• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.29
• /
• pp.453-477
• /
• 2012

This study investigates how the truth-related words in Korean, which were originally noun or adverb with 'truth' related meaning, can be used as discourse markers with the functions such as 'emphatic marker', 'attention getter', or 'hesitation marker', and it argues that such functions of the discourse markers are the result of grammaticalization process. That is to say that the truth-related words have acquired new functions as discourse markers from their corresponding lexical items as a noun or an adverb through grammaticalization process. In this study, we demonstrate that the truth-related words tend to appear sentence-initially or sentence-medially when they are used as discourse markers. We also show that they are most likely to be used as emphatic marker because of the lexical meaning of the truth-related words. Finally, we state that truth-related words differ from one another in where they appear and what function they are used with.

• Language and Information
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.15-32
• /
• 2002

These analyses can be roughly classified into two groups: the first argue that the delimiter -to is polysemous so that it delivers either additive or concessive meaning; the second contend that it is monosemous and only conveys emphatic or concessive meaning. The current analysis mainly focuses on its two roles with regard to focus and its meaning. On the basis of the findings, a different analysis is proposed that it serves as an indicator of the presence of a type of focus which is hosted mainly by the expression it attaches to. Furthermore, it is solely responsible for the additive force, and the seemingly relevant emphatic or concessive import is derivable from an emphatic or concessive illocutionary operator which is associated with the focus indicated by -to.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.77-91
• /
• 1999

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the phonetic characteristics of the 'focus' phrases associated with the particle '-man' in Korean. The particle '-man' is a bound morpheme which, like other postpositions such as the subject marker '-ka' and the object marker '-lil', the so-called 'case markers' in Korean, typically attaches to a noun (phrase). The semantics of '-man' roughly corresponds to that of only, its counterpart in English, and is thus classified as a 'delimiter' (Yang 1973). It is assumed in this paper that '-man', like only in English, should have a 'focus' associated with it (von Stechow 1991, Rooth 1992). In general, '-man' attached phrases get the focus, but sometimes the association is not clear-cut, especially in the cases of emphatic use of '-man' or when the context strongly favors other phrase as the focus (Choe 1996). In this paper, we compare the phonetic characteristics of the '-man' marked phrases with those to which '-ka'/'-lil' is attached, and conclude that the focused '-man' phrases show higher fundamental frequencies than their equally focused 'case' -marked counterparts. However, when the context clearly forces the focus to fall on phrases other than the '-man' or '-ka'/'-lil' attached ones, there is no meaningful difference in fundamental frequency between the '-man' and '-ka'/'-lil' attached phrases. We also compare the phonetic characteristics of the regular use of '-man' with those of the emphatic '-man'. According to our experiments, the emphatic '-man' does not bring forth its phonetic effects, namely, higher fundamental frequencies, on the' -man' attached words or phrases but rather in various other ways such as higher fundamental frequencies in '-man', lengthening of the following word-initial syllable, or the inclusion of the following word in the same accentual phrase. Finally, it is claimed that '-man' associated focus phenomena, especially the emphatic use of '-man', show some typical acoustic characteristics of the other well-known focus phenomena, namely, wh-interrogatives.

• Speech Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.149-163
• /
• 2002

Focal parts of utterance can be determined by new/contrastive information, a focus particle, a contrastive topic marker, or a nominative case marker in Busan Korean. Among these factors, new or contrastive information is the most important element in determining the intonational nucleus of an utterance. However, unlike Seoul Korean, when a focus particle, a topic marker, or a case marker contributes to the placement of the most prominent peak of an utterance, the peak is on the noun to which they are attached. Moreover, the case marker-ga shows more prominent pitch on the preceding noun than the noun followed by the topic marker-nun when-ga is used as emphatic or contrastive. This is one of the major problems for Busan Korean users in commanding natural and fluent Seoul Korean intonation even if they use standard written form of Seoul Korean in their speech.