Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-kwt9d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T02:03:29.924Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Semantic Binding of Long-Distance Anaphor Caki in Korean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Chung-hye Han and
Dennis Ryan Storoshenko
Chung-hye Han*
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
Dennis Ryan Storoshenko*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
Han Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada [chunghye@sfu.ca]
Storoshenko Department of Linguistics, Yale University, 370 Temple St., Room 204, New Haven, CT 06520-8366[dennis.storoshenko@yale.edu]
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, we consider the binding-theoretic status of the Korean long-distance anaphor caki. While caki has been called a long-distance anaphor, in reality its antecedent can be found locally as well as at a distance. It can also have a non-c-commanding antecedent, and an antecedent from a previous sentence. Though there are many different approaches to caki, what is apparent is the generalization that caki must be coindexed with an NP/DP if there is a possible antecedent in the syntax. We take this one step further and show that caki must be bound if there is a possible binder in the semantics, using examples where caki is bound by implicit arguments coming from reportative evidential and generics/modals. We argue that this generalization is best captured if caki is seen as a bound variable requiring a semantic binder, and demonstrate how this bound-variable analysis can provide a unified account for local, long-distance, and discourse-bound instances of caki, as well as instances of caki with a non-c-commanding antecedent and those bound by an implicit argument. The residual cases where caki has no possible semantic binder are treated as instances of exempt anaphora, free variables, the felicity of which are subject to discourse conditions.

Keywords

long-distance anaphorbound variablesemantic bindingcaki, Korean

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 88 , Issue 4 , December 2012, pp. 764 - 790
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

We are extremely indebted to the two anonymous referees and the editor of Language, Greg Carlson, for their insightful comments that were crucial in improving this article. We also thank the audiences at the 19th Japanese/Korean Linguistics conference at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and the 2010 meeting of the North East Syntax Society of Great Britain (NESS) at the University of York for helpful questions on previous versions of this article. This work was partially supported by SSHRC 410-2007-2169 to Han.

