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Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 22:2 (2021) ► pp.213–242

On the relationship between middles and passives

A polyfunctional analysis of -eci in Contemporary Korean

| Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
| Chinese University of Hong Kong

Previous studies using diachronic data from the Sejong Historical Corpus have traced the semantic extension of voice marker -eci from middle to passive uses (e.g. Ahn & Yap 2017). In this study, based on data from the Sejong Contemporary Spoken Corpus, we further examine the relationship between middle and passive uses of -eci constructions, with special attention to the neutralization of adversative readings that give rise to generalized (in addition to adversative) middle and passive -eci constructions. Our analysis reveals that judgments about adversative readings in Contemporary Korean are not emergent solely from the semantics of the verb or adjective preceding -eci but additionally are emergent and grounded in the interaction between discourse participants. The distributional characteristics of -eci also show a strong interaction between voice and tense-aspect-mood (TAM). There is also some interaction effects from register and text type/genre, particularly in the usage frequency distribution of spontaneous and passive -eci constructions. In addition, contrary to the traditional notion that -eci is essentially a passive marker, in real usage, -eci is still far more frequently used as a middle marker than a passive marker.

Keywords: middle voice, spontaneous, inchoative, facilitative, subjectification, tense-aspect-mood, adversative semantics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Middle and passive uses of Korean -eci
    • 2.1Korean middle marker -eci
    • 2.2Korean passive marker -eci
  • 3.Development of voice marker -eci from adversative to non-adversative contexts
  • 4.Usage frequency of -eci middle and passive constructions
    • 4.1Distribution of tense-aspect marking and voice functions in -eci constructions
    • 4.2Distribution of voice-marking functions of -eci across text types
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Sources
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 17 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00081.ahn
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