• Language and Information
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.137-161
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• 2004

In this paper, I will look at two conditional connectives in Korean and point out differences between -(u)myen and -ta/la-myen in their distributions and semantics. One of the differences is that -ta/la-myen always allows epistemic interpretation, whereas -(u)myen allows epistemic interpretation only when the event time of the antecedent clause is in the past or present. A second difference is that only -(u)myen is used in purely temporal and habitual conditionals. A third difference is that the modality marker -keyss, which can have volitional or predictive interpretation with -(u)myen, cannot have predictive interpretation with -ta/la-myen. I propose that -ta/la-myen has the operator of settledness, which is defined with respect to the speech time, and explain the differences listed based on the semantics of settledness.