RESEARCH 


Research Interests

My research interests include various aspects of syntax and semantics of Korean and Japanese:

 

  • Focusing phenomena (the positions of focus, negation, and floated quantifiers)
  • Cognitive aspects of Modals (conditional-negation combinations in modal constructions)
  • Grammaticalization (relative clause/complement constructions, honorifics)
  • Scalar modal particles
  • Linguistic typology (word order, negation, relative clause construction)

 

The linguistic data in my research are chiefly from Korean and Japanese: I am a native speaker of both languages. Topics of my research papers have concentrated specifically in the phenomena of word order, quantifier-floating, negation, and the constructions of modality and relative clauses.  Recently, I wrote several papers on scalar focus particles of Korean and Japanese. I also published a paper on figurative principles and grammaticalization in the honorific systems of both languages. An expanded version of the latest work is in preparation for publication.

 

In addition to the linguistic discipline, my academic pursuits also include the cultural history of the Far Eastern region, particularly critical impacts from the Korean peninsula on the early formation of Japanese civilization. These impacts have been not only largely neglected in the academic literature but also more often than not deliberately undermined and misrepresented to the general public by ultra-nationalist scholars of the late 18th century and even by their ideological followers of today’s Japan.

 

Publications

 

Doctoral Dissertation:

 

The Grammar of Focus in Korean Syntax and Its Typological Implications. Committee Chair: Professor Bernard Comrie. Seoul: Hanshin Munhwasa (Reprint)

 

 

Articles in Professional Journals and Book Chapters:

 

The Role of Word Order in Syntactic Change: Sentence-Final Prominence in Korean Negation. 1977.  In Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 670-684.

 

A Universal of WH-Questions and Its Parametric Variants in Verb-Final Languages, 1982. In Papers from the Parasession on Nondeclaratives, Chicago Linguistic Society, 107-118.

 

The Function of Linear Order in Korean Syntax. 1985. In Susumu Kuno et al (eds.) Harvard Workshop on Korea Linguistics. 154-167.

 

Preverbal Focusing and Type XXIII Languages. 1988. In M. Hammond, In E. Moravcsik and J. Wirth (eds) Studies in Syntactic Typology, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. 149-171.

 

Numeral Quantifier Constructions and Definiteness Restrictions in Korean. 1990. In E. J. Baek (ed.) Papers from the 7th International Conference on Korean Linguistics. 121-131.

 

Information Flow and Relative Clause Constructions in Korean Discourse. (with Hyon-sook Shin) 1994. In Young-Key Kim Renaud (ed.) Theoretical Issues in Korean Linguistics. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. 463-493.

 

Grammaticalization and the Korean Modal Schema. 1995. In Chungmin Lee (ed.) Interfaces in Korean Linguistics: 1993 Ohio State University LSA Workshop. Seoul: Thaehaksa Publishing Co. 19-30.

 

Word Order at the Noun-Phrase Level in Japanese: Quantifier-Float and Discourse Functions. 1995. In Michael Noonan and Pamela Downing (eds.) Word Order in Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 199-246.

 

A View from the Cocoon --- Space categorization in the Korean Verb na.ka.ta. 1996. Journal of Linguistic Studies. Inaugural Issue. 123-169. (Included in the ERIC database).

 

The Positions of Quantifiers and Discourse Functions. (co-authored with Sun-ok Park of Chinju Tech) 1997. Studies in British and American Language and Literature. Vol. 50. 245-266.

 

Space Honorification in Korean  (co-authored by Chungmin Lee of Seoul National University) 1997. In Papers from 1997 Mid-America Linguistics Conference edited by Xingzhong Li, Luis Lopez and Thomas Stroika, University of Missouri-Columbia. 195-205.

 

The NPI pakkey and Negation of Universal Quantifier in Korean. 1998. In Susumu Kuno et al (eds.) Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics VII . 323-338.

 

Nominalization of Verbals and Attributive Markers in Korean and Japanese. In Nancy M. Luts and Ronald P. Schaffer (eds.) 1999. 1998 Mid-America Linguistics Conference Papers. The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. 167-184.

 

Out of Gerund: A Functional View of Sentential Nominalizations in Korean. 1999. In Susumu Kuno et al.(eds.) Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics VIII  385-402.

