The Synonymy vs. Nonsynonymy Hypothesis for Causatives in Korean

Abstract

It is well known that there are two types of causatives in Korean, i.e., morphological and syntactic causatives. For quite a while linguists have debated whether these two types of causatives are semantically the same or different. On one front, there is a minority, represented by Yang among others, who argue that morphological and syntactic causatives in Korean are synonymous. On the other front, however, there are those, such as Shibatani, who believe that these two types of causatives are different, i.e., they are nonsynonymous. Despite continuous research on this issue, unfortunately it is still unclear as to what extent they resemble and/or differ from each other. This paper examines Haiman’s Iconicity Principle, according to which conceptual unity/independence is reflected by linguistic closeness/separateness. The present paper argues that although Haiman’s Iconicity Principle cannot account for Korean causatives as such, the general view of the semantic difference between morphological and syntactic causatives in Korean should remain intact, i.e., the former causatives are related to direct causation and the latter to indirect causation.