Ellipsis of the Nominative and the Accusative Case Particles in Korean

Abstract

This dissertation aims to empirically describe the ellipsis of the nominative case particle, -i/ka and the accusative case particle, -(l)ul in spoken and written texts by applying the notions of information focus (Lambrecht, 1994). Although numerous previous studies claimed that the case particles, -i/ka and –(l)ul overtly mark focused referents, the notions of focus has never been empirically validated. Mostly, the notion of focus is just described as a main factor without empirical evidence. The research questions of the present study are as follows: 1) Contextually recoverable elements are omitted in Korean language. In this vein, case particles, -i/ka and –(l)ul considered not to be realized most of time since they are easily recoverable. Is the recoverability the main cause of the case particle ellipsis? 2) The ellipsis pattern of the case particles seems arbitrary. How can the ellipsis pattern be predicted most accurately? What are the contributing factors? 3) The case particles are almost always realized in the deferential speech style and written texts. How does different registers of Korean language influence the ellipsis pattern of –i/ka and –(l)ul? What aspects of the deferential speech style and written texts increase realizations of these particles in sentences? The current study investigated these questions using data consist of paired conversations and transcribed data from the Korean National Corpus, TV news broadcasts, TV debate shows and mobile chat discussions. The findings from the research show that the impact of focus on the case particle ellipsis is more complex than previously assumed: effect of focus is only shown to the nominative case particles –(i)/ka. The investigation also revealed that directionality of the information transfer has impact on the ellipsis patterns on –i/ka and –(l)ul.