Purpose of Visiting
Youngjun Jang
Prof. Dept of English Language and Literature
Chung-Ang University,
221 Hukseok-dong, Dongjak-ku, 156-756
Seoul, Korea
Septebmer 15, 2003
Department of Linguistics,
University of Arizona,
Dear Faculty Members,
I would like to apply for the visiting scholar position that your department may offer, for the
following purposes. If possible, I would like to stay there from December 28 of this year to
the end of February of 2004.
I have several research interests to do while I am staying there. Firstly, I am very much
interested in the primitive notions of syntax such as command, precedence, and/or
configurations. When I read Lasnik and Barss’s 1986 LI paper about binding/NPI licensing
facts in ditransitive verbs couple of years ago, I thought it would raise many interesting
questions of Susumu Kuno’s general ideas about configuration, especially Kuno’s linear
notion of “precedence.” Kuno and Takami’s book entitled Grammar and Discourse
Principles (1993, University of Chicago Press) deals with such notions as “precedence” and
“PP-invisible c-command.” I was trained with Professor Kuno for couple of years (19921996), while Samuel Epstein proposed a new perspective on c-command during his stay at
Harvard (roughly from 1994). Epstein developed his derivational c-command later in a
series of his articles and books. My paper “Precedence and dominance in English noun
phrases” (2003, published in Korea) was a draft version of this topic, which incorporates
Larsonian hierarchical argument structure into noun phrases. I have been working on this
topic so far and I believe I can develop this idea further more.
Recently I used Andrew Carnie’s Syntax book (Blackwell) for a couple of semesters and
found very interesting research topics. For example, negative polarity item licensing, whmovement facts in many languages, and (anti-)passives are very interesting. I think I can
contribute some new ideas analyzing those issues in Korean. His book also mentions
“precedence” on a different background, by the way (Chapter 4, pp 102).
Now I am working on complex predicates in natural languages. I already presented my
paper on this topic at several places including ZAS workshop on secondary predication
(2001). Many American Indian languages also have serial verb constructions. I would like
to do comparative research on this topic and develop my idea about this topic further.
Most importantly, I would like to finish up my monograph on Korean syntax, which I tried
in vain to finish for several years. With too much administrative and teaching load here in
Korea, I could not concentrate on my research. (I am a junior faculty member here.) I need
to have uninterrupted time and a quiet place to finish up my book and UA seems to be the
best place for my purpose. Since all the faculty members are familiar to me by papers, I
would feel at home there too. In fact many colleagues recommend me your department.
I do hope I can visit there as a visiting scholar and contribute something academically.
Youngjun Jang
yjang@cau.ac.kr