Exploring VP/vP Preposing in Multiple Nominative Constructions

Abstract

This study investigates VP/vP preposing within the context of Multiple Nominative Constructions (MNCs). In Korean, a verbal constituent can be moved to the sentence-initial position. However, when an unbound trace is contained within the preposed constituent, it violates the Proper Binding Condition (PBC), rendering the sentence ungrammatical. The PBC effect has non-trivial implications for the structure of VP/vP. This paper investigates VP/vP preposing across diverse categories of MNCs in Korean to illuminate their structural characteristics. MNCs occur in various environments, broadly classified into Major Subject constructions and Nominative Object constructions (Kuno 1973). Previous literature classifies the two types of MNCs into several sub-types. An important question is concerned with the structure of the various MNCs. This paper explores whether previous analyses can adequately explain the (im)possibility of VP/vP preposing within each sub-type of MNCs. We show that the (im)possibility of VP/vP preposing in MNCs results from their unique structure, in combination with the PBC effect and many other syntactic principles.