SOAS Research Online

Abstract

To formulate the DA-EPC in purely syntactic terms or semantic roles is not possible. For instance, simply describing the constraint of EPC in the following example as any kind of possession whatsoever is not specific enough to characterise the possible condition in which EPC can actually occur. (1) a. Suni-ka Yongsu-uy os-ul ccic-ess-ta. --> b. Suni-ka Yongsu-lul os-ul ccic-ess-ta. "Suni tore Yongsu's clothes off." The EPC is not always possible even with same sentence. (1b) is possible only when Yongsu is actually wearing the clothes, and not when his clothes are hanging in the closet or on the wall. Here we need to incoporate semantico-pragmatic explanations to accommodate more proper account on EPCs. Many different proposals to account for the case-marking patterns in EPCs in Korean so far (Park 1985, Chun 1986, Yoon 1989, Kim, Y. 1990, O'Grady 1991, Yoon 1998 among others) do not concern about the fact that the EPC is not always possible even with same sentence as these proposals mainly concern about the mechanism of case agreement or case assignment within particular theoretical framework. Proper characterisation of EPC cannot be satisfactorily described without pragmatic/cognitive considerations. We have shown that the notion of affectedness and contiguity is more appropriate than the distinction between alienable and inalienable possession to characterise more accurately the relationship between the PR and the PS in Korean EPCs.