2.1The hortative and related notions

In general, the notion hortative refers to a type of utterances with directive illocutionary force.22.For detailed information on directives (imperatives and their sub-types), see Aikhenvald (2016)Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2016 “Sentence Types.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood, ed. by Ian Nuyts and Johan van der Auwera, 141–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press.. For a discussion of the notion of hortativity in relation to grammatical categories of modality, see Palmer (2001Palmer, F. R. 2001 Mood and Modality (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 10ff). Similar to imperatives, hortatives refer to a situation where S directs H to do a certain action that S wishes to be realized. Unlike imperatives, hortatives usually involve situations where the commanding expressions are addressed to someone other than or besides H(s), often to a first person such as me/us (Aikhenvald 2016Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2016 “Sentence Types.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood, ed. by Ian Nuyts and Johan van der Auwera, 141–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 144). S urges H to perform an action together with S so that the focal-state to which S refers in the utterance can be achieved. Due to the similarity to imperatives, hortatives frequently have been regarded as one kind of directive (Aikhenvald 2016Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2016 “Sentence Types.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood, ed. by Ian Nuyts and Johan van der Auwera, 141–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press.; Ammann and van der Auwera 2001Ammann, Andreas, and Johan van der Auwera 2001 “Complementizer-Headed Main Clauses for Volitional Moods in the Languages of South-Eastern Europe: A Balkanism?” In Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 67, ed. by Olga Mišeka Tomić, 341–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.).

The term hortative is, however, far from having a unified definition (van der Auwera et al. In pressVan der Auwera, Johan, Nina Dobrushina, and Valentin Goussev In press. “A Semantic Map for Imperative-Hortatives.” In Points of Comparison in Linguistics: from Morphology to Discourse ed. by Dominique Willems, Timothy Colleman and Bart Defrancq 1 20 Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillan , 5–6; Ammann and van der Auwera 2001Ammann, Andreas, and Johan van der Auwera 2001 “Complementizer-Headed Main Clauses for Volitional Moods in the Languages of South-Eastern Europe: A Balkanism?” In Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 67, ed. by Olga Mišeka Tomić, 341–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.). For instance, according to Aikhenvald’s (2016)Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2016 “Sentence Types.” In The Oxford Handbook of Modality and Mood, ed. by Ian Nuyts and Johan van der Auwera, 141–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press., hortatives are a type of commanding expression that is addressed not to Hs, but to a first person us. Strictly speaking, however, this is contradictory because the first-person plural may include H(s). Moreover, the seemingly prototypical situation of the hortative, i.e., the realization of a certain situation via a joint activity of S and H, does not necessarily hold in the following version of its definition:

According to this definition, example utterances such as Let him clean up the mess they made! and Let us try to understand! make relevant examples for the category, only the latter of which would make a typical example according to Aikhenvald’s definition.

Moreover, it is noteworthy that the only difference from imperatives stems from who is targeted by the appeal of the utterance: imperatives address a second person, singular or plural, whereas hortatives can address third persons and plural first persons (Ammann and van der Auwera 2001Ammann, Andreas, and Johan van der Auwera 2001 “Complementizer-Headed Main Clauses for Volitional Moods in the Languages of South-Eastern Europe: A Balkanism?” In Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 67, ed. by Olga Mišeka Tomić, 341–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins., 344; Mauri and Sansò 2011Mauri, Caterina, and Andrea Sansò 2011 “How Directive Constructions Emerge: Grammaticalization, Constructionalization, Cooptation.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 3489–3521. , 3491). This definition leads to two sub-types of hortatives: exhortatives (5) and cohortatives (6) (Ammann and van der Auwera 2001Ammann, Andreas, and Johan van der Auwera 2001 “Complementizer-Headed Main Clauses for Volitional Moods in the Languages of South-Eastern Europe: A Balkanism?” In Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 67, ed. by Olga Mišeka Tomić, 341–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins., 345).

The notion of exhortative can be illustrated by the French utterances, Qu’il(s) soi(en)t content avec ça! ‘Let him (them) be pleased with that!’ (cf. Soyons contents avec ça! ‘Let’s be pleased with that’) (Ibid. 2001, 345). Because the performer/experiencer targeted by the appeal is a third person, singular or plural, this type of utterance deviates from the typical joint activity of S and H (equivalent to Palmer’s (2001Palmer, F. R. 2001 Mood and Modality (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 81) jussive). The notion of cohortative is closer to what would be the general idea of hortativity, referring to a situation in which the appeal targets only the first-person plural (e.g., Let’s go).

