완화 상위표상 ‘뭐’에 대한 화용적 연구 = A Pragmatic Study on mwe ‘what’ as a Loose Metarepresentation

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Korean word mwe ‘what’ has traditionally been studied as an interrogative, an indefinite, and a discourse marker. There have been many attempts to explore the basic meaning of the discourse marker mwe with the other interpretations pragmatically derived. Most of them suggest that mwe means the speaker’s uncertainty or the like toward her own or others’ utterances. This study proposes another account of the discourse marker mwe: The word mwe is a loose metarepresentation of the speaker’s intended expression or meaning. She is not able to represent her intended meaning more precisely or she is not willing to do it for some other reasons. The hearer infers the intended meaning from the loose metarepresentation mwe and the context. This will explain mwe’s various interpretations in the context. The analysis of mwe as a loose metarepresentation can provide a more convincing explanation of the various interpretations of mwe.