Morphological Passivization and the Change of Lexical-Semantic Structures in Korean

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the lexical-semantic structure of morphologically derived passive verbs in Korean based on Pustejovsky (1995)'s Generative Lexicon Theory (GL) and to explain the change of the root verb's lexical-semantic structure by means of passivization. Passivization in this paper is defined as the unaccusaztivization. In Argument Structure of derived passive verbs, the agent argument is deleted and the theme argument is realized as a syntactic subject. As for Event Structure, derived passives express left-headed event (achievement), whereas their roots denote right-headed event (accomplishment). In Qualia Structure, passive verbs and root ones have the same Fomal Role, but in Agentive Role of passive verbs, an act weakens to a process. Both Formal and Agentive Roles have the same theme argument.