The fuzzy boundaries of the notion of hortative allow further possibilities. For example, a speaker can use the hortative form to convey imperative illocutionary force with a polite tone, as exemplified in Let’s you go first (Traugott and Dasher 2002Traugott, Elizabeth C., and Richard B. Dasher 2002 Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 177). The situation encoded in the utterance targets H, but S strategically employs the hortative to mitigate the strong assertiveness of the utterance, by speaking as if she were joining the activity. This deviant use partially intersects with the function of imperatives in that the actual performer in the given context will be the second person subject even though the locution indicates otherwise. van der Auwera et al. noted their functional similarity:

Imperatives and hortatives both have to do with the expression of a wish of the speaker about a future state of affairs. […] they convey an appeal to the addressee(s) to help make the future state of affairs true. In case the person in control of the desired state of affairs is the addressee or addressees, we speak of an imperative. In any other case, we speak of a hortative.(van der Auwera et al. 2003Van der Auwera, Johan, Nina Dobrushina, and Valentin Goussev 2003 “Imperative-Hortative systems.” In World Atlas of Language Structures, ed. by Matthew Dryer, Martin Haspelmath, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie, 294–297. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 294)

We propose that the hortative category be further classified depending on whether H is the intended-performer of the focal-action or not. For example, in Korean, the hortative construction is employed when the intended-performer is exclusively S, as in (2) above, meaning that S appeals to H to cooperate to make the situation happen. To our best knowledge, this notion has not been formally described. Hence, we suggest the following definition of what we call the speaker hortative:

In a nutshell, depending on the performer of the focal-action, there are sub-types of hortatives such as exhortatives (third person, but not first person plural), cohortatives (first person plural), and speaker hortatives (first person, but not non-first person), and sometimes they are used as (polite) imperatives (second person).

2.2Hortatives in Korean grammar

Thanks to the grammaticalized honorification system in Korean, there are three endings -psita (deferential), -sey (familiar), and -ca (plain) that convey the hortative function in accordance to the relevant degree of formality (for more details, see Sohn 1999Sohn, Ho-Min 1999 The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 355). Among the three hortative endings, this study focuses on -ca of Plain style where S does not take a deferential stance toward H, as it is the most unmarked hortative marker in informal spoken Korean.33.Because -psita is a highly deferential form and -sey is obsolete, they have very low token frequencies in spoken Korean data.

Some so-called non-canonical uses of -ca have been observed and discussed in the Korean linguistics literature (Doh 2016Doh, Jae Hak 2016 “On the Strategies and Grammatical Categories that Denote a Concept of ‘Wish’ in Korean.” Emwunnoncip 78: 361–390.; Park 2012Park, Sook-young 2012 “Studies on Behaviors Accompanied by Hortative Utterances: A Case Study of ‘-(U)psita, -Ca’.” Paper presented at the 16th Fall Korean Language Culture Education Conference. Yonsei University, Seoul, October 20.; Lim 2011Lim, Dong-Hoon 2011 “Sentence Types and Uses in Korean.” Journal of Korea Linguistics 60: 323–359.; Na 2002Na, Eun-mee 2002 “The Function of the Korean Utterance-Final Marker ‘-Psita’ with Focus on its Directive Function.” Icwungenehak 20: 93–110.; inter alia). The following examples illustrate the non-canonical uses that most scholars argue -ca can encode (Lim 2011Lim, Dong-Hoon 2011 “Sentence Types and Uses in Korean.” Journal of Korea Linguistics 60: 323–359., 353)

Other than its cohortative use, -ca in (8) indicates that the intended-performer of the focal-action is only H. Functionally speaking, this is equivalent to an imperative Have a pill, but the hortative marker -ca conveys a friendly tone to encourage a child to do something he/she does not want to do. Because H is the sole performer of the focal-action, (8) illustrates a non-canonical hortative construction. (9) illustrates another non-canonical use, where the sole performer of the focal-action would be S (speaker hortative). Because the hortative construction is highly interactional in nature, full comprehension of its various functions requires a re-examination of its use in actual conversational interaction.

3.1Cohortative -ca: 1st person plural performers of the focal-event

The data suggest that the most frequent, prototypical function of -ca in spoken Korean is the cohortative function, in the term suggested by Ammann and van der Auwera (2001)Ammann, Andreas, and Johan van der Auwera 2001 “Complementizer-Headed Main Clauses for Volitional Moods in the Languages of South-Eastern Europe: A Balkanism?” In Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 67, ed. by Olga Mišeka Tomić, 341–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.. The cohortative construction is used when S directs a first-person plural referent to carry out the wish described in the utterance. In the data, the cohortative -ca was often used by speakers to include H(s), as participants in the described event.

In (10), the two speakers are the sole participants in the conversation, which makes it clear that when P1 uses -ca (line 3), he is attempting to include H (P2), as well as himself, in the suggested action. In other words, P1 is suggesting to H that they carry out P1’s wish (to eat a lot) together. This is a clear example of -ca used with a cohortative function.

3.1.1-Ca in internal monologues

-Ca is often observed in spoken internal monologues, when S speaks as if he/she is addressing him-/herself. -Ca in internal monologues is used particularly when S is describing a situation in which he/she was processing a specific thought. In these cases, S commonly self-quotes, as in (11).

(11)

(Context: P6 is explaining to others that the only thing he thinks about at night is going to sleep.)

