Combination of the Verb ha- 'do' and Entity Type Nouns in Korean: A Generative Lexicon Approach
Seohyun Im, Chungmin Lee · Language and Information · 2004
This paper aims to account for direct combination of an entity type noun with the verb HA- ``do`` (ex. piano-rul ha- ``piano-ACC do``) in Korean, based on Generative Lexicon Theory (Pustejovsky, 1995). The verb HA-``do`` coerces some entity type nouns (e.g., pap ``boiled rice``) into event type ones, by virtue of the qualia of the nouns. Typically, a telic-based type coercion supplies individual predication to the HA-construction and an agentive-based type coercion evokes a stage-level interpretation. Type coercion has certain constraints on the choice of qualia. We further point out that qualia cannot be a warehouse of pragmatic information. Qualia are composed of necessary information to explain the lattice structure of lexical meaning and co-occurrence constraints, distinct from accidental information. Finally, we seriously consider co-composition as an alternative to type coercion for the crucial operation of type shift. (Seoul National University)