1. Coordination
I have examined novel data involving Korean nominal coordinations where a non-final conjunct is semantically incompatible with the main verb (Lee 2020). This phenomenon prompts a semantic inquiry into the process of deriving appropriate verbal meanings associated with the conjuncts that do not align semantically with the main verbs. This is noteworthy both from an empirical and a theoretical standpoint, as this type of data appears to have been previously unexplored, and the syntax-semantics interface implicated by this phenomenon presents substantial challenges to existing analyses of coordinations. To address this, I propose a hypothesis that involves selecting a hypernym of the main verb from the semantic taxonomy to serve as the verbal meaning for the incongruent conjunct in the construction.
Lee, Juwon. 2025. Semantic taxonomy, direct compositionality, and unlike nominal coordinations in Korean. Journal of Linguistics, 1-44. doi:10.1017/S0022226724000367.
Lee, Juwon. 2020. Semantic Taxonomy and NP-coordination in Korean. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 28.4: 147-174.
2. The Lexical Meaning of Tasi 'Again'
I demonstrate that the Korean adverb tasi 'again' exhibits a new type of repetitive reading, which I term the 'pseudo-repetitive' reading. Furthermore, the preceding lexical or structural explanations for tasi fail to account for this novel interpretation. To resolve this issue, I propose two distinct lexical entries for tasi: the hypernymic tasi and the antonymic tasi. I argue that both of these entries can elucidate the repetitive readings, including the pseudo-repetitive reading, and the restitutive readings, respectively. This analysis of the semantic phenomena underscores a significant interplay between a semantic taxonomy and the lexical meaning of the adverb in Korean. Additionally, I demonstrate that similar data exist in English, suggesting the necessity of a semantic taxonomy-based analysis for again in this language as well. In future research, I aim to investigate whether other languages also permit pseudo-repetitive readings of their corresponding adverbs.
Lee, Juwon. In prep. A semantic taxonomy-based account of tasi ‘again’ in Korean.
Lee, Juwon. 2018. Intentionality, Purpose, and Tasi ‘Again’ in Korean. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 26.2: 147-173.
Lee, Juwon. 2017. Semantic Taxonomies and Tasi ‘Again’ in Korean. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal 25.4: 61-83.
3. The Complementarity of Intentionality and Affectedness (CIA)
One of the primary purposes of linguistics is to specify what is possible and what is not possible in natural languages (see, e.g., the issue of manner/result complementarity in Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2010; Beavers & Koontz-Garboden 2012). In this research, I introduce the concept of the Complementarity of Intentionality and Affectedness (CIA) (see Lee 2016; Beavers & Lee 2020). The CIA postulates that intentionality and affectedness cannot be entailed in a minimal accomplishment predicate (i.e., an accomplishment verb plus only its complement) simultaneously. This generalization has been supported with Korean transitive verb constructions (Lee 2015) and English conative alternations (Lee 2016). My forthcoming research intends to assess the applicability of the CIA across diverse languages: for non-culminations in languages like Chinese and Japanese and for conative alternations in languages such as Finnish and Warlpiri. I believe that the CIA will yield significant insights into the realm of possible and impossible minimal predicates of accomplishments in natural languages.
Beavers, John and Juwon Lee. 2020. Intentionality, Scalar Change, and Non-culmination in Korean Caused Change-of-State Predicates. Linguistics 58.5: 1233-1283. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0007.
Lee, Juwon. 2018. The Complementarity of Intentionality and Affectedness: Evidence from English Verbs of Killing. Language and Information 22.3: 1-22.
Lee, Juwon. 2016. Intentionality and Conative Constructions in English. Studies in Linguistics 41: 327-356.
Lee, Juwon. 2015. An Intention-based account of accomplishments in Korean. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.
4. Lexical Aspect: Activity vs. Accomplishment
Non-culmination readings of causative accomplishment predicates have garnered considerable attention in the literature. Nevertheless, other types of predicates have received limited scrutiny in relation to non-culmination. In this research, I explore the relationship between non-culmination and activity predicates in Korean (Lee 2016). Particularly, I propose that certain Korean predicates traditionally categorized as activity predicates are, in fact, a type of accomplishment predicates with a causative event structure, unlike their English counterparts. To substantiate this reclassification, I delve into the failed attempt (FA) readings of so-called "activity" predicates, supplemented by various aspects of aspectual evidence.
Lee, Juwon. In prep. Non-culmination and causative event structure of activity verbs in Korean.
Lee, Juwon. 2016. Some Activity Predicates as Accomplishments. Language and Information 20.2: 117-143.
Lee, Juwon. 2015. An Intention-based account of accomplishments in Korean. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin.
5. Evidentiality
The direct evidential marker -te in Korean has been extensively examined in previous literature (see, e.g., Sohn 1994; Cinque 1999; Chung 2006; Lim 2011; Lee 2011). In my work, I delve into the intricate interplays among the direct evidential -te, grammatical person, and experiencer predicates (Lee 2012). Specifically, I investigate the precise relationships among these three components within evidential sentences. My aim is to formally analyze how their interactions contribute to the proper licensing of grammatically valid evidential sentences.
