국어에도 부가의문문이 있는가? = On the Nature of Tag Question in Korean

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

We assume that tag question is a language-universal phenomenon. So, in order to investigate tag question in Korean we first turn to the tag question in English which has been rather explicitly described in many respects. However, according to Ray Cattell (1973) and many other arguments, English tag question theory so far is not so satisfactory yet and also has a couple of thorny problems to be solved. In this paper we propose a new hypothesis for the task in terms of the notion of ‘speaker’s presupposition’ and then provide several evidence seemingly to support our arguments.
Next, we examine (1980) and (1984) respectively, two arguments on tag question in Korean. We argue that their theories both are in general much too English-oriented and these two grammarians almost directly relate terms and ideas of English tag question theory to the description of Korean tag question. Consequently, language- universality and language-particularity seem to be confused in their arguments. Alternatively, we show that tag question in Korean, like tag question in English, can be better described and more adequately explained by means of our hypothesis. We clarify to some extent language-universal characteristics and Korean-particular ones which are represented in Korean tag questions. Detailed empirical inquiry and concrete evidence are included in the paper.