 

Is Quantifier-Floating in Japanese a Recent Innovation?...Contextual Analysis of the Numeral Quantifier Construction in Old Japanese. 2000. In J. C. Smith and Delia Bentley. Historical Linguistics 1995. Volume 1. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 160-190.

 

Quantifier Shift and <Specificity> in Korean Discourse. 2001. Journal of Linguistic Studies 6. 17-34.

 

Korean ppun and Japanese bakari: A comparative analysis in syntax and semantics. 2001. In Susumu Kuno et al (eds.) Harvard Studies on Korean Linguistics IX .  56-70.

 

Correspondences in Scalar Focus Particles of Japanese and Korean: A Comparative Perspective" 2001. In Kaoru Horie and Shigaharu Sato (eds.) Cognitive-Functional Linguistics in an East Asian Context . Tokyo: Kuroshio Publishing Company. 207-234.

 

Functional specialization of exclusion particles: Korean man/ppun and Japanese dake/bakari. 2003. In Gregory Iverson and Sang-Cheol Ahn (eds.) Explorations in Korean language and linguistics. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Co. 137-166.

 

日本語の敬語体系の原則とメタ言語的文法化 (Principles and Meta-linguistic Grammaticalization in the Japanese Honorific System) 2004. In Taro Kageyama and Hideki Kishimoto (eds.) 日本語の分析と 言語類型:柴谷方良教授還暦記念論文集 (Analyses of Japanese and Language Typology: Festschrift for Professor Masayoshi Shibatani.) Tokyo: Kuroshio Publishers. 25-46.

 

Grammaticalization in Sentence-Final Politeness Marking in Korean and Japanese.  In Susumu Kuno et al (eds.) Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics XI. 2006: 72-85.

 

On Origins of Korean supnita and Japanese desu/masu: Deriving Addressee Honorific Markers from Verbs of Announcements. In Selected Papers from the 15th ICKL 2006 (To appear)

 

Presentations at Professional Meetings:

·  "Diachronic Change in Affixal Causatives in Korean, " Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Berkeley Linguistic Society. 1978.

·  "The Negative Suffix zu in Old Japanese," Paper presented at New England Regional Meeting of Association for Asian Studies, Wellesley College, CT. 1981.

·  "Scope-bearing Elements as Indices of Syntactic Configurationality," (with John Whitman), Paper presented at New England Linguistic Society, MIT. 1982.

·  "Why Quantifiers Float," Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of Linguistic Society of America, San Diego. 1982.

·  "The Split-level Word Orders in Korean Syntax." Paper presented at The International Conference on Cross-cultural Communication, Sejong Hotel, Seoul, Korea. August 1985.

·  "The Position of WH-Word and the Function of Word Order in Korean." Paper presented at Conference on Korean Language Teaching. University of Southern California. February 23, 1985.

·  "Evidence for Diagrammatic Iconicity: Honorific and Speech Level Categories in Korean Verb Morphology," Paper presented at the Pacific Linguistic Conference, University of Oregon. 1986.

·  "Attributive Morpheme -n in Korean NP Constructions," Paper presented at the Second Harvard Workshop on Korean Linguistics. 1987.

·  "The Scope of Honorifics and Conditions of Its Extension in Japanese and Korean,'" Paper presented at Pacific Linguistic Conference, University of Oregon. 1987.

·  "Categorial Order of Honorific Morphemes in the Verbal Complex of Korean and Japanese," Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, San Francisco. 1988.

·  "A Fourth Category of Japanese Honorifics, " Paper read at the Conference on Honorifics, Reed College & Portland State University. April 8, 1988. (as a conference co-organizer)

·  "Honorifics as a Subset of the Universal Animacy Parameter," Paper presented at the International Symposium on Language Universals, University of Antwerp, (UIA) Belgium. December, 1988.

·  "Two Levels of Word Order in Functional Grammar," Paper presented at the Third International Conference on Functional Grammar, at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Holland. June, l988.

·  "Discourse Word Order on the NP Level in Japanese and Korean," Paper presented at The 20th Annual Linguistics Symposium, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. April, 1991.

·  "Quantifier-Floating in Relative Clause Construction," Paper presented at the Workshop on Korean Linguistics, Summer Institute of Linguistic Society of America. University of California, Santa Cruz. August 1991.