1	P6	cenyek mekumyen amwu sayngkak epse. ‘After dinner, I don’t think about anything.’
2		iltanun nayil achimey ilenayatoycanha. ‘You know, first of all, I have to get up early in the morning the next day.’
3	P2	mace. ‘Right’
4→	P6	ppalli quickly ca-ca . sleep-hort ‘Let’s get to sleep quickly.’
5→		ppalli quickly ca-ca . sleep-hort ‘Let’s get to sleep quickly.’
6		i sayngkakpakkey an na. ‘This is my only thought.’

In lines 4–5, P6 uses -ca utterances to describe how his mind works each night. The context suggests that the performer of the focal-event, getting to sleep quickly, can only be S himself. Thus, S is depicting the situation as if he were having a conversation with himself, and suggesting that this split-self join together in the described event. We categorize this specific use of -ca in internal monologues as another type of cohortative construction, because S is still suggesting H to join with S in the focal-event, despite H in this case being the same person as S.

3.1.1.1 Idiomatic expression: Eti poca ‘let’s see’

The expression eti poca is an idiomatic expression, frequently used in spoken Korean, which can be translated in English as ‘let’s see’. The construction consists of the discourse marker eti (often translated as ‘well’ in English, but originally derived from the interrogative pronoun ‘where’), the verb po- ‘to see’, and -ca. -Ca in the construction suggests that it is used to ask H to join the activity of ‘seeing’ something together; literally, the construction would mean well, let’s see (for its historical change and its functions, see Rhee (to appear)Rhee, Seongha. (To appear). “Pseudo-Hortative and the Development of the Discourse Marker Eti Poca ‘Well, Let’s See’ in Korean.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 21(1) (2020) ). However, in actual usage, it is usually only S who would be performing the action, as in (12).

(12)

(Context: A teacher, P1, is conducting an origami class with young children and their mothers.)

1	P1	ca= yeyppukey ta mantulepoasseyo? ‘Alright, are you all done making it pretty?’
2→		eti dm po-ca , see-hort ‘Let’s see.’
3		he=! ‘Huh!’
4		eti nukwu napika yeyppunka=, ‘Well, whose butterfly is pretty?’
5	P2	sengun-i Sengun-nom po-a-cwu-sey-yo=, see-con-give-hon-hon.end= ‘Please take a look at Sengun’s.’

Eti poca is used by the teacher (P1) in line 2. The focal-event of the expression is looking at the origami butterflies made by the students. Although it is possible that P1 is asking all the students and mothers to join in the activity of looking at the butterflies, the context suggests that P1 is the sole performer of the focal-action. In particular, P2, a mother, asks P1 to take a look at her son’s butterfly in line 5, suggesting that the action is performed exclusively by P1. Hence, we argue that the idiomatic expression eti poca is another instance of cohortative -ca used in internal monologue, where S treats her split-self as her addressee, and asks her to perform the described action together.

3.1.1.2 Idiomatic expressions: -Cako and -cani

Oftentimes, -ca is suffixed with the endings -ko or -ni. These were both originally connective markers, which are used to connect two clauses. In Contemporary Korean, -cako as a whole is one of the set of complementizers (for its historic development, see Rhee (2016Rhee, Seongha 2016 “From Quoting to Reporting to Stance-Marking: Rhetorical Strategies and Intersubjectification of Reportative.” Language Sciences 55: 36–54. , 38)). As Rhee (2016)Rhee, Seongha 2016 “From Quoting to Reporting to Stance-Marking: Rhetorical Strategies and Intersubjectification of Reportative.” Language Sciences 55: 36–54. explained, the complementizer has a quotative/reportative function indicating the hortative modality of the subordinate clause. The excerpt in (13) illustrates an instance of -cako.

(13)

(Context: The speakers are talking about a friend’s wedding, which they all attended.)

1	P1	salam cincca manhasse. ‘There were so many people.’
2	P6	nayka polttay ku cengtomyen, ‘From my perspective, that amount of people,’
3	P2	manhasstako. ‘I’m saying that there were so many.’
4	P6	manhun phyenintey, ‘You can say that it is a lot,’
5	P1	e. ‘Yeah.’
6	P6	wenak umsiki pissase. ‘But the food was too expensive in the first place.’
7→		mwe= dm kyelhonsik-i wedding.ceremony-nom mwe= dm ton money pel-cako, earn-hort.comp ‘You know, a wedding ceremony is not, you know, something that you do to earn money,’
8→		ton money nam-cako be.left-hort.comp ha=nun do-attr(rl) hayngsa-nun event-top neg-circum ani-ntey, ‘It’s not an event that you do to make a profit, but,’
9	P2	kuntey ccokum nam- namnuntamye? ‘People say you do make a bit of profit, though?’

