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Knowing is not always knowing: The Korean cwul al- construction in mental-spaces theory

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Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 30. April 2014
Linguistics
Aus der Zeitschrift Linguistics Band 52 Heft 3

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the meaning of the construction ‘a relativizer-cwul [complementizer] -al- ‘know’ ’ in Korean, specifically on its semantic ambiguity between meaning ‘believe that . . .’ and meaning ‘know that . . .’. When it is followed exclusively by psych predicates in present-day Korean, particularly either al- ‘know’ or molu- ‘not.know,’ cwul comes to have its extended function as a complementizer from its original sense meaning ‘method,’ or ‘way.’ I argue that the ambiguity belongs to the overall construction, which is licensed by the neutral epistemic stance encoded by the complementizer cwul. I also contend that the cwul al- construction that contains the predicate al- ‘know’ shows asymmetrical usages of first and nonfirst-person subjects; the present-tense cwul al- construction with a first-person subject is not normally licensed. This paper employs mental-spaces theory to account for the ambiguity and the asymmetry, which stem from the covert interactions between the two viewpoints. I show that the theory captures the speaker's backgrounded knowledge with backgrounded information accommodation, a specific mental-space evocation mechanism, which is crucial in the construal of the construction.

Keywords: cwul; complementizers; experiential predicates; psych predicates; epistemic stance; knowledge; belief; mental spaces; perspective phenomena
Published Online: 2014-4-30
Published in Print: 2014-5-1

©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Verb-preposition constructions in Hong Kong English: A cognitive semantic accountn
  3. Conceptually-driven analogy in the grammaticalization of Spanish binominal quantifiers
  4. Southern Min m in discourse
  5. Knowing is not always knowing: The Korean cwul al- construction in mental-spaces theory
  6. Parallels between cross-linguistic and language-internal variation in Hebrew possessive constructions
  7. The distribution of functional-pragmatic types of clefts in adverbial clauses
  8. Book Review
  9. Book Review
  10. Book Review
https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2014-0006
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
cwul; complementizers; experiential predicates; psych predicates; epistemic stance; knowledge; belief; mental spaces; perspective phenomena

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Verb-preposition constructions in Hong Kong English: A cognitive semantic accountn
  3. Conceptually-driven analogy in the grammaticalization of Spanish binominal quantifiers
  4. Southern Min m in discourse
  5. Knowing is not always knowing: The Korean cwul al- construction in mental-spaces theory
  6. Parallels between cross-linguistic and language-internal variation in Hebrew possessive constructions
  7. The distribution of functional-pragmatic types of clefts in adverbial clauses
  8. Book Review
  9. Book Review
  10. Book Review
Heruntergeladen am 17.4.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/ling-2014-0006/html
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