·  "Relativizing from Two Presentational Forms," The 66th Annual Winter Meeting of Linguistic Society of America, Philadelphia, PA. January 15, 1992

·  Where errors like ‘Clyde marries with Bonnie’ in Japanese learners of English come from---A Cognitive Approach,” International Conference on Pragmatics, University of Illinois, Champagne Urbana. April 2-5, 1992.

·  "Typology of Referential Points and Reciprocal Verbs in Korean," Paper presented at Workshop on discourse and cognitive Linguistics. Sokang University, Seoul, Korea. June, 2, 1992.

·  "Quantifier Shift and Specificity in Korean and Japanese," Paper presented at Seoul International Conference on Linguistics (SICOL 92), Korea University, Seoul, Korea. July 30, 1992.

·  "Information Flow and Relativization in Korean Discourse," Paper (with Hyon-Sook Shin) presented at The 8th International Symposium on Korean Linguistics, George Washington University, Washington D.C. August 8, 1992.

·  "Postposing in Korean," Paper (with Hyon-Sook Shin) presented at The XVth International Congress of Linguists, Laval University, Quebec, Canada. August 11, 1992.

·  "Grammaticalization and Korean Modal Schema," Paper presented at the Interfaces in Korean Linguistics, The Summer Institute of Linguistic Society of America, at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH. July 17-18, 1993.

·  "Conversational Implicature and Biconditionality in the Japanese Modal Representations" Paper presented at the 4th International Pragmatics Conference, Shoin Women's University, Kobe, Japan. July 27, 1993.

·  "Variables in Redressive Strategies in the Japanese Honorific System," Paper presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs at John Carroll University, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. October 1-3. 1993.

·  "On Martin's Palatalization Hypothesis of Japanese wa and the Modern Korean ya," Paper presented at The Fourth Annual Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, UCLA. October 17, 1993.

·  "The Adverbial Particle ya in Korean, and a Second Look at the Modern Japanese wa and the lost Old Japanese ya." Paper presented at the Ninth International Conference on Korean Linguistics. SOAS, University of London. July 20, 1994. Served Chair for a syntax panel.

·  "In Search of a Forgotten Game of the Man'yo Japan: The Origin of <kariuchi > and Some Linguistic Implications." Paper presented at the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, 43rd Annual Meeting, at Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois. September 24, 1994.

·  "How to negate Universal Quantifiers---Confinement of Negator to VP and Its Consequences in Verb-Final Languages." Paper presented at LSA Annual Meeting at New Orleans. January 7, 1995.

·  "Is Quantifier-Floating in Japanese a Recent Innovation? --- A Contextual Analysis of the NQ Construction in Old Japanese." Paper presented at The 12th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, The University of Manchester, UK. August 13-18, 1995.

·  "Metalinguistic Negation in Two Verb-Final Languages: Case Study from Japanese and Korean." Paper presented at the 1996 Annual Linguistic Society of America, San Diego. CA. January 6, 1996.

·  "Quantifier Positions and Discourse Functions in Korean Syntax." Paper presented at the Tenth International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning. University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. March 22, 1996.

·  "Post-nominal Quantifier Constructions and Discourse Functions in Japanese and Korean Conversations." Paper (with Sun-Ok Park of Chinju Tech., Korea) presented at the International Pragmatics Association held at Mexico City. July 5, 1996.

·  "What Makes a Single Word Mean Both ENTER and EXIT? --- Space Categorization in Japanese and Korean." Papers presented at SIUC Linguistic Luncheon Series. October 25, 1996.

·  "The NPI pakkey and Negation of Universal Quantifier in Korean." Paper presented at The 7th Harvard International Symposium on Korean Linguistics. Harvard University. July 12, 1997.

·  "The Antonym Dichotomy 'EXIT' vs. 'ENTER' in a Single Lexeme: Space Categorization in Japanese and Korean." Paper presented at the 1997 Mid-America Linguistics Conference. University of Missouri-Columbia. October 15, 1997.

·  "Diagrammatic Iconicity Revisited: Categorical Sequencing in Japanese Verb Morphology." Paper presented at the 12th Annual International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. February 28, 1998.

·  "A Comparative Note on Special Particles: Old Japanese namu and Korean lang/nun." Paper to be presented at the Eleventh International Conferences on Korean Linguistics (ICKL 1998) at University of Hawaii, July 6-9, 1998.