Because -cako is typically used to report/quote a hortative utterance, the literal translation of lines 7–8 would be ‘A wedding ceremony is not something that you do by saying “let’s earn money” or “let’s make a profit”’. -Ca can be said to have a cohortative function; the host of the wedding is speaking to him-/herself (treating his/her split-self as H) and is suggesting to the other self to join in the action of earning money and making a profit by inviting many guests to the wedding.77.In Korean culture, wedding guests usually give congratulatory money to either the bride or the groom, or to their family members. However, -cako in lines 7–8 in (13) can hardly be interpreted as truly imagined indirect speech. -Cako in (13) seems to have lost its literal meaning but functions instead as an idiomatic expression, simply conveying intentionality, and thus can be translated as ‘something (that you do) to predicate’.

-Cani functions in a similar way. -Cani is the shortened form of the construction [ ca(hort)-ha(‘say’)-ni(con)]. The clausal connective -ni can be translated as ‘because’, ‘after’, ‘when’, and so on. Scholars including Jeon (1999)Jeon, Byung-yong 1999 Cwungseykwukeuy Emi -Niey Tayhan Yenkwu [A Study on the Ending -Ni in Middle Korean]. Seoul: Cheongtongkewul. and Ahn (2016)Ahn, Mikyung 2016 “Emotion in Interaction: A Diachronic and Pragmatic Analysis of the Sentence-Final Particle -Tani in Korean.” Studies in Language 40(4): 872–893. all argued that -ni originally functioned to mark temporal relations and causality.88.In the Phyocwunkwuketaysacen (1999, ‘The Standard Korean Dictionary’), the other function of -ni is described as ‘to connect two clauses where the second clause provides information that is related to but different from the event described in the first clause’. Due to the omitted speech verb hata ‘say’, the entire construction -cani can function to quote/report someone else’s hortative utterance, in a very similar way as -cako. An example of -cani is given in (14).

(14)

(Context: The speakers are in a restaurant. P1, P2, and P3 have just expressed their surprise at the small amount of food taken by P4. P4 is now explaining her eating habit.)

1	P4	a kuntey [namki-] namkiko kal cengtolo toymyen ‘But, if I leave- leave that much amount of food,’
2	P1	[an tusi]neyyo, ‘You don’t eat,’
3	P4	com akkapko, ‘I feel like it’s too good to be wasted,’
4	P1	yey. ‘Yeah.’
5→	P4	kuleh-ta-ko be.such-decl-conj mek-ca-ni, eat-hort-con ‘But if I eat it, on the other hand,’
6		ttohan also pwutamsulep-ko, feel.uncomfortable-conj ‘It would be too much for me,’

In lines 1–6, P4 explains how she feels whenever she has leftover food, using -cani in line 5. The literal translation of lines 5–6 would be ‘But after having said (to myself) “Let’s eat it,” I feel uncomfortable.’ This suggests that S is assuming a situation where she fictively invites her split-self to join her in the activity of eating what is left, thus using -ca cohortatively (for a similar argument, see Lim 2011Lim, Dong-Hoon 2011 “Sentence Types and Uses in Korean.” Journal of Korea Linguistics 60: 323–359.): the entire construction has lost its literal meaning and is used idiomatically as a conditional, and thus can be translated as ‘if’.

3.1.2Co-occurrence of explicit references to participants

Because -ca alone typically implies the participation of both the 1st person and 2nd person interlocutors, an explicit subject such as wuli ‘we, us’ or expressions such as hamkkey ‘together’ or kathi ‘together’ are not necessary to convey cohortative function. The excerpt in (10) above clearly shows that the absence of these expressions does not affect the cohortative function of -ca. However, our data include several cases in which expressions such as wuli ‘we, us’, hamkkey ‘together’, and kathi ‘together’ are explicitly used with -ca with the cohortative function. If it is sufficient to use -ca alone to convey the cohortative function, then must there be a specific reason for the co-occurrence of such expressions? An examination of the discourse data, such as (15), reveals that this is indeed the case.

(15)

(Context: P1 is telling P2 about the day he spent at his friend Sinyeng’s house.)

1→

P1

simsimhakey boringly ettehkey how honca alone ca-nya-kwu sleep-inter-conj kathi together ca-ca-kwu sleep-hort-conj mak dm kule-nun-ke-y-a. be.such-attr(rl)-thing-cop-ind ‘(Sinyeng told me,) how can you sleep alone, it’s no fun, (he said) let’s go to sleep together.’

In (15), -ca is used in Sinyeng’s utterance as quoted by P1. According to P1, Sinyeng suggested P1 join him to perform an action together (to go to sleep), which is a typical cohortative function. In this specific example, however, the utterance would sound infelicitous if the expression kathi ‘together’ were not used. This is because S makes a contrast between an event that can be performed individually (sleeping alone) and another event that can be performed jointly (going to sleep together). Kathi is needed to accentuate the contrasted inclusion of H in the action described. Similarly, the use of such expressions is also needed when a speaker wants to invite H to join actions that are typically conceived of as performed individually, to avoid any potential ambiguity. For instance, the absence of kathi could have led to ambiguity between two meanings: an invitation to P1 to go to bed (alone) at the same time as Sinyeng himself went to bed and an invitation to P1 to join Sinyeng in going to bed together. These corpus data provide evidence that expressions such as kathi or hamkkey co-occur with cohortative -ca whenever there is contrast or a potential ambiguity in the interpretation between an action performed jointly and another performed individually.

