UCLA

The goal of this dissertation is to provide a unified analysis of negation in Korean, and the claim to be defended is that it is possible to do so when we rethink the syntax of Korean. This dissertation reassesses the syntax of preverbal and postverbal negation by taking into consideration a framework which is based on the antisymmetry theory (Kayne 1994) in conjunction with the cartographic program (Cinque 1999), building on the works by Koopman & Szabolcsi (2000), Cinque (2005), and Koopman (2005). The proposed framework assumes a theory of syntax in which the linear order of elements reflects their hierarchical order, with the only possible hierarchical order being Spec-Head-Complement order. It bans post-syntactic operations, covert movement, and head movement. The main idea is that the proposed framework will choose the analysis for preverbal negation, postverbal negation, and negative indefinites and intervention effects.