ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of particles in Korean, dealing with those that defy easy accounts as well. The particles are grouped largely into two classes depending on their morphosyntactic properties: affixes (Section 4.1) and clitics (Section 4.3). As for the nominative and accusative case markers, in Section 4.2, we consider whether they are “phrasal affixes,” affix-like clitics or “bound words,” typical clitics. After examining various types of particles that have to be analyzed as clitics, we show in Section 4.4 that some assumed particles are regular words and some others are not even morphemes. In Section 4.5, we deal with those particles that exhibit ambiguities. Section 4.6 examines the relationship between compounds and (regular) phrases on the one hand and the relationship between idiomatic phrases and regular phrases on the other hand. The last section shows the advantages of the present framework, providing a summary of what we have observed in the chapter. The analysis in this chapter clarifies the morphosyntactic status of particles and hence provides us with a well-defined set of (syntactic) words.