Our data also include some cases of wuli ‘we, us’ co-occurring with cohortative -ca such as (16).

(16)

(Context: Speakers are talking about a college course that P2, P3, and P4 are planning to take during the upcoming semester. P1, who has already taken the course, has just explained that he got a good grade on his presentation with the help from students in the film department.)

1	P3	ya wulito yenghwahakkwalang phyen mekumyen toykey cohkeyssta kuchi. ‘Hey, it would be really great if we could also form a group like that with those in the Film Department, right?’
2	P1	kuke <name> sensayngnimhanthey chingchan patasse. ‘Our presentation received compliments from Professor <name>.’
3	P3	a=, ‘Ah=,’
4	P1	yeksi kwukmwunkwalakwu. ‘(The professor said,) You’re from the Korean Literature department, indeed.’
5→	P4	(3.7) wuli we oppa-lang elder.brother-com ttokkathi exactly.same ha-ca . do-hort ‘Let’s do it in exactly the same way as he (P1) did.’

In (16), cohortative -ca can be seen in line 5, where P4 is suggesting to Hs to join her in preparing a presentation. However, unlike in the previous excerpts, -ca in (16) is used to invite only some of Hs to join in the described action. P4’s invitation obviously excludes P1, who has already taken the course. Because -ca can potentially invite all of Hs to join in the described action, a specific linguistic device is required in such a case of only partial inclusion. That is, by uttering wuli ‘us’, speaker P4 can signal (possibly with additional nonverbal cues such as eye gaze) which of Hs she wants to include in her invitation, and which she wants to exclude.

In addition, wuli is sometimes strategically used when S wants to change the topic of the conversation by suggesting H(s) join in the action described in her utterance, such as in (17).

(17)

(Context: P1 and P2 are taking a walk and talking about courses in Teacher Education.)

1	P1	kulen pi ihanun <@ an naocanha @> [@@] ‘Normally you don’t get <@ a grade below B @> @@.’
2	P2	[a,] ‘Ah,’
3	P1	@@ [[kukeey ancengkamun]] kacikoissnuntey! ‘@@ That makes me feel relieved!’
4	P2	[[cincca tto kulay.]] ‘It does, indeed.’
5	P1	kulayto? ‘Still,’
6		@@ ayu. ‘@@ Hmm.’
7		ku= ku= way= key iwang tutnun kemyenun kyocikinikka kukenun eyilul patayaci <@ ttalun ke-ka, @> ‘Um… um… if I have to take that class, I must get an A because it’s a course for teaching, and <@ it’s the other classes (that I’m worried about), @>’
8		@@ ‘@@’
9→	P2	ya voc wuli we han one pakhwi lapse tol-ca . go.around-hort ‘Hey, let’s take a walk here, one lap.’
10	P1	han one pakhwi lapse tol-ca-ko? go.around-hort-comp ‘(Did you just say) let’s go around one lap?’
11	P2	chwuwunka? ‘Is it too cold?’

From line 1 to 8, the talk is about classes and grades. In line 9, P2 suddenly changes the topic, inviting P1 to join her in walking one lap around the place they are conversing. P2’s -ca utterance in line 9 is an abrupt topic change. Because P1 and P2 are the only participants of the conversation, P1’s use of -ca is sufficient to convey a cohortative meaning, hence both wuli and ya (a vocative marker used to attract attention from an addressee of the same or lower status) are used to attract H’s attention. Hence, the explicit use of both wuli and ya is a discourse strategy, which P2 uses to induce P1 to engage in the new topic.

3.1.3 Markers of the conditional: -Chi-ca and -ca-myen

In our data, the cohortative -ca also helps conjure a hypothetical situation in conjunction with linguistic items that mark conditionality. -Ca is often found within idiomatic, conventionalized expressions such as -chi-ca and -ca-myen, which both function as conditional markers in spoken Korean. First, the construction -chi-ca is the combination of the verb chita ‘to count’ and the hortative -ca, which would be translated in English as ‘Let’s count that…’. The excerpt in (18) provides an example of -chi-ca as a conditional marker.

(18)

(Context: P1 is tutoring P2 in math.)

1	P1	yonomi cikum, ‘Now, this one,’
2		eymikwu, ‘Is M and then,’
3		yonomi, ‘This one,’
4		ssikumaka toykeyssci? ‘Becomes sigma, right?’
5	P2	ney. ‘Yes.’
6	P1	kuci? ‘Doesn’t it?’
7→		ssikuma sigma ceykop-i-lako square-cop-comp chi-ca . assume-hort ‘Let’s assume that it’s sigma square.’
8		yekkaci ta hayse, ‘We count everything up to here and,’
9		kulayse khukinun, ‘So the size should be…,’
10		ikey cikum eymiko, ‘This is M,’
(P1 continues.)

