Bound Noun the in Korean

This paper discusses a bound noun the in Korean from the perspective of grammaticalization. Song (2016) argues that the is grammaticalized from a lexical noun with the meaning of a physical place to a bound noun with the meaning of an abstract place, situation. Song (2016) further argues that the bound noun the is grammaticalized into a bound noun complex which can be analyzed as a conjunctive ending and a sentence-final ending. However, the analysis given in Song (2016) needs more clarification on its exact syntactic structure. Futhermore, there is no clear evidence for the bound noun complex analysis. Instead, I argue that the bound noun the moves from N to n similar to the analysis for the bound noun kes in Kim (2016). It is also argued that due to its volitive and epistemic modal meanings (Song 2016), the bound noun the further moves to Mod. I finally claim that its variant form they (the + a copular verb i ‘be’) is reanalyzed as a Mod head.

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