Jiyoung Yoon, University of North Texas
Expressing emotion, necessity, and possession in Spanish and Korean:
A construction grammar approach
This paper deals with the semantics and syntax of constructions involving verbs of necessity, possession, and emotion in Spanish and Korean from the point of view of Construction Grammar. In those two languages, the accusative (ACC) is usually the case that marks the direct object and correlates with the patient, while the nominative (NOM) is typically the case that marks the subject and correlates with the agent, as illustrated in (1-2). However, in Spanish, the so-called gustar-type verbs expressing the subject’s emotion or feeling as in (3), as well as verbs of necessity and possession as in (4), take a dative (DAT) NP as the semantic subject. Likewise, in Korean, the canonical expression of emotion (5), necessity (6), and possession (7) displays a nominative-nominative pattern (also known as a double-subject construction), in which the accusative-marked object would render the sentence ungrammatical.
I observe that those verbs of emotion, necessity, and possession are all stative (that is, they lack action) and atelic (they lack an endpoint), and the subject is usually non-agent-like and non-volitional, thus the constructions in which they appear normally involve low transitivity (terms defined in Hopper and Thompson 1980). Following the spirit of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 1999, 2006; Lakoff 1987), I argue that in users’ Spanish and Korean grammar, constructions involving verbs of emotion, necessity, and possession are categorized and stored as different construction types from those involving a higher degree of transitivity like the examples in (1-2). This study further explores the relationship between such constructions involving non-canonical case marking, i.e., DAT subjects in Spanish and double-subject constructions in Korean, on the one hand, and constructions involving a low degree of transitivity but canonical case marking, i.e., NOM subject-ACC object, as in such verbs as querer ‘like’ and necesitar ‘need’, on the other hand, as illustrated in (8-9):
Data:
(1) Yo te invité a cenar.
I(NOM) you(ACC) invited to have dinner
“I invited you to have dinner.”
(2) nay tongseng -i pap -ul moko-yo
my sister NOM rice ACC eat-DEC [declarative sentence ending]
“My sister is eating rice.”
(3) Me {gusta / horroriza} la canción.
I(DAT) {please / terrify} the song
“The song pleases/terrifies me.”
(4) Nos {falta / queda} dinero.
we(DAT) {lack / remain}money
“We lack money / We have money left.”
(5) nay- ka pam- i /*-ul musep-ta.
I NOM night NOM /*ACC afraid-DEC
“I am afraid of night.”
(6) nay-ka chinkwu-ka /*-lul philyohay-yo
I-NOM friend-NOM /*ACC need-DEC
“I need a friend / friends.”
(7) na-nun chinkwu-ka /*-lul iss-eyo
I-TOP friend-NOM /*ACC exist-DEC
“I have a friend / friends.”
(8) Yo te quiero mucho.
I(NOM) you(ACC) like a lot
“I like you a lot.”
(9) El hombre necesita a la mujer y la mujer
the man need ACC the woman and the woman
necesita al hombre.
need ACC-the man
“Men need women and women need men.”
References
Delbecque, Nicole. 2002. A Construction Grammar approach to transitivity in Spanish.
The Nominative/Accusative and their counterparts, ed. by Davidse, Kristin & Béatrice Lamiroy, 81-130. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
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languages. Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects, ed. by Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R. M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi, 53-83. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hopper, Paul. J., and Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language 56.251-99.
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal
about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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