In lines 1–4, P1 (the tutor) explains that the value of a certain equation is sigma. In line 7, however, P1 expresses that he wants to assume that sigma is in fact sigma square. Doing so, he uses the construction -chi-ca. Literally, P1 is inviting his student to join him in an event of counting, but hypothetically inviting P2 to join him in assuming sigma to be sigma square. Hence, this is a cohortative function of -ca. P1’s utterances in lines 7–9 and beyond form a conditional construction, in which -chi-ca marks the protasis (‘If this is sigma square (and if we count everything up to here),’) and the utterances from line 9 represent the apodosis (‘then the size should be …’).

-Ca-myen is a similar case. This expression is the reduced form of -ca-ko ha-myen (-hort-comp ‘say’-cond).99.For the discussion on the historical development from -cako ha-myen to -camyen, see Koo and Rhee (2008)Koo, Hyun Jung and Seongha Rhee 2008 “Manipulated Hypotheticality in Conditionals: A Journey in Search of Strength and Diversity.” Paper presented at the 4th New Reflections on Grammaticalization Conference, Catholic University of Leuven, July 16–19, 2008.. Within the original construction, the complementizer -ko functions to quote the other interlocutor’s use of cohortative -ca, and the use of the conditional -myen tells us that the entire quote is a hypothetical situation. The literal translation would be ‘If (you) say “let’s do …”’. However, in spoken Modern Korean, its literal meaning seems to be lost, and the reduced construction -ca-myen functions as a conditional marker. (19) is such an example.

(19)

(Context: P4 and P2 are having a discussion on North Korea and nuclear weapons.)

1	P2	kunikka hanmatilo ssomyen an toykwu, ‘So, in brief, they should not launch and,’
2		pwukhanun haykul mantuletwu an toyntakwu=. ‘North Korea should not even build nuclear weapons, either.’
3		ku= sso- ssomyen etilo ssolkka= kaynyemun imi, ‘Um, the matter of to where they would launch the weapon already means…’
4		ku= cacheyeyse, ‘Um, by itself,’
5		mincokilan kaynyemul kyeysok nika koswuhako issnun kelakwu. ‘…(it means) that you keep considering them (the North Koreans) as the same nation (as ours).’
6	P4	ani kuntey, ‘But,’
7→		kulehkey such ttaci-ca-myen-un, quibble.over-hort-cond-top ‘If we think critically about it in that way,’
8		haykul mantuleto an toynta kulenuntey, ‘Then (people say that) they should not even build nuclear weapons, but…’
9→		kulem then imi already poyu- possession kuleh- such kulehkey in.such.a.way ttaci-ca-myen-un, quibble.over-hort-cond-top ‘Those who already possess- if we put it like that,’
10		e=, ‘Um,’
11→		kulehkey in.such.way ttaci-ca-myen-un, quibble.over-hort-cond-top ‘If we put it that way, then,’
12		kiconey kackoissten aytuli e=, ‘Those who already possess (nuclear weapons), um,’
13		kiconey haykul kackoissnun aytuli seykyey phyenghwalul wihay ta epsaypelieyaci, ‘Those who already have nuclear weapons should be discarding all of them for world peace, huh,’

In (19), P4 uses the -ca-myen construction three times. The construction’s literal translation would be, in line 7, for instance, ‘If you say, “Let’s think critically about it in that way”’. In other words, S is assuming a situation where H is inviting S to join (cohortatively) to think critically about the topic being discussed at the moment together. P4’s uses of -ca-myen are similar in lines 9 and 11. Nevertheless, P2’s utterances from line 1–5 do not suggest that she is explicitly suggesting P4 join her in thinking critically about these issues. Furthermore, P2 remains silent while P4 expresses her own thoughts on North Korean nuclear weapons from line 6–13. This exchange suggests that -ca-myen no longer indicates the hypothetical quotative, but instead functions as a conditional marker, which can be translated into English as a simple ‘if’ clause.

3.2Imperative -ca: 2nd person performer(s) of the focal-event

The second most frequent use (87 occurrences) of -ca in spoken Korean is when the intended-performer is solely the 2nd person, singular or plural, hence H(s) (see Table 2). That is, the speech act of -ca in this case would be imperative rather than hortative. Two different types of imperative speech act were found in the examples of -ca with 2nd person sole performer(s) of the focal-event: the polite imperative function, and the accordant imperative function.

3.2.1Polite imperative -ca

Speakers can strategically use a hortative construction to perform an imperative speech act, requesting H(s) to perform an action. This is the polite imperative function, as the hortative construction’s implication of joint action serves to mitigate the strong assertiveness of an imperative.1010.The polite imperative is elsewhere called adhortative (Rhee 2017Rhee, Seongha 2017 “What Happens When the Will Withers: The Case of Hortative in Korean.” Lingua 189–190: 51.). (20) is such an example.

