; i.e., the subject agentively causes the second object to be transferred to the first object. Goldberg states that the syntactic pattern exemplified above is constructionally associated with a notion of transfer. The constituents associated with the active voice version of the construction are Agent (NP), Recipient (NP), Theme (NP) and means of Transfer (Verb).

In the English language, several verb classes participate in the ditransitive construction. What’s currently in this paper is an attempt to describe all six senses of the construction as specified by Goldberg.

(21) Six senses of the constructiona. Subject causes Object1 to receive Object2: e.g. She gave me a punch in the face.; She threw me the frisbee.

b. Subject intends to cause Object1 to receive Object2 e.g. She baked me a cake.; She stole me a car.

c. Conditions of satisfaction imply that Subject Causes Object1 to receive Object2 e.g. She promised me a new bicycle.

d. Subject Causes Object1 NOT to receive Object2 e.g. She denied me the part in the play.

e. Subject acts to cause Object1 to receive Object2 at some future timee.g. She bequeathed me a fortune.

f. Subject enables Object1 to receive Object2 e.g. She permitted me a kiss.

The first sense refers to actual transfer. The verbs can be defined as ones denoting the direct transfer of an object to an individual denoted by the indirect object phrase, where neither the transfer nor the transferred object is necessarily physical. Sense a in (21a) is considered by Goldberg to be the central sense with the other


senses branching off of it. This list offers the possibility of forming subgroups among the classes. The

prototype is represented by (21a). The members here are three-place predicates, i.e. verbs which profile actions with three participants. They exemplify metaphorical extension from caused motion (transfer of object) to transfer of possession. In the ditransitive construction they denote successful transfer. Sense b, (21b), forms a subgroup on the basis of the fact that the verbs listed in these groups all denote some kind of physical transfer and they do not necessarily denote transfer of possession. Verbs of future having as in sense e, (21e) are either verbs of giving with associated satisfaction conditions (e.g. guarantee, promise) or as in (21f) they express giving permission (e.g. permit, allow). Verbs of refusal bear the relation of negation to the ditransitive construction (‘cause not to have’).

Figure 1. Polysemous Senses of the DOC (Goldberg 1995)

Goldberg (1995) proposed the central sense of the ditransitive construction is when “the agent successfully causes the recipient to receive the patient.” The verbs Goldberg specifies as arguments to this central sense are verbs of giving, verbs of instantaneous causation and verbs of continuous causation. Because these verb types have substantially different semantics, the central sense needs to be cached out into different constructions.

However, not all ditransitive expressions strictly imply the central sense. In this respect, the DOC in English is a case of constructional polysemy: the same form is paired with slightly different but related senses (Goldberg 1995). The


construction is directly associated with the central sense of successful transfer. The differences in interpretation result from principles of integration between such central sense and the different semantic classes of verbs involved.

4. Construction Grammar Approach to DOCs / DACs

According to Goldberg (1995), ditransitive verbs interact with the argument structure and each distinct sense of a verb is associated with the number and type of slots with respect to a given sense of a verb. The participant roles of a verb and the argument roles of a construction must be put into correspondence or fused. In the case of the DOC, the participant roles of a verb must be fused with the Agent, Recipient, and Patient (or Theme) role of the construction. This construction puts the transferred object and the end point of transfer in focus and by the juxtaposition of the NPs denoting Recipient and Patient (or Theme), it implies the success of transfer, that is, that the recipient has the object in his possession or at his disposal, and in the case of the prototypical give-verbs, it implies that a volitional human agent transfers a concrete or abstract entity to a human recipient. Following Goldberg (1995), the semantic and syntactic properties of the double object construction can be summarized in a diagram form as follows.


Figure 2. Double Object Construction (Goldberg 1995)

The first line shows the semantics associated with the construction indicated. PRED marks a variable that is filled by the verb when a particular verb is integrated into the construction. Solid lines indicate which roles specified by the construction are obligatorily fused with roles of the verb.

If we examine the Korean equivalents of the prototypical case of the verbs of giving from Yoon's classification (2015) as in (18), we can provide a proper construction.

(22) Korean DAC Type A: Double Object John-i Mary-lul senmwul-ul cwu-ess-ta. J-NOM M-ACC gift-ACC give-PAST-DECL 'John gave Mary a gift.'


