Morpho-syntactic processing of Korean
case-markers

Eun Seon Chung (University of Seoul)

Eun-Kyung Lee (Yonsei University)

This study examines whether the
mental representation of sentences contains a morphological representation of
case marking, using a priming technique. Thirty-six native Korean speakers
listened to and repeated spoken prime sentences and described visually
presented target pictures. The prime sentences were manipulated for the
presence of an accusative case-marker -lul/-ul. To investigate whether the
previously reported animacy effects on case drop generalizes to a different
task, animacy of the direct object was also manipulated. The results showed
that there was a stronger bias to produce the accusative case-marker when the
direct object was animate than when the direct object was inanimate,
replicating the previously reported animacy effects on accusative case drop
(Lee 2006a, 2006b; Chung 2013) in a syntactic priming task. Furthermore, case
marking on inanimate direct objects was influenced by whether or not the
accusative case marker was produced earlier in the prime, providing evidence
for the presence of an abstract representation of case marking.