(20)

(Context: A discussion is taking place between a teacher (P1) and her students.)

1→	P1	hakchang-sicel-ey school-time-loc kacang most cohahay-ss-te-n like-ant-fh.ev-attr(rl) sensayngnim-ul teacher-acc han-pen one-time yayki-ha-y-po-ca . story-do-con-try-hort ‘Let us talk about the teacher you liked the most during your school years.’
2		enu sensayngnimul way cohahayssnunci, ‘(For instance,) Which teacher you liked, and why you liked him/her,’
((several lines omitted))
3		kulem kulay niney elin neney ku, ‘In that case, alright, when you were young, when you were, um,’
4		chotung hakkyo ke cwung- ttaywa [cwunghakkyo ttay] yuchiwen ttaylul thongthule, ‘During elementary school, um, your middle school years, and when you were in kindergarten, all combined,’
5	P2	[a=,] ‘Ah=,’
6	P1	ca, ‘Alright=,’
7		sicak, ‘Start,’
8	P6	chotunghakkyo ttay ohaknyen ttay sensayngnim. ‘The teacher I had when I was in elementary school, when I was in fifth grade.’
9	P1	way? ‘Why?’
10	P6	ku sensaygnimiyo, ‘That teacher is,’
11	P4	a=, ‘Ah=,’
12	P6	cehuy oppa yukhakneyn ttay tamimiessketunyo? ‘She was my older brother’s home room teacher when he was in sixth grade, you know?’
(P6 continues)

-Ca in line 1 makes the utterance sound as if P1 is inviting Hs, the students, to join her in talking about favorite teachers, as if with the cohortative function. However, P1’s utterances from line 3 clearly show that her actual intention is to make Hs talk about their favorite teachers, without joining in the action herself. Expressions such as niney and neney (line 3), both meaning ‘you guys’, and the imperative form of the verb sicak ‘to start’ (line 7) make this intention evident: P1 is appealing to her students to make a future state of affairs true. The students are well aware of P1’s true meaning that the suggested action is solely theirs to perform, as seen in P6’s response from line 10, where he carries out the targeted action without question. -Ca in (20) is therefore used in a very different manner from the hortative -ca described in Section 3.1. It represents a strategic use of the hortative for a polite imperative function, and is an example of an ‘ostensible communicative act’ (Clark 1996Clark, Herbert H. 1996 Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ): by pretending as if S will be joining in making the future state of affairs true, S tries to mitigate the strong assertive power of a direct imperative speech act.

3.2.2Accordant imperative -ca

The second sub-type of imperative function that -ca shows is what we call the accordant imperative; it is used to ask H to consent to a proposition, as in (21).

(21)

(Context: P1 has just asked P3 if she would be willing to go on a blind date and P3 refuses.)

1	P3	a silheyo. ‘Oh, I don’t want to do it.’
2		an hayyo. ‘I’m not going to do it.’
3	P1	way ? ‘Why?’
4	P3	<@ namca sayngkyesseyo @>@@ ‘<@ I have a boyfriend now. @> @@’
5	P1	cinccaya? ‘Is it true?’
6		cincca sayngkyesse ? ‘Do you really have a boyfriend now?’
7	P3	kitalyepoayo. ‘Wait a second, though.’
8		acik acik sengsatoyn ken anintey @@ ‘It (our relationship) is not confirmed yet @@.’
9	P1	um nenun? ‘Hmm, how about you?’
10		ne epse? ‘You don’t have one (a boyfriend)?’
11→		ne you ha-ca do-hort [kulem]. then ‘Let’s you do it (then).’
12	P3	[yayto] sayngkil keeyyo. ‘She is about to have a boyfriend as well.’
13		icey nayka haycwul keeyyo. ‘I’ll get her one.’
14	P1	[a kulay?] ‘Oh, is that right?’
15	P4	[ce sokaything] sokaything kathun ke an hayyo. ‘I don’t do such things as blind dates.’

When P3 refuses P1’s suggestion of a blind date, P1 redirects his attention to P4 (line 9). He first asks P4 if she is currently seeing someone in line 10, but then, without waiting, demands in line 11 that she go on the blind date, using -ca. The function of ca (line 11) is never cohortative, as it is clear that P1 intends only P4 to engage in the proposed action; in short, it is an imperative. However, the use of -ca here is different than in the previous excerpt in (20), where it was used in a polite imperative. In (20), the speaker P1 uses -ca pretending she would join in the focal-event, but the context makes it clear that only Hs would perform it. In (21), however, it is evident that P1 has no intention of participating in the blind date himself. Unlike the polite imperative -ca in (20), -ca in (21) does not reduce the degree of assertiveness. Rather, P1’s utterance (line 11) is a demand, as he does not even wait for P4’s response to his own question (‘You don’t have a boyfriend?’ in line 10) before urging her to participate in the blind date. Thus, -ca in (21) functions to request H (P4) to join with S in consenting to a proposition, which is that H will perform the focal-event. As in this example, the accordant imperative -ca functions to demand that H accord with S that he /she will perform the focal-event.