Lee, Juwon. 2012. The Direct Evidential -te in Korean: It’s Interaction with Person and Experiencer Predicates. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, 251-271. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
6. Light Verb
Korean light verb constructions (LVCs) (e.g., Jane-i pap-ul hay-ss-ta. (lit.) ‘Jane did the rice.’ = ‘Jane cooked the rice.’) presents a substantial challenge to compositionality (Lee 2011a, 2011b, 2016). These LVCs also exhibit typical problems associated with multiword expressions (MWEs) (Sag et al. 2002). First, the word-with-space approach would result in a proliferation of entries in the lexicon, since every combination of a common noun (CN) and the light verb ha- 'do' should be listed in the lexicon as individual lexemes. This redundancy is neither desirable nor generalizable. Second, a compositional analysis might lead to the generation of ungrammatical LVCs, as the reasons for certain CNs, like mwul ‘water,’ being disallowed in LVCs are not clear and may be due to lexical idiosyncrasies. In my current research, I delve into various Korean transitive verb constructions that derive their interpretations from specific qualia roles (as defined by Pustejovsky 1995). I investigate the precise mechanisms underlying the meanings associated with these transitive verb constructions, leveraging the concepts of qualia roles and feature structures. Specifically, I argue that the qualia roles of a CN are interconnected in specific ways (for example, there may exist a hierarchy among some qualia roles of a CN) rather than merely being listed within the qualia structure.
Lee, Juwon. 2016. Lexicology of Korean Common Nouns. Korean Journal of Linguistics 41.4: 715-739.
Lee, Juwon. 2011b. Passive Light Verb Construction in Korean: Lexical Representation of toy. Harvard Studies of Korean Linguistics 14: 25-45.
Lee, Juwon. 2011a. Two Types of Korean Light Verb Constructions in a Typed Feature Structure Grammar. In Proceedings of the 2011 Association for Computational Linguistics Workshop on Expressions: from Parsing and Generation to the Real World, 40-48.
7. Serial Verb
Serial verb construction (SVC) is a structure comprising more than two component verbs, yet it conveys what is conceptualized as a single event. A central issue of SVC is how the arguments of the component verbs of an SVC are realized in a sentence. In the literature, it is generally assumed that the constituent verbs of an SVC share the subject (Foley and Olson 1985; Sebba 1987; Lee 1992; Andrews 1997; Chung and Kim 2008; Müller and Lipenkova 2009; Kim 2010, among others) or they share the object (Baker 1989) or an internal argument (e.g., themes, instruments, goals) (Collins 1997). I present novel data of Korean passive SVCs that challenge the assumptions of subject-sharing, object-sharing, and argument saturation. In light of this, I put forth two hypotheses: i) Korean SVCs can be broadly classified into two types, subject-sharing SVCs, where the subject is shared by the verbs, and index-sharing SVCs, where only indices of semantic arguments are shared by the verbs; ii) an argument index sharing is a fundamental requirement in Korean SVCs. Moreover, I contend that an argument composition analysis provides a more straightforward explanation for Korean passive SVCs when compared to alternative analyses.
Lee, Juwon. 2012. Change of State Verb and Syntax of Serial Verb Constructions in Korean: An HPSG Account. In Proceedings of the Poster Session of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Coyote Papers: Working Papers in Linguistics 20: 57-65.
Lee, Juwon. 2014b. Two Types of Serial Verb Constructions in Korean: Subject-Sharing and Index-Sharing. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, 136-155. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Lee, Juwon. 2014a. Multiple Interpretations and Constraints of Causative Serial Verb Constructions in Korean. In Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 288-306.
8. Resultative
I delve into what is referred to as predicative resultative construction in Korean (e.g., Tom-i thakca-lul kkaykkusha-key takk-ass-ta. ‘Tom wiped the table clean.’) and argue that they indeed fall under the category of clausal resultative constructions (see different types of resultatives in Wechsler and Noh 2001). While I concur with the overarching notion that the resultative predicate constitutes a clause in Korean (Shim & den Dikken 2007; Shibagaki 2011), my specific proposal introduces the following hypotheses: (i) the resultative predicate, X-key, functions morpho-syntactically as an adverb rather than an adjective, (ii) X-key constitutes a fully saturated clause, referred to as a result clause (sometimes with the omission of the subject of predication), and (iii) the result clause serves as a complement to the main verb. Building on this, I propose a unified analysis of resultative constructions. Additionally, I am exploring the intricate relationships between the resultative predicate, negation, and intentionality. Notably, in English, appending the negation 'not' to a resultative predicate is ungrammatical (e.g., *John wiped the table not clean). However, in Korean, this is feasible (as seen in works like Son 2008). Furthermore, the intentionality of the subject stems from the negative resultative predicate—an aspect that has received limited attention in existing literature.
Lee, Juwon, Eunjeong Oh, and Sanghoun Song. 2018b. An Experimental Study of Resultative Constructions with X-key. Studies in Linguistics 49: 249-274.
Lee, Juwon, Eunjeong Oh, and Sanghoun Song. 2018a. A Clausal Analysis of Resultative Constructions with X-key: Evidence from Corpus and Experiments. Language and Information Society 35: 207-244.
Lee, Juwon. 2016. Towards a Unified Account of Resultative Constructions in Korean. In Proceedings of the 30th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation (PACLIC), 501-510.