Korean A-eci construction

This paper aims to investigate the characteristics of the Korean A-eci construction. The suffix –eci attaches to an adjective and creates an inchoative, a verb denoting the change of a state. Yoo (2021) posits two types of deadjectival inchoatives and attributes different types to different semantic types of adjectives: bare inchoatives from absolute adjectives and –eci inchoatives from relative adjectives. This paper shows that Yoo’s (2021) semantic analysis cannot account for the different types of inchoatives and that the account should be based on categorial status. The suffix –eci can be combined with adjectives freely, but it cannot be with intransitive verbs. For instance, ceolmta ‘young’ and neulkta ‘old’ belong to the same semantic type, but one becomes an –eci inchoative and the other becomes a bare inchoative. The different inchoative forms should be attributed to their different categorial status: adjective vs. verb.