Earticle

Kang, Chang-Seok. 2016. The Usage of Korean Demonstratives ‘i, geu, jeo’. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 201-216. The demonstratives in Korean (‘i, geu, jeo’) show high token frequency in the daily conversation and written texts, which makes it an important task to understand their usages and to describe them exactly and explicitly. In order to properly grasp the usage of ‘i, geu, jeo’, one should recognize some fundamental features of Korean, among which the two features of 'language that fully utilizes discourse context' and 'language with a sophisticated system of honorifics' are emphasized in this article. It is maintained here that these features are of vital impotance for their usages. The demonstratives in Korean have been described in terms of spatial contrast of 'close-remote', as shown in terms like 'close reference' and 'remote reference'. However, the author's analysis of empirical data suggests that the distinction between these demonstratives should not be described in terms of spatial contrast. The main points are made in the paper as follows: First, ‘i’ and ‘jeo’ are under complementary opposition; the former refers to a domain that the speaker establishes with respect to himself, while the latter, to the domain that is outside the former domain. ‘geu’ is complementary to neither ‘i’ nor ‘jeo’; it is used when the speaker refers to an entity that the hearer has already known. It is not the case, though, that ‘그’ is used whenever the entity is already known to the hearer. Specifically, In the discourse situation of 'the speaker-the hearer' contrast, the speaker uses ‘그’ when s/he speaks not from his/her perspective, but from the hearer's perspective. (Chungbuk National University)

Kim, Haeyeon. 2016. A Metaphor-Theoretical Analysis of Figurative Meanings of Baseball Terms in Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 217-237. Metaphor theory (MT) has been widely adopted in characterizing metaphorical uses of lexical words in texts. This research attempts to characterize baseball (BB) terms in journalistic discourse from the perspective of conceptual metaphor, exploring how literal meanings of BB terms are used metaphorically in Korean written discourse. To achieve this goal, this research first introduces some of the BB terms and their literal meanings. Second, this study discusses figurative meanings of BB terms used in journalistic discourse by examining mostly news media texts available on internet portals. Examination shows that BB terms are used to describe political activities and economic transactions in terms of playing baseball. Third, based on the examination of BB terms in media texts, this study attempts to analyze BB terms by applying MT in understanding the figurative meanings of the terms in the texts. Analysis shows that the figurative meanings of the BB terms are derived from the following metaphors: (i) POLITICAL ACTIVITIES ARE PLAYING BASEBALL (ii) POLITICAL PARTIES ARE BASEBALL TEAMS, (iii) (PRESIDENTIAL/PARLIAMENT) CANDIDATES ARE PLAYERS, (iv) MANAGING BUSINESS/TRANSACTIONS IS/ARE PLAYING BASEBALL, among others. In sum, this research shows that MT can be used as a useful tool for proper understanding and explanation of metaphorically extended meanings of BB terms in journalistic discourse. (Chung-Ang University)

Kim, Hyun-ju and In Young Yang. 2016. Accent-Epenthesis Interaction Revisited. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 239-265. This study investigates the lexical statistical patterning in North Kyungsang Korean accent-epenthesis interaction. Previous phonetic studies of Korean epenthetic vowels showed that inserted vowels are not phonetically distinct from corresponding lexical vowels (Kim & Kochetov 2011; H-J. Kim 2015), suggesting that complete neutralization would not help NKK speakers access underlying representations of epenthetic vowels to avoid accenting epenthetic vowels. We performed a corpus study to examine whether other informative cues are available in the lexical probabilistic patterning, which might help NKK speakers with the covert interaction of accent and epenthesis. The results show that the lexical stochastic patterns would not provide a cue for the accent avoidance of epenthetic high vowels. Rather, it is assumed that there is a clear distinction of lexical strata in Korean phonology, helping NKK speakers learn the interaction. We propose a formal analysis adopting comparative phonotactics developed by Hayes (in press), based on two lexical strata: NATIVE and FOREIGN (e.g., Ito and Mester 1999). This analysis provides a better approach to accounting for the covert interaction that does not involve the learnability problem. (The State University of New York, Korea and Seoul National University)

