Reduced NP comparatives in Korean and their implications

In this paper, I examine a novel type of comparative construction in Korean, namely, reduced NP comparatives (RNC), and consider its implications. On the surface, RNC may appear to be a case of the usual NP comparative construction in that two NPs are involved. But, unlike typical NP comparatives, the element bearing the marker of the standard of comparison in RNC does not directly participate in the comparison, i.e., there is a mismatch between the standard and pivot. I argue this is due to the fact that the standard is reduced to leave only the pivot on the surface, hence the name “reduced” NP comparatives. I also argue that one of the factors that determines the availability of RNC is the notion of comparability, which is based on whether or not the compared elements can be associated with the same scale, where the scale is part of the semantics of the gradable predicate (Cf. Kennedy 2009). The interesting twist is that RNC is possible only if the relevant elements are not comparable with each other, i.e., they should denote different types of objects that cannot be associated with the same scale. Adopting Merchant’s (The syntax of silence: sluicing, islands, and the theory of ellipsis. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, Linguist Philos 27:661–738, 2004, J Greek Linguist 9:134–164, 2009, among others) move-and-delete approach to various ellipsis constructions, I propose a move-and-delete analysis of RNC, where the pivot undergoes movement, followed by deletion of the rest of the standard. The discussion also has implications for NP-ellipsis in Korean.