A Pragmatic Study of -ketun Conditionals in Korean

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper aims to characterize the constraint on the use of the conditional marker -ketun in Korean and discuss its discourse functional features. First of all, we argue that -ketun is licensed only in the contexts of deontic modality where the will of the discourse participants (speaker and hearer) is involved. Second, based on a critical review of Lee (1996) and Yeom (2005), we argue that 'hypotheticality' cannot be a defining feature that can correctly characterize the acceptable domain of -ketun. By further developing the perspective by Koo (1989), we propose [-immediately speaker-verified] as its defining feature. Evidence comes from our observation that a -ketun clause is used typically to describe an event or situation of which its truth or realization is verified later by someone (typically by the hearer). We further observe that what the speaker has just realized at a discourse site is not allowed to be marked by a -ketun clause. We show how this newly proposed feature can account for all and only the felicitous contexts of the -ketun conditional construction. Finally, against Lee (1998), we argue that the feature [+contrastive] is not a defining feature of the constraint of -ketun, but a corollary feature to its typical function as a contrastive topic in the flow of discourse, which is attributable to the semantic contribution of the morpheme -tun.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Introduction
• 2. -ketun and the deontic modality
• 3. -ketun and 'hypotheticality'
• 4. -ketun and the feature [-immediately speaker-verified]
• 5. -ketun and the feature [+contrastive]
• 6. Closing Remarks
• References