Noh, Eun-Ju. The Korean Sentence-Final Suffix -ci : An Epistemic Marker vs. a Metarepresentational Marker. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 267-287. Korean sentence-final suffixes have been divided into sentence-type markers and epistemic markers. We suggest another distinction between description (representation) and metarepresentation. The suffix -ci can be used in all sentence-type contexts, but their interpretations are interestingly different from the corresponding sentences with a sentence-type marker. It is generally admitted that they are interpreted as expressing the speaker’s belief in statements, as asking for confirmation in questions, and as making a suggestion in imperatives. Traditional accounts claim that -ci is an epistemic marker that expresses the speaker’s belief in the truthfulness of the proposition expressed, specifically, a suppositive marker or a committal marker. Based on the relevance-theoretic distinction between description and metarepresentation, we suggest that -ci is a metarepresentational marker of an existing mental representation of the speaker. This account can explain why it can be used for imperatives, unlike epistemic markers. It can also account for why it is not used with new information. Finally, it can deal with the suffix -ci used in long-form negation [-ci anhta] and -ci in wh-questions, and -ci in embedded clauses as the same suffix as the sentence-final suffix -ci. The distinction between description and metarepresentation can provide a more comprehensive analysis of the suffix -ci. (Inha University)

Park, So-Young. 2016. Arguments for NP-ellipsis in Korean. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 289-311. NP-ellipsis in Korean has often been refuted in the previous literature. This paper, however, presents two pieces of evidence in support of the existence of NP-ellipsis in Korean: evidence from numeral classifier constructions, and one from comparatives capitalizing on complex event and mass nouns. It turns out that NP-ellipsis can take place in Korean licensed by a numeral classifier. Potential alternatives like pronominalization, argument-ellipsis, or stranding are all falsified by the scrutiny of numeral classifier constructions with genitive-marked possessor arguments. Also, null NPs in comparatives, built on complex event and mass nouns, can be properly accounted for only under an NP-ellipsis analysis. (Pusan National University)

Lee, Sun-Young, Jeong Haegwon & Nam, Yunju. 2016. An ERP Study of Process of Thematic Roles in Korean: Based on a Picture-sentence Verification Task. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 313-339. This study investigates the processing of thematic roles in Korean based on the data from an ERP study with a picture-sentence verification task. Traditionally, thematic roles of a noun phrase in a sentence involves both syntactic and semantic features in the linguistic analysis of the sentence because they relate to the lexical meaning and subcategorization of the verb. In this study, 16 Korean native speakers’ brain responses were compared between thematic role violation and syntactic violation in a picture-sentence verification task using auditory stimuli. The results revealed that thematic role violation as well as syntactic violation elicited P600, an ERP component related to syntactic process of the sentence. It is argued that the findings provide electrophysiological evidence for the analysis of thematic roles as a syntactic element in linguistic theories. (Cyber Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies & Konkuk University)

Chung, Young Hee. 2016. Effects of Pitch on the Perception of English Stress by Japanese Speakers. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 41-2, 341-358. Effects of pitch on the perception of English stress by Japanese speakers were investigated in this paper. For the purpose, an English stress perception experiment was conducted on Japanese speakers. The results of the experiment showed that Japanese speakers had little difficulty identifying stress if the stressed syllable had higher pitch than the unstressed one, whereas they had a lot of difficulty if the stressed syllable had lower pitch than the unstressed one. The Japanese speakers’dependency on pitch in stress perception is argued to be due to the effects of the prosodic system of the Japanese language, which uses pitch at the lexical level. Next, Japanese speakers were compared to Seoul Korean, North Kyungsang Korean and Chinese speakers in English stress perception. Japanese speakers did not show signigicant difference from Chinese speakers in pitch dependency. However, they depended less on pitch than North Kyunsgang Korean speakers, while depended more on pitch than Seoul Korean speakers. (Sejong University)