THE GRAMMATICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF KOREAN OBJECT PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJECTIVE CONSTRUCTIONS — A RECONSIDERATION OF THE DUAL-SUBJECT ANALYSIS —

Abstract

This paper examines the grammatical properties of Korean sentence constructions containing object psychological adjectives and argues that such constructions should not be analyzed as so-called dual-subject sentences. It is shown that the second noun phrase in these constructions does not function as a secondary subject but rather as a complement selected by the predicate. Accordingly, the particle -이가(-i/ga) attached to this noun phrase should be interpreted not as a nominative case marker but as a complement marker whose function is determined by the argument structure of psychological adjectives. This analysis provides a more principled account of argument structure in Korean and reveals the limitations of subject-based analyses relying solely on surface case marking.