From Semantics to Pragmatics: the Accusative Case in Korean

• Published in: 언어과학, 18(2) pp. 219 - 230
• Main Author: 김원호
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국언어과학회 30.05.2011
• Subjects: 언어학
• ISSN: 1225-2522; 2508-4267

In Korean, the role of an argument is coded by case markers, particles or postpositions. Those arguments encode semantic functions to a certain degree. Among them, the accusative case marker -(l)ul represents a patient or theme which is undergoing an action. The presence of an accusative marked argument implies that there has been an actor which highly affected the patient. As some meaning resides in case markers, case alternation without a change in verbal morphology reflects differences of semantic functions. The role of the accusative case is not limited to semantics. It indicates some epistemic modalities. A speaker encodes a 'doubt in truth' modality of a -ko complement before verbs of saying and perception by choosing the accusative case instead of the nominative case. And the accusative case may be added to the -ci verbal connective in the long form negation to convey a speaker's attitude In Korean, the role of an argument is coded by case markers, particles or postpositions. Those arguments encode semantic functions to a certain degree. Among them, the accusative case marker -(l)ul represents a patient or theme which is undergoing an action. The presence of an accusative marked argument implies that there has been an actor which highly affected the patient. As some meaning resides in case markers, case alternation without a change in verbal morphology reflects differences of semantic functions. The role of the accusative case is not limited to semantics. It indicates some epistemic modalities. A speaker encodes a 'doubt in truth' modality of a -ko complement before verbs of saying and perception by choosing the accusative case instead of the nominative case. And the accusative case may be added to the -ci verbal connective in the long form negation to convey a speaker's attitude KCI Citation Count: 2