References

Belletti, Adriana, and Rizzi, Luigi. 1988. Psych-verbs and θ-theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6. 291–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhatt, Rajesh, and Pancheva, Roumi. 2006. Implicit arguments. The Blackwell companion to syntax, ed. by Everaert, Martin and Riemsdijk, Henk van, 554–84. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 2004. Crossover situations. Natural Language Semantics 12. 23–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Büring, Daniel. 2005. Binding theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511802669CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Sun. 1977. Korean reflexive pronoun caki and its referent NP’s point of view. Language Research 13. 35–48.Google Scholar
Cho, Dong-In. 1996. Anaphor or pronominal. Language Research 32. 621–36.Google Scholar
Cho, Mi-Hui. 1994. On the orientation problem in Korean ‘caki’ binding and the typology of X reflexive binding. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 19. 165–83.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter, Hermon, Gabriella; and James Huang, C.-T.. 2001. Long-distance reflexives: The state of the art. Syntax and semantics, vol. 33: Long-distance reflexives, ed. by Cole, Peter, Hermon, Gabriella, and James Huang, C.-T., xiii–xlvii. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter, Hermon, Gabriella; and Sung, Li-May. 1990. Principles and parameters of long-distance reflexives. Linguistic Inquiry 21. 1–22.Google Scholar
Cole, Peter, and Sung, Li-May. 1994. Head movement and long-distance reflexives. Linguistic Inquiry 25. 355–406.Google Scholar
Elbourne, Paul. 2001. E-type anaphora as NP-deletion. Natural Language Semantics 9. 241–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Gareth. 1980. Pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 11. 337–62.Google Scholar
Faltz, Leonard M. 1977. Reflexivization: A study in universal syntax. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley dissertation.Google Scholar
Gill, Kook-Hee. 1999. The long-distance anaphora conspiracy: The case of Korean. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (Proceedings of the 23rd annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium) 6.1.171–83.Google Scholar
Han, Chung-hye, and Kim, Jong-Bok. 2004. Are there ‘double relative clauses’ in Korean? Linguistic Inquiry 35. 315–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Han, Chung-hye, and Storoshenko, Dennis Ryan. 2013. Non-subject antecedent potential of caki in Korean. Japanese/Korean linguistics 27, ed. by Nam, Seungho, Ko, Heejeong, and Jun, Jongho. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, to appear.Google Scholar
Han, Chung-hye, Storoshenko, Dennis Ryan; and Walshe, R. Calen. 2011. An experimental study of the grammatical status of caki in Korean. Japanese/Korean linguistics 19, ed. by Sohn, Ho-min, Cook, Haruko, O’Grady, William, Serafim, Leon A., and Cheon, Sang Yee, 81–94. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene, and Kratzer, Angelika. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hellan, Lars. 1988. Anaphora in Norwegian and the theory of grammar. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermon, Gabriella. 1992. Binding theory and parameter setting. The Linguistic Review 9. 145–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornstein, Norbert. 2006. Pronouns in a minimalist setting. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 14. 47–80.Google Scholar
Huang, Yan. 2000. Anaphora. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198235293.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1996. The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Pauline. 2000. Paycheck pronouns, Bach-Peters sentences, and variable-free semantics. Natural Language Semantics 8. 77–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kang, Beom-Mo. 2001. The grammar and use of Korean reflexives. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 6. 134–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. 2007. On the denotations of anaphors. Research on Language and Computation 5. 5–17.10.1007/s11168-006-9014-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, Edward L., and Comrie, Bernard. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8. 63–99.Google Scholar
Kim, Ji-Hye, Montrul, Silvina; and Yoon, James. 2009. Binding interpretations of anaphors by Korean heritage speakers. Language Acquisition 16. 3–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Ji-Hye, and Yoon, James H.. 2009. Long-distance bound local anaphors in Korean— An empirical study of the Korean anaphor caki-casin. Lingua 119.733—55.10.1016/j.lingua.2008.10.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Soo-Yeon. 2000. Acceptability and preference in the interpretation of anaphors. Linguistics 38. 315–53.10.1515/ling.38.2.315CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika. 2009. Making a pronoun: Fake indexicals as windows into the properties of pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 40. 187–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuno, Susumu. 1987. Functional syntax: Anaphora, discourse, and empathy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Chungmin. 1973. Abstract syntax and Korean with reference to English. Bloomington: University of Indiana dissertation.Google Scholar
Lee, Chungmin. 1988. Issues in Korean anaphora. Papers from the Sixth International Conference on Korean Linguistics, ed. by Baek, Eung-Jin, 339–58. Toronto: International Circle of Korean Linguistics and Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
Lee, Chungmin. 2001. Long-distance binding in psych-predicates. Journal of Cognitive Science 2. 145–69.Google Scholar
Lee, Chungmin. 2003. Contrastive topic and/or contrastive focus. Japanese/Korean linguistics 12, ed. by McClure, William, 352–64. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Lee, Hong-Bae. 1976. Notes on pronouns, reflexives, and pronominalization. Language Research 12. 253–63.Google Scholar
Madigan, Sean. 2006. Exhaustive and partial control in Korean: Long-distance caki as an overt form of PRO. Harvard Studies in Korean Linguistics 11. 642–55.Google Scholar
Madigan, Sean, and Yamada, Masahiro. 2006. Asymmetry in anaphoric dependencies: A cross-linguistic study of inclusive reference. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (Proceedings of the 30th annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium) 13.1.183–96.Google Scholar
Moon, Seung-Chul. 1995. An optimality theory approach to long distance anaphors. Seattle: University of Washington dissertation.Google Scholar
O’Grady, William. 1987. The interpretation of Korean anaphora: The role and representation of grammatical relations. Language 63. 251–77.Google Scholar
Park, Sung-Hyuk. 1986. Parametrizing the theory of binding: The implications of caki in Korean. Language Research 22. 229–53.Google Scholar
Pica, Pierre. 1987. On the nature of the reflexivization cycle. North East Linguistic Society (NELS) 17.2.483–99.Google Scholar
Pollard, Carl, and Sag, Ivan. 1992. Anaphors in English and the scope of binding theory. Linguistic Inquiry 23. 261–303.Google Scholar
Read, Charles, and Hare, Victoria Chou. 1979. Children’s interpretation of reflexive pronouns in English. Studies in first and second language acquisition, ed. by Eckman, Fred R. and Hastings, Ashley J., 98–116. Rowley: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya, and Reuland, Eric. 1993. Reflexivity. Linguistic Inquiry 24. 657–720.Google Scholar
Sells, Peter. 1987. Aspects of logophoricity. Linguistic Inquiry 18. 445–79.Google Scholar
Sohng, Hong-Ki. 2004. A minimalist analysis of Xo reflexivization in Chinese and Korean. Studies in Generative Grammar 14. 375–96.Google Scholar
Storoshenko, Dennis Ryan. 2008. A bound variable account of the Korean reflexive caki. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 26. 438–44.Google Scholar
Sung, Li-May. 1990. Universais of reflexives. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dissertation.Google Scholar
Tang, Chih-Chen Jane. 1989. Chinese reflexives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 7. 93–121.10.1007/BF00141348CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Dong-Whee. 1982. Control and binding in Korean. Linguistic Journal of Korea 7. 257–83.Google Scholar
Yoon, Jeong-Me. 1989. Long-distance anaphors in Korean and their cross-linguistic implications. Chicago Linguistic Society 25. 479–95.Google Scholar
Zribi-Hertz, Anne. 1989. Anaphor binding and narrative point of view: English reflexive pronouns in sentence and discourse. Language 65. 695–727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar