영어 '주어'에 관한 연구

Abstract

ABSTRACT

A Study on Subjects in English

Kim Jihye Adviser : Prof. Lee Nam-geun Ph.D. Major in English Language Education Graduate School of Education, Chosun University

Subjects in sentences are easy to identify but difficult to define. For an answer to the question “How does a subject in English define?”, this study aims to investigate subjects through syntactic, semantic and pragmatic analyses. It also examines a variety of categories of subject and non-DP subjects that seem to be DP subjects. Firstly, this thesis syntactically analyzes on subjects in English. Its position is developed from NP dominated by S to Spec-TP and generally, the subject in a clause has nominative case. The subject agrees with the person-number inflection of the verb in a finite clause by ‘Feature-copying’, by which a probe searches for a c-commanded goal to agree with and then unvalued features on the probe are valued by the goal. In a Yes/No question, T moves from its normal post-subject position into pre-subject position, it is called‘Subject-Auxiliary inversion (SAI)’. Also, the subject is repeated in tag questions and raised in a clause with seem-type verbs. Secondly, the subject is semantically analyzed an external argument, which is based on the fact that it is located outside the maximal projection of the verb. Thus the subject can have thematic roles as an argument. Also, the subject is realized by Dowty’s proto-agent role and topicality. In pragmatic analysis, the speaker chooses 'subject-VP inversion' for highlighting the significant new information with the side effect of lively expressions. It helps the hearers to feel more comfortable during discourse situation. And when the subject is sentential, it is extraposed to suggest the proposition of the sentential subject as focal information regardless of the speaker`s belief in the truth of the proposition. Also, subject ellipsis occurs to avoid repeated elements in the situational context or the linguistic context. Finally, the subject is realized by prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, finite clauses, infinite clause, and small clause as well as noun phrases(=DP). Among them, PP, CP, and AP subjects called non-DP subjects can exhibit behaviour of DPs such as inversion, raising, and agreement. In additional, conjoined CPs and PPs in subject position can licence quantificational adverb equally. Lastly, CPs and PPs can also license emphatic reflexives like DP subjects.