Open Access

Incheol Choi, Stephen Wechsler

• The Korean Light Verb Construction (LVC) contains a Sino-Korean main predicate (tayhwa-lul), a Light Verb (ha-ta), and semantic arguments of the main predicate (John-i, Tom-kwa): John-i Tom-kwa tayhwa-lul ha-yess-ta. John-Nom Tom-with talk-Acc do-Pst-Dc 'John talked with Tom.' We defend a three-part analysis: (i) The subject of the main predicate is thematically controlled by the LV's subject. Evidence: Korean verbs assigning Accusative take an external argument (Wechsler/Lee 1996; Burzio's Generalization). Since the main predicate is Accusative, ha-ta must theta-mark its subject. Moreover ha-ta selects a non-stative Verbal Noun (VN) (cp. *kyumson-ul ha-ta 'humble-Acc do-Dc'); non-stative theta-structures typically take an external argument (Kang 1986). This control arises through complex predicate formation. (ii) Oblique arguments (PPs) are optionally transferred (cp. Grimshaw/Mester 1988) — but Accusative NPs are not. Evidence comes from relativization and pronoun replacement. (iii) Accusative is assigned by a mixed category Verbal Noun. This can be supported by adverbial clauses with VN's assigning Accusative without LV's. We review cross-linguistic evidence for both argument transfer (German; Hinrichs & Nakazawa; i.a.) and mixed categories (many languages, Malouf; i.a.) and show that Korean LVCs provide the right environment for both to occur.