This is an alternation that has been mentioned in a range of publications. In a verbal clause, an argument NP in which the head and the dependent are in a possessor-possessum relationship (optionally indicated by genitive marking on the possessor), the possessum receives the case marking according to the function it fulfills within the subcategorisation of the verb (for example, an NP which is the object of a verb will receive accusative marking). It is not clear whether one can identify a class of verbs which exhibits this type of coding alternation, although all the discussions in the literature revolve around the specific relationship between the possessor and the possessum within the context of a verbal event. Whereas Yeon (2003: 137) remarks that a possessor ascension construction is only possible when both the possessor and possessum are "regarded as affected by the action" (Yeon 2003: 137), O'Grady states that " 'Possesso ascension' alternations are found in theme NPs naming a whole-part relationship" (O'Grady 1991: 68; although O'Grady himself shows examples where the possessor ascension construction involves NPs that do not seem to be themes, see below), and therefore it remains to be elucidated what could be the common point between all the verbs to which this alternation pertains. Curiously, there is another possibility than the one mentioned in the first paragraph. With an intransitive verb, both constituents of an original possessor-possessum NP in subject function can be marked with nominative case (ex. 316, 184), or with a transitive verb, both constituents of an original possessor-possessum NP in object function can be marked with accusative case (ex. 253). Interestingly, for a transitive verb, this way of alternative encoding seems to possible only for the object NP, and not for the subject NP. Moreover, this alternative way of marking for object NPs does not seem to be possible for accusative NPs of verbs with NOM-DAT-ACC pattern. Also, intransitive verbs which have a NOM-NOM case pattern (which in turn is said to alternate with DAT-NOM, see entry for jota 'LIKE' and museobda 'FEAR') do not seem to allow for this alternation where one would have a coding pattern with three overtly nominative-marked NPs. O'Grady (1991: 72) gives a highly unnatural and questionable example (ex. 315) to argue that in a possessor ascension construction the bearer of the theme/patient role changes from the former possessum to the possessor, and accordingly (hence the term 'ascension'), only the possessor in a possessor ascension construction can become the subject of a corresponding passive construction. Note therefore the (from a Indoeuropean perspective) rather strange coding pattern with NOM-postpos_adjunct-ACC V, which I would reject categorically, although being discussed by several scholars regardless of whether these constructions are actually poduced in speech (cf. Yeon 2003: 179). A further observation in this construction is that in a possessor ascension construction as in ex. 170 the possessum NP cannot take on a modifier to its left (for example, dukkeoun thick.ATTR) which would actually be possible in a 'non-ascended' construction. O'Grady (1991: 75) mentions that accordingly, the possessum NP underlies restrictions in terms of its referential specificity here, and more curiously, he discusses the possibility (following Choi 1988: 62, see O'Grady 74 for references) that the second accusative-marked NP in a possessor ascension construction undergoes a categorical change to an adverbial NP, which therefore cannot take on adnominal modifiers as dukkeoun above. This proposal surely is interesting given the fact that the 'adverbial' status (alhough using this term in a more semantically oriented way) of an accusative-marked NP has been discussed elsewhere in this database (see way/number alternation), although as discussed in the next paragraph below, I am not sure how this adverbial status of an NP and its accusative-marking could be considered in conjunction with the fact that in passive clauses it changes to nominative case. Whatever the case though, a more obvious fact has not been mentioned in the literature, namely the observation that in a possessor ascension construction, the two NPs with identical marking may not be scrambled around, but the original possessor-possessum order has to be maintained. In this light, it is interesting that this Korean does not seem to have been discussed within the possibility of exhibiting Suffixaufnahme (Plank 1995), and maybe this is a way to look a this construction. As opposed to examples such as ex. 315 I would intuitively say that in a passive clause the two accusative-marked arguments in a possessor ascension construction change to nominative-marked arguments, similarly to the 'recipient double accusative alternation' described here (ex. 287). Arguably this raises the question of how syntactic theories could capture this alternation, and O'Grady (1991: 134ff.) proposes as regarding the former (optionally genitive-marked) possessor NP as sort of a focus NP that has been added at the left edge of a simple passive clause of which the possessum is the subject, a view that I can neither reject nor support here due to a lack of sufficient knowledge of the the theory proposed by O'Grady (1991).
Verb Meaning | Verb form | Basic coding frame | Derived coding frame | Occurs | Comment | # Ex. | |
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