Languages can differ with respect to the way in which transitive events are realized in transitive situations, resulting in different transitivity patterns. In particular, languages differ in the ways of linking the semantic notion 'agent' with the grammatical notion 'subject'. Based on a cognitive-functional approach, this study examines some differences between English and Korean with respect to the questions of how far and in what ways the linguistic realization of transitivity can be varied in terms of the semantic extension of transitivity from prototypes, variation in verb transitivity, and agency in transitive constructions. As for language-specific factors that characterize the difference in transitivity between English and Korean, it is proposed that English is more permissive than Korean in the way non-prototypical agents are realized as agentive subjects, resulting in a wider range of the semantic extension of agentivity from prototypical transitive constructions.; Different linguistic preferences involving constructing some entities as a main causative factor (i.e., non-agentive subjects vs. agentive subjects) play a significant role in the conceptualization of transitive events, thereby leading to differences in the coding of causation in transitive clauses between the two languages. In English, the concept of agency can be more easily extended to include inanimate entities than it can be in Korean. Accordingly, English extends the notion of agent to a wider range of situations than Korean, hence allowing non-prototypical agents to be construed as agents. More specifically, the semantic features of prototypical agents in English (e.g., intention, result, responsibility, etc.) can be freely extended to inanimate causative situations in a greater degree than in Korean.; A general typological difference between English and Korean in terms of competing notions of agentivity is that compared to Korean, English is freer in assigning a large number of different semantic roles to subjects without requiring concomitant morphosyntactic changes such as passivization (or intransitivization); English tends to overtly express agency, focusing on individual entities (both animate and inanimate) in transitive events, while Korean is reluctant to verbalize non-agentive elements, covering up their inanimacy by means of indirect expressions based on a result/effect clause and relying on different structural strategies (i.e., passive structures, lexical intransitive verbs, and inchoative forms). Finally, it is suggested that different linguistic manifestations in the notions of agency and causation between English and Korean lead to the varying degree of cognitive categories that structure the way in which the language speaker perceive and interpret transitive events, hence resulting in contrasting construals of agentivity (i.e., agent/cause/process-oriented expressions vs. result/effect-oriented expressions) in the expression of transitivity.
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