Some key properties

The Korean relative clause constructions are often characterized by flexible application of the relative morphology, lack of relative pronouns and omission of arguments (see, among others, Na and Huck 1993, Kim 1998b, 2004, Han and Kim 2001, Chae 2012). These properties contribute to the overall structural complexity of the relative clause constructions in Korean. Consider the following two typical relative clause constructions:

These examples illustrate that the interpretation of relative clauses is in part dependent upon world knowledge or contexts. The natural reading of (1a) is the one in which the direct object is relativized with the subject being unexpressed. It would be difficult to interpret this as a subject relativization since “water” cannot eat/drink anything. The relative clause (1b) could be ambiguous: the most natural reading is “the chopsticks that Kim ate with.” In an imaginary context (where chopsticks are made from edible materials), one may have a reading like “the chopsticks that Kim ate,” where the direct object is relativized.

Further complications relating to Korean relative clause constructions also could be found from examples like (2) (Na and Huck 1993, Han and Kim 2001):

In (2), the relative heads sinsa ‘gentleman’ and kyoswu ‘professor’ have been relativized out of the more deeply embedded relative clause, violating the CNPC (Complex Noun Phrase Constraint).