• Language and Information
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• v.1
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• pp.107-136
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• 1997

The purpose of this paper is to capture the intuition that imperatives and deontic modal sentences are alike in some way but different in other ways, I show that imperatives and deontic modal sentences are alike in that both types of sentences have the modal force of deontic modality, but that they are different in that while imperatives make a contribution that there is an obligation or a permission issued by the speaker as an essential part of their meaning, deontic modal sentences assert the existence of an obligation or a permission in the current world.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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• 2002.02a
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• pp.59-68
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• 2002

In this paper, we address two questions concerning negative imperatives in Korean: (i) what is the morpho-syntactic nature of mal in negative imperatives\ulcorner; and (ii) why is it impossible to form negative imperatives with short negation an\ulcorner We will argue that the clause structure of imperatives include a projection of deontic modality and a projection of imperative operator encoding illocutionary force, and that oaf is a lexicalization of long negation and deontic modality. We then propose that a negative imperative with short negation is ruled out because such construction maps onto incoherent interpretation which can be spelled out as I direct you to bring about a negative state or a negative event.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.99-116
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• 2006

There has been several proposals to resolve the gentle murder paradox; Forrester claims that the paradox shows that the deontic closure principle should be abandoned, while Sinnott-Armstrong claims that the paradoxical result arises from the scope ambiguity. However, I shall argue, the gentle murder paradox hinges on the logical structure of adverbial expressions. Although Davidson shows an insightful way of understanding logical structure of adverbs, there has been misunderstandings concerning the nature of his account. Especially what is called neo-Davidsonian event semantics is based upon combination of two fundamentally conflicting ideas. I shall propose a new way of understanding Davidson's account, on the basis of which I continue to give a new diagnosis of the gentle murder paradox.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.149-170
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• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to make a sentence systemic within the category of structural grammar for the modality in which a speaker expresses his attitude. It is the priority of a language to communicate meaning. By eliminating the theoretical description of traditional grammar, this paper also aims to illustrate the concepts of nine modal verbs through a systemic network. The concept of modality includes both the epistemic and the deontic characteristics of modality. Epistemic modality is associated with either knowledge or belief on the part of a speaker who gives his own judgments about the state of affairs, events, or actions. However, deontic modality is related to either the possibility or the necessity of acts that a speaker performs to give permission or fulfill an obligation. In conclusion, all the subsystems are described within the framework of the systemic network, with the intention of including all the potential options of the semantic functions available in a situation.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-27
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• 2014

This study investigates how common English hedge expressions such as 'I think' and 'I guess' appear in Korean, with the aim of providing explicit explanation for English-speaking leaners of Korean. Based on a contrastive analysis of spoken English and Korean corpus, this study argues three points: Firstly, 'I guess' appears with a wider variety of modalities in Korean than 'I think'. Secondly, this study has found that Korean textbooks contain inappropriate use of registers regarding the English translations of '-geot -gat-': although these markers are used in spoken Korean, they were translated into written English. Therefore, this study suggests that '-geot -gat-' be translated into 'I think' in spoken English, and into 'it seems' in the case of written English and narratives. Lastly, the contrastive analysis has shown that when 'I think' is used with deontic modalities such as 'I think I have to', Korean use '-a-ya-get-': the use of hedge marker 'I think' with 'I have to', which shows obligation or speaker's volition turns the deontic modalities into expressions of speaker's opinion.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.471-480
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• 2007

Japanese does not exhibit deontic-epistemic polysemy which is recognized among typologically different languages. Hence, in Japanese linguistics, it has been debated which of the two types of modality is more prototypical. This study brings Chinese learner's acquisition data of Japanese modality to bear on the question of which of the two types of modality is more prototypical, using the Competition Model (Bates and MacWhinney 1981). The Competition Model notion of 'cues' as processing strategy adopted by learners reveals the continuity/discontinuity between these two modality domains.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Language and Information Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.136-145
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• 2007

This paper explains how we define and represent modality in E-HowNet. Following Lyons (1977, reviewed in Hsieh 2003, among others), we hold that modals express a speaker's opinion or attitude toward a proposition and hence have a pragmatic dimension and recognize five kinds of modal categories, i.e. epistemic, deontic, ability, volition and expectation modality. We then present a representational formalism that contains the three most basic components of modal meaning: modal category, positive or negative and strength. Such a formula can define not only modal words but also words that contain modal meanings and cope with co-compositions of modals and the negation construction.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.429-455
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• 2011

Numbers have been regarded as one-sided, and their exactly readings have been understood as the results of scalar implicature. This Neo-Gricean view on numbers becomes less persuasive due to theoretical and experimental counterarguments. In spite of growing evidence for theirtwo-sided readings, numbers are still one-sided in modal sentences. Moreover, the occurrence of a negative operator may worsen the acceptability of modal sentences with numbers. In the framework of Vector Space Semantics, I have derived two-sided readings of numbers with the simple notions of monotonicity of modals and scopal relations between modals and numbers. I have also argued that the awkwardness incurred by negation is the result of a split set of vectors for a number. The incoherent set of vectors is understood as the lack of an ideal behavior, which is against the deontic modality of the sentence.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.197-216
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• 2012

This study examines spoken interlanguage of Korean learners of English, focusing on the distribution of modal verbs and devices of epistemic modality. (Semi-) spontaneous speech data were collected from four students participating in a self-organized study group for seven months, which produced a corpus of about 55,000 words. The data analysis reveals the following: 1) The frequency of the modal verbs produced by the learners was lower than that of native speakers; 1.99 vs. 2.32 tokens per 100 words. The range of the modal verbs used by the learners was also very limited, with over-reliance on can (43%). 2) The grammatical categories of the devices marking epistemic modality were in the order of adverbs, lexical verbs, and modal verbs, with a high frequency of a few items in each category. 3) Lexical items conveying certainty and modals of obligation were preferred over markers of weaker commitment, resulting in speech characterized by firmer assertions and a more authoritative tone, a potential cause for pragmatic failure. 4) A weak developmental change was observed in the frequency of modal verbs, but not in their functions over the seven month period of data collection. L1 influence, L2 proficiency, mode of communication, and instruction effects are discussed as possible variables involved in the distribution patterns observed.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.175-190
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• 2012

The purpose of this article is to explain the meanings and uses of the English auxiliaries will morpho-syntactically, and answer the question of whether will is a tense auxiliary or a modal one. Some writers even exclude will completely from the semantics of the modal auxiliaries. They argue that the semantics of will is fundamentally non-modal and has only a few modal-like uses. There are some people who treat will to be semantically separate from the other modal auxiliaries. In the light of modal will, the semantics of will basically remains anchored in volition because the lack of required speaker subjectivity, but has undergone so much semantic bleaching that it may also express future time without volition. On the other hand, the semantics of will in the exclusionist view is erroneous and that its semantics is in fact closely related to the semantics of the other modals. This view reinforces the argument that the morpho-syntactic kinship of will, can, may and must also reflects semantic kinship. It is suggested that all the modal auxiliaries show that the correspondence relation is non-verified but potential. And the specific place that will holds is that the correspondence is unverified at the time of utterance but will turn out to become verified. The overall conclusion is that idiosyncratic morpho-syntax shared by the modals reflects the semantics and pragmatics of the English modal auxiliaries and is forced also to include will.