In the box, the core meaning of the ditransitive construction in the semantic pole (Sem) is represented as the function named CAUSE-RECEIVE, which takes three arguments: agent (agt), patient (pat), and recipient (rec). This semantic function CAUSE-RECEIVE also has a variable within it; the variable is realized, or predicated, by a verb of some particular type that fulfills the restriction stipulated as R on the left-hand side. Finally, this semantic frame, realized by the core image-schema plus a particular verb type with its NP parameters, is paired with the syntactic specification of NOM+ACC1+ACC2, forming the symbolic relationship between the two poles that eventually defines the basic and prototypical structure of the double accusative construction. This study modifies syntactic specification, since two accusative marked NPs in the Korean examples are not always objects.

Goldberg uses the diagram given as Figure 4 below to illustrate the process of semantic extension. This diagram works for the inalienable possession of the Korean DAC.

(23) Korean DAC Type B: Inalienable Possession Chelswu-ka Yenghi-lul son-ul cap-ass-ta. C-NOM Y-ACC hand-ACC grab-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu grabbed Yenghi's hand.'

Figure 3. Caused-Receive Double Accusative Construction


It presents the prepositional construction as a subset of a more general one which can be termed Caused Motion construction. In comparison with Figure 3, in this figure, dashed lines indicate roles which are not obligatorily fused with roles of the verb, that is, roles which can be contributed by the construction. This is how the diagram provides for the case when two-place predicates appear in a construction involving three participants.

The representation of the Caused-motion Construction in Figure 3 consists of three different layers. The top line of the box contains the construction’s own meaning (Sem) which lists the semantic arguments of the construction (the constructional roles) and represents their semantic relations with respect to each other. Thus, the caused-motion construction is associated with the semantics ‘X CAUSES Y TO MOVE Z.’ Solid lines between the semantic roles and roles in the predicate’s role array indicate that the semantic role must be fused with an independently existing verbal participant role. Dotted lines indicate that the construction is able to provide additional participant roles. The middle line of the construction contains open slots into which the verb’s participant roles fuse and the bottom lists the overt syntactic realizations of the semantic arguments of the combined verb-construction semantics. Roles represented in bold are “profiled” arguments, i.e., entities in a verb’s semantics that are obligatorily accessed and function as focal points within the scene, achieving a special degree of prominence (Langacker 1987, cf. Goldberg 1995: 44).

The following types can be merged into a construction frame as in Figure 5.

Figure 4. Caused-Motion Double Accusative Construction


(24) Korean DAC Type C: Type-Token Chelswu-ka kwail-ul sakwa-lul cohaha-n-ta. C-NOM fruit-ACC apple-ACC like-PRES-DECL 'As for fruit, Chelswu likes an apple.'

(25) Korean DAC Type D: Modifier-Modifiee Chelswu-ka kwutwu-lul kemcengsayk-ul sinessta. C-NOM shoes-ACC black.color-ACC wear-PAST-DECL 'Chelswu wore black shoes.'

The use of Type-Token or Modifier and Modifiee involves the purposefulness of the action (which the simple verb forms may or may not imply) and to focus on the target. The use of such expressions in the double object construction is licensed by the extension of the central sense of ditransitive verb as can be illustrated in Figure 5.

5. Conclusion

Construction grammar assumes that such metaphorical mapping between domains motivates the production of occasional novel usages that may or may not be later included in the normal use of the language. The new usage will update the whole structure of a particular construction if its frequency is high enough and thus deeply entrenched in a speaker’s linguistic knowledge.

Figure 5. Focus Double Accusative Construction


English & Korean double object verbs have the meaning of Cause to TRANSFER and Possess relation between indirect object and direct object. This paper makes a contrastive study of the similarities and differences in English and Korean Double Object construction and explains the reasons why Double Object construction is formed. This paper makes a contrastive study of the similarities and differences in English and Korean Double Object construction.


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▪정유진 (Chung, Eugene)

▪소속: 고려대학교

▪전자우편: [email protected]

▪논문투고일: 2015. 08. 05.

▪논문심사수정완료일: 2015. 08. 25.

▪논문게재확정일: 2015. 09. 03.

Documents

A Construction Grammar Approach to Korean Double