The scalar intensifier ku in Korean : The case of KUintensifier with anti-specific wh-indeterminates

( Arum Kang ) 한국언어정보학회 2018 언어와 정보 Vol.22 No.1

Arum Kang. 2018. The scalar intensifier ku in Korean : The case of KUintensifier with anti-specific wh-indeterminates, Language and Information, 22-1, 73-89. The purpose of this paper is to present the account of the novel function of ku in Korean. I will focus on the emphatic variant of ku co-occurring with anti-specific wh-indeterminates (i.e., Free Choice Items, Negative Polarity Items, Referential Vagueness Items), which has generally received less attention than the definite one. I suggest that the meaning of ku in this case is not associated with the core property of definiteness. Instead, given the set of empirical data, my proposal is that (i) the hallmark properties of emphatic ku are suggested as a) scalarity, b) additivity, c) weak polarity, and (ii) the pragmatic contribution of the emphatic ku can be characterized in terms of scalar intensifier. The scalar intensifier ku contributes the presupposition that there is a set of alternatives of anti-specific wh-indeterminates which is base-α, and that these alternatives are ranked on a scale. Its scalar presupposition denotes the least likely values on the likelihood scale. The implication of my finding leads to the fact that Korean is a language which reveals a dichotomy in encoding distinct type of weak familiarity (i.e., the scalar intensifier ku) and strong familiarity (i.e., the definite ku).

(In)definiteness in Korean without an article

Kang, Arum,Park, Myung-Kwan 한국언어학회 2020 언어 Vol.45 No.3

Bare NPs in Korean have recently drawn increasing attention since apparently without any overt grammatical article/determiner on them, they are interpreted at least in three ways: generic, indefinite, and definite. Concentrating on the latter two readings, we investigate how bare NPs in Korean yield them. We first show that indefinites in Korean that correspond to an indefinite article headed DP in English are represented by bare NPs, though specificity-encoding and number-in-focus ones are represented by singular numeral classified NPs. We then show that definites in Korean analogous to definite article headed DPs in English are also represented by article-less bare NPs. Since like in English, in Korean there is no distinction in form between uniqueness-denoting weak definites and familiarity-denoting anaphoric strong definites, it follows that in Korean without an article, bare NPs can serve as both types of definites. Particularly, bare NPs as strong definites come about in restricted discourse contexts where two or more sentences are part of one larger topic situation. Meanwhile, personal names are referred back to by demonstrative-preceded bare NPs, which indicates that in Korean, the demonstrative is starting to develop into a definite article-like determiner.

Negative Politeness in Korean Questions

Arum Kang 서울대학교 언어교육원 2018 語學硏究 Vol.54 No.2

In this paper, I investigate the negative politeness phenomena in Korean question. The current study focuses on the examination of the mitigating effects raised from the epistemic modal marker nka. Thus far, nka has been treated as a sub-type of question marker used in familiar speech style. Contrary to the previous view, however, I claim that nka should NOT be treated as a factual question marker; rather, it is an attenuative modal marker used as a pragmatic device for conventional indirectness. Since Korean speakers tend to consider speech act of question as an illocutionary act of requesting with a big favor, they use nka in order to minimize the threat and avoid the risk of losing face. In this vein, nka is employed for the pragmatic treatment of mitigated illocutionary force to smooth the conversational interaction. An important contribution of the current work is to add the discussion by considering novel empirical issues in Korean in which epistemic modal device can be another element that exhibits the mitigation in the illocutionary act of asking a question.

Unexpectedness Effect: The Emphatic Determiner with Gradable NPs in Korean

( Kang Arum ) 한국현대언어학회 2018 언어연구 Vol.33 No.4

The main goal of this paper is to investigate the pragmatic contributions of Korean GU. The data deals mainly with the cases where GU receiving high prosodic prominences co-occurs with gradable NPs, and the utterance marked by GU expresses speaker’s strong surprise. Thus far, many theories about the meaning of gu have centered on the analysis of its function as being non-emphatic (i.e., demonstrative gu ‘that’ and/or definite gu ‘the’). While it has sometimes been recognized that the interpretation of GU is emphatic occurring in an unexpected context, the exact nature of the semantico-pragmatic meaning has not been properly understood. In the present article, I propose a novel function of the emphatic GU by suggesting that the meaning of the emphatic GU is distinct from the non-emphatic gu: when GU co-occurs with noun phrases modified by adjectives, it functions as an emphatic marker and raises the unexpectedness effect. In this vein, GU plays a role as a scalar intensifier that contributes scalar implicature associated with the least likely end on the likelihood scale. Since the proposition with a low likelihood was out of the subject’s expectation, the speaker’s strong surprise arises. The implication of my findings is that the emphatic GU needs to be considered as a novel device for the focus marker implicating mirativity which intensifies speaker’s strong surprise at the low likelihood. (Korea University)

