What does bare -ko coordination say about post-verbal morphology in Korean?

Abstract

In Korean bare -ko coordinate structures (BKCSs), post-verbal morphemes are typically interpreted in a symmetric fashion. This has led some linguists, e.g. Yoon [Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics, vol. 5, Hanshinmwunhwasa, Seoul, 1993, p. 436; Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics, vol. 7, Hanshinmwunhwasa, Seoul, 1997, p. 3] and Yoon [Korean Journal of Linguistics 21.4 (1996) 1105], to conclude that the conjunct size is a VP or a verbal constituent and post-verbal morphemes project in syntax as phrasal suffixes. This paper, however, observes that BKCSs may produce an asymmetric interpretation for pre-final affixes such as tense and aspect morphemes, though not for final affixes like mood morphemes. Based on this observation, this paper claims that BKCSs with asymmetric interpretations are to be analyzed as instances of coordination of functional categories (AspP, TP or possibly CP coordination depending on the formal status of -ko) in which phonetically null functional elements are postulated in non-final conjuncts. This larger scale coordination analysis gains further support first, from the fact that non-final conjuncts in BKCSs may contain elements that are licensed by a VP external functional category, and, second, from the fact that post-verbal morphemes can be sporadically recovered in BKCSs. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.