| The main concern of this thesis is a proper characterization of the various manifestations of the rule of ascension in Korean. Within the theoretical framework of relational grammar, the thesis addresses ascension in both simplex and complex clauses and argues that ascension-type constructions are systematically distinct in their syntactic behavior from other superficially similar constructions. On the one hand, this implies that further structural distinctions among multiple nominative constructions are necessary in Korean; on the other hand, syntactic characteristics common to multiple nominative constructions and other ascension constructions, e.g., raising and multiple accusative constructions, are readily expressed under the present approach. This result suggests that monostratal approaches to a particular subset of multiple case constructions must miss generalizations that hold across ascension constructions. In this respect, the existence of multiple accusative constructions in Korean parallel to multiple nominative constructions has certain significant theoretical implications. It will be shown that claims based just on multiple nominative constructions turn out to be inadequate when multiple accusative constructions are taken into consideration. |
