Expletive vs. Locative There in Korean EFL Grammar: A Diagnostic Approach to Syntactic Subjecthood

• 발행기관: 융합영어영문학회
• 저자명: Yoonho Jeon
• 간행물 정보: 『융합영어영문학(구.English Reading and Teaching)』제10권 1호, 71~97쪽, 전체 27쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 언어학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2025.04.30

국문 초록

This study investigates how Korean EFL learners comprehend the English existential there-construction, focusing on the distinction between expletive and locative uses of there. Due to surface similarity and the absence of expletive subjects in Korean, learners often misinterpret there as a locative adverb. To examine this, 59 Korean learners and 18 native English speakers completed a grammaticality judgment task involving tag questions, inversion, and co-occurrence of there and here. Findings reveal that while learners showed some awareness of existential constructions, many failed to recognize ungrammatical uses where here replaced expletive there. Learners also struggled with constructions involving both expletive and locative elements, often perceiving them as redundant or incorrect. These results highlight persistent confusion between syntactic and spatial functions of there. The study underscores the need for explicit instruction on the grammatical role of expletive there and contributes to our understanding of second language syntactic development.

목차

Ⅰ. Introduction

Ⅱ. Theoretical Background

Ⅲ. The Experiment

Ⅳ. Results and Discussions

Ⅴ. Conclusion

Works Cited

키워드

존재구문 허사 주어 장소 부사 한국인 영어 학습자 통사적 주어성 existential there-construction expletive subject locative adverb Korean EFL learners syntactic subjecthood