On the Predicate Focus Construction in Korean and Japanese

要旨

(Japanese) Yeonghee-nom sushi-acc eat-pst 'Yoenghee ate sushi.' However, the two languages diverge in so-called predicate focus constructions. In predicate focus constructions, a particle like -nun/wa separates the verb stem from the sentence-final chunk of inflectional elements. To put aside the presence of the post-verbal -ki in Korean and its absence in Japanese, while Korean allows either the reduplicated (or echoed) lexical verb or the dummy verb ha with the sentence-final inflectional elements, Japanese only allows the dummy verb su, as shown in (2) and (3). (2) a. Yeonghee-ka chopap-ul mek-ki-nun ha-ess-ta (K: HFC)

主題