Toward a Ditransitive Prototype:The Gradience of English Ditransitives

Grace Ge-Soon Moon 한국영어학학회 2014 영어학연구 Vol.20 No.3

Moon, Grace Ge-Soon. 2014. Toward a Ditransitive Prototype: The Gradienceof English Ditransitives. English Language and Linguistics 20.3, 115-134. Ditransitive constructions in English display a wide variation in acceptability judgments. Thepresent paper attempts to account for this variation within the framework of prototype theory. Specifically, it proposes a ditransitive prototype based on both the semantic features identified in previous research as relevant to prototypicaltransitivity and the properties that characterize the canonical ditransitive verb give.Arguing that the acceptability of ditransitive constructions is a reflex of theirpoximity to the proposed ditransitive prototype, the paper demonstrates that the"ditransitivity" of a given clause is determined by an interplay between the objectiveproperties of the clause itself and the speaker's subjective construal of the event described in the clause.

Observations and Remarks on Relative Pronoun Variation in English

( Grace Ge ),( Soon Moon ) 경희대학교 언어연구소 2012 언어연구 Vol.29 No.2

Moon, Gace Ge-Soon, 2012, Observations and Remarks on Relative Pronoun Variation in English, Linguistic Research 29(2), 281-297. This Paper examines the pronominal variation exhibited in restrictive relative clauses with non-human referents in modem American English. On the basis of a small-scale quantitative analysis of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the paper shows that the choice between the pronouns which and that is primarily conditioned by the medium and genre of communication, as well the level of stylistic formality, It is also suggested that an interplay of grammatical roles and discourse functions further affects the variation in question.

Topicalization and the Imperative Subject

문지순 人文科學硏究所 2005 人文科學硏究 Vol.11 No.-

Various proposals have been put forward in the literature suggesting that imperative subject in English behave differently from subjects of other finite clauses. One such proposal is that of Beukema and Coopmans (1989), who, while admitting the subject status of the initial noun phrase in imperative utterances like "You be careful," claim that all non-quantificational imperative subjects obligatorily undergo topicalization. In this paper, I assess Beukema and Coopman's claim by investigating the grammatical and discourse properties of topicalization. In particular, I scrutinize so-called multiple topicalization structures, drawing a distinction between topic-topicalization and focus-topicalization. Based on both imperative and non-imperative data bearing on multiple topicalization, I conclude contra Beukema and Coopmans that imperative subjects are not subject to obligatory topicalization. The discussion closes with a speculation on whether imperative subjects ever undergo topicalization in the overt syntax.

Observations and Remarks on Relative Pronoun Variation in English

Grace Ge-Soon Moon 경희대학교 언어연구소 2012 언어연구 Vol.29 No.2

This Paper examines the pronominal variation exhibited in restrictive relative clauses with non-human referents in modem American English. On the basis of a small-scale quantitative analysis of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the paper shows that the choice between the pronouns which and that is primarily conditioned by the medium and genre of communication, as well the level of stylistic formality. It is also suggested that an interplay of grammatical roles and discourse functions further affects the variation in question.

Agreement in English Imperatives

Grace Ge-Soon Moon(문지순) 담화·인지언어학회 2004 담화와 인지 Vol.11 No.1

This paper examines the variation in pronominal agreement displayed by so-called third-person imperatives in English. It states that the ability of third-person imperative subjects to trigger either second-person or third-person agreement on a coreferential pronoun derives from a conflict between the subject's morphosyntactic and semantico-discoursal features. illustrating that second- person, or deictic, agreement is felicitous when the connection between the subject and the addressee is predictable (apparent) and/or emphasized, whereas third-person, or anaphoric, agreement is felicitous when the subject- addressee connection is either unpredictable (inapparent) or predictable but not emphasized, the paper argues that deictic agreement is the unmarked pattern in imperative clauses. This argument is shown to be not only analytically justified but empirically justified as well, on the basis of distributional facts. Moreover, the paper demonstrates that the factors that control the choice of agreement in imperative clauses are also operative in non-imperative clauses, thereby providing further validation of the overall analysis. The arguments presented in this paper corroborate the well- established notion in the literature that discourse-pragmatic factors play a central role in agreement phenomena across languages.

The Wicked Which Hunt: The Decline of Which-Relatives in 20th Century American English

Grace Ge-Soon Moon 한국영어학학회 2012 영어학연구 Vol.18 No.3

Unlike non-restrictive relative clauses, which have long given sole sovereignty to wh-forms, restrictive relative clauses are open to variation between wh-forms, that, and zero. In Present-Day American English, however, restrictive relatives clauses with which have shown a steep decline in usage. The present study aims to shed light on this downward trend of which-relatives by conducting a corpus-based quantitative and qualitative analysis. In an attempt to place the change in the overall evolutionary development of 20th century American English, it is argued with Leech et al. (2009) that which, being the more formal and less colloquial variant, has given way to that (and presumably zero) under the pressures of a larger, prevalent trend of colloquialization. It is further postulated that colloquialization in this case is reinforced by forces of prescriptivism. Though several potential parameters for the distribution of which-relatives are proposed on the basis of the notion of syntactic complexity, the results obtained from the statistical analysis do not offer conclusive evidence of the correlation between the use of which and syntactic complexity. This points to a need for further examination of the phenomenon at hand, perhaps this time from the view of discourse and/or stylistics.

Colloquialization across World Englishes: Some Preliminary Findings from a Corpus Analysis

Grace Ge-Soon Moon,Young-Kook Kwon 한국영어학학회 2013 영어학연구 Vol.19 No.3

Recent research on grammatical change has identified colloquialization as one of the major trends in contemporary English This paper examines the relative distribution and frequency of four phenomena attributed to colloquialization in different varieties of English: the rise in the use of contractions, semi-modals, and get-passives and the decline in the use of which-relatives. Through a quantitative corpus-based analysis, the paper explores whether a general cross-varietal pattern can be discerned in the development of colloquialization in an effort to gain further understanding on the dynamics between Inner, Outer, and Expanding Gircles of English. While the statistical findings of the investigation reveal some consistent variational patterns, definitive conclusions are deferred pending further qualitative analysis.

On the Passivizability of Benefactive Ditransitives

Grace Ge-Soon Moon 한국언어학회 2014 언어 Vol.39 No.2

Bilingualism in Canada: A Case Study

( Grace Ge Soon Moon ),( In Tae Hwang ) 한국현대영어영문학회 2007 현대영어영문학 Vol.51 No.2

Vocabulary Learning through Animation Films: Not Just Kid Stuff

( Grace Ge Soon Moon ),( In Tae Hwang ) 한국현대영어영문학회 2013 현대영어영문학 Vol.57 No.3

This study investigates the lexical demand of animation films in an effort to determine whether animation films constitute an effective L2 resource for incidental vocabulary learning. The results of the study show that knowledge of basic vocabulary―corresponding to either Oxford 3000 or the list of words recommended for primary and secondary students by the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology―plus proper nouns and marginal words provides 93% coverage of animation films, which is argued to be sufficient for adequate comprehension thanks to the strong visual imagery in animation films. The study further suggests that watching animation films can lead to significant vocabulary learning; it is argued that with the help of visual imagery, new words may be learned with as few as five or six encounters in the case of animation films. (Dongduk Women`s University, Chungnam National University)