·  "From the Attributive Marker to the Sentential Nominalizer: Grammaticalization in Internally-Headed Relative Clauses in Japanese and Korean." Paper presented at the 1998 Mid-America Linguistics Conference. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville/ Carbondale. October 28, 1998. Served Chair for a syntax panel.

·  "Out of Gerund: A Functional View of Sentential Nominalizations in Korean" Paper presented at the Eighth International Symposium on Korean Linguistics, Harvard University. July 16, 1999. Served Chair for a Syntax Panel.

·  "Oblique Cases and VP Truncation in the so-called Gap-less Relative Clauses in Korean and Japanese: A Syntactically-based Account." Paper presented at Conference on Korean Linguistics in conjunction with the 1999 Summer Institute of Linguistic Society of America. University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. July 23, 1999. Served Chair for a Syntax Panel.

·  "Grammaticalization from the Attributive Marker to the Sentential Nominalizer: Evidence in Japanese" Paper presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL XIV), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. August 9, 1999.

·  "Complementizer Typology and Word-Order Effects in OV Languages." Paper presented at the Third Biennial Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology. University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. August 27, 1999.

·  "Another face of Brown & Levinson's Face: An Honorific Model in Japanese," Paper presented at Politeness Conference, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. December 7-9, 1999.

·  “Metaphors and Maxims in Japanese Honorifics.” Paper presented at The Second International conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA. April1-2, 2000.

·  "What can Korean relative clause construction tell us about Japanese Nominalization construction?" Invited paper presented at a Special Session on Typology, International Conference on Korean Linguistics. Prague, The Czech Republic. July 15, 2000.

·   “Scalar Particles in Japanese and Korean: A Comparative-Historical Perspective,” Paper presented at The Second International Conference on Contrastive Semantics & Pragmatics, University of Cambridge, UK. September 11-13. 2000.

·  "Japanese bakari and Korean ppun: a comparative analysis in syntax and semantics" Paper presented at Harvard the Ninth International Symposium on Korean Linguistics, Harvard University. July 14, 2001. Served Chair for a comparative linguistics panel.

·  Unaccusativity in Korean.” Paper to be read at Linguistic Society of Korea International Summer Conference. Kyunghee University, Korea. August 5-7, 2002.

·  ”Conceptualization of Modalities and Iconic Representation in Japanese Grammar.” Paper to be presented at an International Conference “From Gram to Mind: Grammar as Cognition” at Universiti Michel de Montaigne-Bordeauz 3, France. May 19-21, 2005.

·  “Politeness Markers from Lexical Verbs: Two Cases of Korean/Japanese Interactions in Honorifics.” Paper presented at The 11th Harvard (Biennial) International Symposium on Korean Linguistics. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. August 5, 2005

·“Grammaticalization in Addressee Honorifics in Korean and Japanese.” Paper presented at The 15th International Conference on Korean Linguistics (ICKL 2006) at Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. July 11, 2006.


INVITED PRESENTATIONS AT PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS

 

“Focusing in Korean.” at the Department of Linguistics. Moderator: Professor Joseph Aoun. University of Southern California. 1983.

“Preverbal Focusing in OV Languages.” at the Linguistic Colloquium, U.C.LA. Moderator: Professor Paul Schachter. 1985.

“Preverbal Focusing in Korean and Japanese.” UCLA Korean/Japanese Linguistics Workshop. Moderator: Professor Pamela Downing. 1985.

“Conditional Constructions in Korean and Japanese Modal System.” at the Linguistics
Colloquium, University of Oregon. Moderator: Professor Talmy Givón.1987

 “Argument Canceling in Korean and Japanese” at the Language Research Institute, Seoul National University. Seoul, Korea. Moderator: Professor Sang-Oak Lee. May 21, 1992.

“Typology of Referential Points and Reciprocal Verbs in Korean,” at Discourse/Cognitive Linguistics Workshop at Sogang University, Seoul. June 20, 1992. Moderator: Professor Sung-Yun Park.

“On Japanese Culture.” at a Culture Workshop at Center for ESL, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Moderator: Director Richard Daesch. September, 1992.

