Seung-ah Lee

The purinergic receptor P2Y, G protein coupled, 14 (P2Y14) receptor for UDP-glucose and other UDP-sugars has been implicated in the regulation of the stem cell compartment as well as neuroimmune function. However, the role of P2Y14 in osteoclast formation is completely unknown. We found that RANKL selectively induced P2Y14 among seven mammalian P2Y receptors when analysed at both the mRNA and protein level, but inhibitors of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway suppressed induction

In cognitive linguistics, the notion of conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of one conceptual domain (i.e., target domain, which is abstract) in terms of another (i.e., source domain, which is concrete). For instance, in the case of the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY (‘x is y’), TIME (x) is the target domain, whereas MONEY (y) is the source domain. This metaphor is reflected in contemporary English by a wide variety of expressions, such as You’re wasting my time (Lakoff & Johnson

This study analyzed the structural and linguistic characteristics of voice phishing text. The structural characteristics of voice phishing text were analyzed in eight stages, and the linguistic features were viewed from a vocabulary, sentence, and pragmatics perspective. As a result, the three characteristics of voice phishing texts were derived: 'Power Principle', 'Politeness Principle' and 'Scene Principle'. First, 'Power Principle' is a strategy in which the speaker gains the upper hand in co

In both English and Korean, state predicates such as be tall and khuta ‘be tall’ generally disallow the progressive aspect. However, in English, but not in Korean, certain cases arise where the be plus predicative adjective combination can occur in progressive constructions. Specifically, whenever the progressive is used with the be plus predicative adjective or noun combination, the goings-on indicated by these types of expressions are always interpreted agentively. That is, the verb be may be

This study reconsiders the effects of L1 transfer on English L2 overpassivization errors (non-targetlike passivization of unaccusative verbs, a subclass of intransitives). The study focuses particularly on non-alternating unaccusatives. Previous studies, such as No & Chung (2006) and Chung (2009), investigated whether L1 morphological properties affected overpassivization errors by Korean learners of English. Their hypothesis was that overpassivization errors occur more often with [+ci] type ver

Seung-Ah Lee. 2004. Pseudocleft Constructions in English. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 29-2, 237-260. This paper argues against Williams's (1983, 1994) proposal that in specificational pseudoclefts the wh-constituent is the predicate, whereas the post-be constituent is the subject of predication. Williams's (1983, 1994) use of raising to identify subjects is arguably a reliable diagnostic test. However, the results of an investigation into the British component of the International Corpus of E

This study examines the comprehension of English idioms by Korean learners by addressing the following two questions: (i) Does decomposability also play a role in L2 idiom comprehension? (ii) Which has a stronger influence on L2 idiom comprehension ― decomposability (lexical aspect) or conceptual metaphor (conceptual aspect)? L1 processing studies have investigated whether decomposable idioms (i.e., idioms whose individual semantic components contribute to their overall figurative meanings) are

This paper addresses the question of why prepositions are particularly difficult forEFL learners. The first reason for such difficulty lies in the distinction between seemingly equivalent prepositions such as to and with, as in compared to and compared with. Most monolingual learners’ dictionaries regard these two phrases as virtually synonymous. Yet, the results of the corpus analysis conducted in this study indicate that there are differences between the two. A second reason why EFL learners h

While there is a high degree of convergence in linguistics in the treatment of the progressive as an aspect, the English progressive is unusually wide in its range of uses. This paper highlights the distinction between aspectual and non-aspectual progressives. The primary function of the progressive is to present a situation as ongoing, and this strictly aspectual use of the progressive is referred to as ‘aspectual progressive’. On the other hand, the uses of the English progressive that are not

This paper addresses the discrepancies between descriptions used in English grammar books and real language usage. Specifically, it deals with Yule's (2006:179) unsatisfactory description that in relative clauses preposition-stranding is obligatory with three-word phrasal verbs. This paper will disprove Yule's (2006:179) statement by presenting corpus examples where the preposition of the three-word phrasal verb is pied-piped. For example, look forward to allows pied-piping in relative clauses.

Lee, Seung-Ah. 2006. Gerundive versus Participial Complements. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 31-4, 601-635. This paper argues that ing complements in English are not of a single homogenous type, and deals with the question of how to tell one type from another. A number of distributional diagnostics (e.g. passivisation) distinguish gerundive complements, which are noun phrases headed by a verbal ing form, from participial complements, which are verb phrases headed by a verbal ing form. Aspectual

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether L2 learners of English acquire knowledge of English free relatives (FRs) and indirect questions (IQs) to the level of native speakers. Although FRs in English bear a close superficial similarity to IQs, these two constructions differ syntactically. For instance, only the wh-phrases of FRs in subject position induce number agreement. Moreover, in the case of IQs, but not FRs, prepositions can undergo pied-piping. While extensive research has bee

This paper is concerned with the proposition that the use of the present progressive in contemporary English encroaches on the area previously occupied by the simple present. There is a good deal of evidence in the literature that this is indeed the case. Recent corpus-based investigations such as Smith (2002) have revealedthat the present progressive showed a significant rise in frequency in written British English over the period 1961-1991.Adamson (1998) also reports some examples in spoken Br

This study investigates the acceptance and interpretation of count/mass shifts in English by native speakers of English and Korean EFL learners. Based onthe proposals made by Bach (1986) and Corbett (2000) for native speakers, the target materials of the present experiment were classified into four types: (i) mass-to-count shifts involving inanimate nouns (MCI, e.g., The waiter brought three beers to the table), (ii) count-to-mass shifts involving inanimate nouns (CMI, e.g., There is apple in th

This paper is motivated by Watanabe’s (2001) observation that English byphrase passives are sometimes translated into Japanese object topicalization constructions. That is, the original English sentence in the passive may be translated into the active voice with the logical object topicalized. A number of scholars, including Chomsky (1981) and Baker (1992), have remarked that languages have various ways to avoid focusing on the logical subject. The aim of the present study is to examine the tran