The Anti-honorific Marker Inka in Multi-dimensional Composition System

Arum Kang 한국중원언어학회 2018 언어학연구 Vol.0 No.46

The main concern of this paper is to examine the pragmatic meaning of inka associated with rigid designators such as proper nouns (e.g., John-inka). This is unexpected under the fact that inka is an anti-specificity marker with irrealis value; the domain of referential vague indefinite wh-inka should not be a singleton set with a fixed value. Exploring the empirical dimension, in this paper, I identify the novel function of inka co-occurring with proper nouns as an anti-honorific marker. The hallmark properties of anti-honorific inka can be characterized in terms of no identification, combination with referential vague indefinites, and anti-honorific information encoded. In the sense of Potts (2005)’s multi-dimensional compositional system, the anti-honorific inka is independent of the at-issue content, and the implicature triggered by inka is assumed to have the speaker’s negative attitude toward the target at the milti-dimensional level. The theoretical implication of my findings is that the conceptual connection from anti-specificity to anti-honorification is established in natural language, and in Korean, the anti-honorific inka as a novel device for the extra expressive dimension of meaning.

Epistemic constraint on the modal disjunctive particle in Korean: the condition of minimal variation and irrealis value on the anti-specific disjunction

( Arum Kang ) 한국어의미학회 2017 한국어 의미학 Vol.57 No.-

In this paper, I establish a new type of modal disjunction system in Korean. Thus far, (i)na has been considered as a typical modal disjunctive particle. Introducing inka as a new type of modal disjunctive particle, I propose that the class of Koran modal disjunctive particles is not homogeneous, and there should be fi ne-grained distinction system. Considering that (lack of) epistemic knowledge of the speaker is one of the possible dimensions of variation within the class of modal disjunction, my proposal on the use of inka is identified as an irrealis marker (Mauri 2008) which specifies alternative disjuncts with irrealis value. I further show that the epistemic constraint of inka on the irrealis value is characterized as a condition of minimal variation and uncertainty of anti-specific disjunction in the sense of Giannakidou and Quer (2013).

Path to grammaticalization of referentially vague indefinite wh-inka in Korean

Arum Kang(강아름) 담화·인지언어학회 2021 담화·인지언어학회 학술대회 발표논문집 Vol.2021 No.11

On the novel type of subjunctive complementizer in Korean

Arum Kang,Jieun Jeon 고려대학교 언어정보연구소 2018 언어정보 Vol.27 No.-

The purpose of this paper is to identify the novel types of subjunctive complementizer nka in Korean. Among the two types of interrogative complementizer variants of the ordinary interrogative complementizer ci and the modalized interrogative complementizer nka, we argue that nka is a lexicalized form of the epistemic subjunctive mood exponent appearing in subordinator C. Specifically, we show that the semantic function of nka creates epistemic weakening in subjective doxastic space and expresses speaker/subject’s epistemic uncertainty on the embedded question. Our claim will be further supported by corpus study by comparing different types of predicates selecting nka and/or ci. The theoretical implication of current study is two-folds: First, in Korean, interrogative can be another prerequisite of subjunctivity. Second, for the analysis of interrogative subjunctive, the inquisitive-based theory is untenable but nonveridicality can provide the general theory.

On the dual function of contextual domain restrictor ku in Korean:strong vs,weak familiarity

Arum Kang 한국생성문법학회 2017 한국생성문법학회 학술대회 논문집 Vol.2017 No.1

From anti-specificity to anti-honorification: Conventional implicature of disjunction inka in Korean

( Arum Kang ),( Suwon Yoon ) 경희대학교 언어정보연구소 2020 언어연구 Vol.37 No.3

The goal of this paper is to investigate the pragmatic meaning of the disjunction-driven anti-specificity marker inka associated with rigid designators such as proper nouns (e.g., John-inka) in Korean. Its attachability to a specific referent is unexpected in the previous accounts of inka (Choi 2011; Kang 2015, 2017, a.o.), assuming the felicity condition that the domain of referentially vague items like ‘wh-phrase’-inka should not be a singleton set with a fixed value. With a proper name, however, the referential vagueness presupposition cannot be satisfied. We argue that this particular use of inka is pragmatically accommodated by the anti-honorific connotational nuance, which is independent of the at-issue content. In particular, we propose that the derogatory sense triggered by inka is Conventional Implicature (a la Potts 2005), expressing a speaker’s negative attitude toward the target. We furthermore examine its co-occurrence patterns with other typical expressives and show how the dynamic paradigm of multiple expressives (the anti-honorific inka and others) can be predicted by the compatibility condition (Yoon 2015). Regarding the relationship between the two types, anti-specific vs. anti-honorific inka, we show that whereas the anti-specific inka contributes the semantic content of referential vagueness, the anti-honorific inka has only the pragmatic contribution of mitigation as a reflex of grammaticalization of the attitude holder’s subjective perspective. Theoretical implications of the current study thus include: (i) the conceptual connection from anti-specificity to anti-honorification is established; (ii) the identification of another case of expressive element in language lends further support to the notion of multidimensionality in meaning; and (iii) the close examination of compatibility condition reveals the systematicity of expressives as part of our grammar. (Hankyong National University · University of Texas, Arlington)