“Cultures of Korean, Japan and the US---A comparative perspective. A public lecture given at the Twegye Research Institute, Kyungbuk National University. Taegu, Korea. November 4, 1995. Moderator: Professor Hwi-Chil Song.

“On Metalinguistic Negation in Korean and Japanese.” Paper presented at Language Research Institute, Seoul National University. November 10, 1995. Moderator: Professor Ki-Sun Hong.

“A Note on the Modal Particle ya in Modern Korean and Old Japanese.” Paper presented at The Linguistic Society of Cheju National University. November 17, 1995. Moderator: Professor Ki-suk Lee.

“What do you have other than O. .J. Simpson and Soap Operas on Television? A Professor’s view of Information Highway and TV Media in the present-day America. A public speech given at the American Studies Institute, Seoul National University. December 1, 1995.

“A message by a Flying Dutchman from the other side of Rainbow” A special lecture given to the Department of Philosophy, Seoul National University. December 6, 1995. Moderated by Professor Jay-Ryon Shin.

“Comparative Linguistics of Japanese and Korean: Challenges and Prospects. A Special Lecture at Professor Horie’s Linguistics Class at the School of International Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. December 18, 1995. Moderator: Dr. Kaoru Horie.

Kakarimusubi Phenomenon in Korean?---A Comparative Study of Relational Particles in Japanese and Korean,” A special talk at the School of Intercultural Studies, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. December 18, 1995. Moderator: Dr. Kaoru Horie.

“A 15th-century linguistic model and Korean Hangul: An alphabet system that makes sounds almost visible.” A special lecture given at East Asian Colloquium, Washington University, Saint Louis. October 10, 1997. Moderator: Professor Marvin Marcus.

Kono tikakute tooki Nihongo to Kankokugo --- Hikaku kenkyuu no atarasii ugoki to sono tenboo.” (A new direction in comparative-historical linguistics of Japanese and Korean.) The Graduate School of Intercultural Studies. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. December 7, 1998. . Moderator: Professor Kaoru Horie.

Man’yoo siku no <setumokusi> no sinkaisyaku to sono rekisi-hikaku gengogakuteki igi ni tuite” (An alternative analysis of <setumokusi> in Man’yoo-shuu and its comparative-historical linguistic implications.) The Graduate School of Intercultural Studies. Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. December 7, 1998. Moderator: Professor Kaoru Horie.

“What can Korean adnominal construction tell us about the zero relative clause marker and the no-nominalizer in Modern Japanese?” Paper presented at a Typology Panel, of the 12th International Conference on Korean Linguistics. Prague, Czech Republic. July 15, 2000. Moderator: Professor Um of London University.

"The so-called Special Particles in Japanese and Korean." Invited paper presented at Cognitive-Functional Linguistics in an East Asian Context. Tohoku University, Sendai. August 18, 2000.

 “Ambiguous ONLY in Korean.” An invited paper for a Focus/Topic Panel of the 13th International Conference on Korean Linguistics. Oslo, Norway. July 8, 2002.Moderator: Professor Jong-Bok Kim.

“Functional specialization of exclusion particles: Korean man/ppun and Japanese dake/bakari.” Invited lecture at a monthly workshop of Kansai Lexical Project Group at Kobe University, Kobe, Japan. Juy 27, 2002. Moderator: Professor Taro Kageyama.

“Passive and Inchoative: The notion of (Un)accusativity in Japanese Honorific System.” Invited lecture at a Linguistic Seminar), Kwasei Gakuin University. October 17, 2002. Moderator: Professor Taro Kagayama.

“A Prolegomena to Principles in the Honorific System of Japanese: A Queen Bee Model.” Invited lecture at Exchange Student Center, Nagoya University. October 21, 2002. Moderator: Professor Yutaka Ohno.

“Grammaticalization of Addressee Honorifics in Korean and Japanese,” Lecture for The Tohoku University 21st Century COE Program in Humanities: Open Lecture Series on Language, Brian and Cognition. October 4, 2006. Moderator: Professor Kaoru Horie.
“Revisiting the Notion of <Honorifics> in Brown & Levinson (1987[1978]) theory of Universal Politeness.”  Lecture for The Tohoku University 21st Century COE Program in Humanities: Open Lecture Series on Language, Brian and Cognition. October 4, 2006. Moderator: Professor Kaoru Horie

 

 

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