The Change of toxical Structure by Causativization in Korean: a generative lexicon approach

한국어 사동화와 어휘의미구조의 변화: 생성어휘부(Generative Lexicon) 이론에 의한 접근

This study explores the lexical-semantic structure of derived causative verbs in Korean based on Pustejovsky(1995)'s Generative Lexicon Theory (GL). Morphological causative verbs are derived from their root stems by affixing ‘-i, -hi, -li, -gi’ in Korean and the meanings of derived predicates are closely related to the meanings of their root verbs. In particular, the change of the ARGUMENT STRUCTURE by morphological derivation leads to the change of the EVENT STRUCTURE. The ARGUMENT STRUCTURES of derived causative verbs include a causer argument, which is added to the ARGUMENT STRUCTURE of their root verbs by means of the causative derivation. Their EVENT STRUCTURE has a headed process related to a causer and its result is the event which their root verbs denote. This approach can also suggest that the (in)directness of causative is dependent on is the semantics of its root verb.