Korean causal markers ‑ese and ‑nikka in clause-initial and final positions in
relation to the sequence of Mandarin Chinese yinwei
Korean causal markers ‑ese, ‑nikka and Mandarin Chinese yinwei
are used most widely in their respective languages to denote causality. Due to the syntactic structure of the
adjunct-preceding-main order in both languages, ‑ese and ‑nikka are considered to be
clause-initial connectives. However, in both languages, because-clauses also occur frequently in final position.
By examining the behavioral patterns of ‑ese and ‑nikka in clause-initial and -final positions
in relation to the sequence of yinwei through the original Korean texts translated to Mandarin Chinese and the
Korean texts translated from the original Mandarin Chinese texts, this paper aims to show: (1) ese-tokens
correspond more to the preposed yinwei and other Mandarin Chinese result causal markers that strengthen the
“cause-consequence” construction, as ‑ese mainly expresses forward logical reasoning, whereas
nikka-tokens correspond more to the postposed yinwei, as ‑nikka expresses
epistemic inference and elaboration; (2) these logical relations are more explicitly expressed by ‑ese and
‑nikka, whereas Mandarin Chinese relies more on zero-marking when expressing a strong sense of sequential
logic or an utterance of elaboration.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.‑ese and yinwei
- 2.1Preposed ‑ese
- 2.1.1Preposed ‑ese marked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 2.1.2Preposed ‑ese unmarked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 2.2Postposed ‑ese
- 2.2.1Postposed ‑ese marked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 2.2.2Postposed ‑ese unmarked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 2.3Summary
- 3.‑nikka and yinwei
- 3.1Preposed ‑nikka
- 3.1.1Preposed ‑nikka marked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 3.1.2Preposed ‑nikka unmarked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 3.2Postposed ‑nikka
- 3.2.1Postposed ‑nikka marked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 3.2.2Postposed ‑nikka unmarked by Mandarin Chinese markers
- 3.3Summary
- 4.Conclusion
- Notes
- Abbreviations
-
References