The purpose of this thesis is to examine the interactions between evidentiality and territory of information in Korean. The usage of evidential markers is associated with not only the knowledge and attitude of the speaker but also those of the hearer....
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the interactions between evidentiality and territory of information in Korean. The usage of evidential markers is associated with not only the knowledge and attitude of the speaker but also those of the hearer. Despite the importance of the hearer’s situation in grammatical description of evidentiality, relatively little attention was paid to the hearer’s. The theory of territory of information provides an analyzing tool considering the speaker’s and the hearer’s both.
Evidentiality is a grammatical category that has indicating the source of information as its primary function. There are some grammatical elements that contain evidential meaning components in Korean: ‘-te-’, ‘-ney’, and ‘-killay’ are direct evidential markers; ‘-keyss-’, ‘-ul kesi-’, ‘-na/unka po-’, and ‘-ul/un moyangi-’ are reflected evidential markers; ‘-ta(ko ha)-’, ‘-tay’, ‘-tamyense’, and ‘-tana’ are hearsay evidential markers.
Territory of information is an abstract, psychological space in which the information that a person counts as concerned with himself/herself or in his/her possession is stored. A person in society unconsciously trys to avoid violating other people’s territory and being violated his/her own one. Consequently, an interlocutor prefers direct, confident expressions for the information in his/her territory and indirect, tentative expressions for the information out of his/her territory and/or in the hearer’s territory.
In chapter 3, the interactions between direct evidence and territory of information are inquired. The direct evidential markers can be utilized as means of expressing the speaker’s hesitations or reservations due to the fact that there exists a pragmatic opposition between direct evidential markers and evidentially unmarked assertion forms in Korean language. Based on the hypothesis that hesitating or reserving expressions can be seen as analogous to the indirect expressions defined in the theory of territory of information, we expect that the direct evidential markers are being used as appropriate expression forms for information out of the speaker’s territory in daily conversation. On the same principle, the direct evidential markers can convey the message that the speaker doesn’t have the responsibility for the mentioned event as well.
In chapter 4, the interactions between reflected evidence and territory of information are surveyed. There is a wide diversity of reflected evidential markers in Korean. One of the criteria for classification of the reflected evidential markers is subjectivity. Various tests prove that ‘-na/unka po-’, and ‘-ul/un moyangi-’ have relatively weak subjectivity than the others. The less subjective a reflect evidential marker is, the more suitable it is to mark the information out of the speaker’s territory. Furthermore, less-subjective markers can have extended functions including hearsay meaning, the indication of the speaker’s lack of control/intention, and the relief of responsibility.
In chapter 5, the interactions between hearsay evidence and territory of information are discussed. The hearsay evidential markers are inherently used to express unpersonalized, unassimilated information. hearsay markers which appear in attributive construction signify the information which is out of the speaker’s territory or the hearer’s territory. This phenomenon is understood to be an effect of a politeness strategy so-called “presuppose common ground”. Sentential hearsay evidential markers ‘-tay’, ‘-tamyense’, and ‘-tana’ mark the information in the speaker’s territory, in the hearer’s territory, and out of the both interlocutors’ union territory respectively.
Keywords: evidentiality, territory of information, direct evidentials, reflected evidentials, hearsay evidentials, subjectivity, responsibility, politeness