Korean negation and the licensing condition on negative polarity items

This research investigates two issues the Korean negation structure and the conditions that license Korean Negative Polarity Items. The Korean negation structure is determined by inspecting the scope ambiguity observed in clauses containing a quantifier argument and the negative marker an ('not') under the postulate that the percolation of the [+neg] feature innate an depends on the property of the lexical content of an adjacent verb. No scope ambiguity is found in Short Form Negation, since the [+neg] feature of an is not percolated to the sequence of an+V due to the independent lexical content that the adjacent verb contains. In contrast, a scope ambiguity is realized in Long Form Negation when the quantifier is generated inside V' due to c-command relation between the quantifier and an. However, scope ambiguity is impossible when the quantifier is generated in SpecVP, since SpecVP is not c-commanded by an.;There are at least two types of Negative Polarity Items in language. One is local Negative Polarity Items and the other long-distance Negative Polarity Items. Unlike long-distance Negative Polarity Items which are c-commanded by their licenser, local Negative Polarity Items, as in Korean, are licensed if they satisfy the Clause Mate Condition which constrains the occurrence of Negative Polarity Items to within the local domain where their licenser appears. Two suggestions are given to revise the Clause Mate Condition. One is that Negative Polarity Items in the embedded clause are raised to the embedded SpecCP when it needs to be licensed. The other is that the local domain of the main clause is extended down to the embedded SpecCP if the head C lacks a case feature.;Two conditions are required to be satisfied on the raising of the Negative Polarity Items. One is that their raising must be minimal and not cross over any eligible position and the other is that the raised quantifier and its trace form a two-membered chain. These considerations explain several phenomena that have not been previously explained with respect to the license of Korean Negative Polarity Items.