One distinction between the imperative -ca (polite and accordant imperatives) and the cohortative -ca is in their co-occurrence with hedges or other restrictive expressions such as com ‘a little’, han ‘one’, han pen ‘once’, and -man ‘only’. In our data, the percentage of cases of co-occurring hedges and other restrictive expressions was notably higher with the imperative -ca (29.9%) than with the cohortative -ca (15.3%). Considering that hedges mitigate or soften assertive force to a certain degree (Brown and Levinson 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 145), it is natural that they often co-occur with -ca. Because the nature of -ca is to convey directive illocutionary force that can potentially threaten the hearer’s ‘negative face’ (Brown and Levinson 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 61), these hedges can function as politeness strategies in both cohortative and polite imperative uses of -ca. The higher frequency of co-occurring hedges with the polite imperative -ca can be attributed to the higher degree of directive assertiveness in imperative than in cohortative uses. (20) shows an example of the co-occurring expression han pen ‘once’ with the imperative use of -ca (line 1). The expression does not literally mean ‘once’, but functions as a mitigator that reduces the assertive force.

Another difference between imperative -ca and cohortative -ca lies in the co-occurrence of explicit references to participants. Explicit participant references co-occur with 12.6% of the corpus data’s tokens of imperative -ca, and with 17.8% of the tokens of cohortative -ca. This difference is not great, but there are also notable differences in both the type of participants referred to and the motivations for these explicit references. First, ne ‘you’ co-occurs with the imperative function while wuli ‘we’, na-lang [I-with] ‘with me’, and kathi ‘together’ co-occur with the cohortative function. As described in Section 3.1.2, explicit reference to participants co-occurs with cohortative -ca when S wants to delimit the number of the participants in the invitation, or when S changes the discourse topic by making an invitation to join a suggested action. The situation is different with the polite imperative -ca. The excerpt in (21) shows an example of accordant imperative -ca co-occurring with the explicit subject ne ‘you’, which points to one of Hs, P4. Here, the co-occurring subject pinpoints the person whose attention S wishes to draw in order to direct that person to perform the focal-action.

It is noteworthy to mention that even among the imperative uses of -ca, the two subfunctions (polite and accordant imperatives) showed significant differences with each other in terms of their constructional characteristics. First of all, out of 87 imperative uses of -ca, 49 were polite imperative uses, and 35 were accordant imperative uses (3 ambiguous cases combined). The co-occurrence of hedges or restrictive expressions was higher with polite imperative (24.5%) than accordant imperative (14.3%), which can be accounted for the higher degree of politeness in the polite imperative type. Besides co-occurring hedging expressions, 16.3% of polite imperative -ca co-occurred with the discourse marker ca (for example, see the excerpt in (20), line 6), whose main function is to urge or to encourage H to do something (Kim 2008Kim, Young-cheol 2008 “A Study on the Discourse Function of ‘JA’ to Discourse Marker in Korean language.” Kwukemwunhak 45: 5–23.), similar to the discourse markers now and come on in English. Accordant imperative -ca, on the other hand, never occurred with the discourse marker ca. This difference correlates with the fact that accordant imperative has higher degree of assertive force than the polite imperative, and that the latter has more encouraging, soothing tone than the former. Moreover, not only was the percentage of co-occurring explicit subject quite considerable, being 22.9% for accordant imperative and 6.1% for polite imperative, the types of co-occurring subjects were different in each subtype as well. While the explicit subjects co-occurring with the accordant imperative were mostly vocative terms and expression denoting to the 2nd person such as ne ‘you’, polite imperative often co-occurred with wuli ‘us’. This difference can be attributed to the fact that the speakers of polite imperative -ca strategically pretend to join in the described action, to reduce the strong assertive force of imperative speech act.

3.3Speaker hortative -ca: 1st person performer(s) of the focal-event

The third most frequent use (33 occurrences) of -ca (see Table 2) is when the performer of the focal-event is the 1st person, which always includes S of the utterance: it is often the case that S is using -ca as a means to warn H about his/her own future action, as in (22).

In line 7, P1 quotes a classmate using a -ca utterance. At least superficially, -ca in line 7 functions to invite H (P1) to join S (the quoted classmate) in the action of seeing how well H (P1) does on the exam. However, this utterance is not an actual invitation, but a rhetorical one; it is unlikely that P1 would have to intentionally watch his own performance on the exam, and it is S alone who intends to watch whether P1 does well in the exam or not. The underlying true intention of S in line 7 is to threaten H, by warning that S will be watching how well P1 does in the exam.

Another function of -ca with a 1st person performer of the focal-event is to convey S’s intention to ask H to perform a different action (not explicitly mentioned) so that S him-/herself can perform the focal-event. (23) is such an example.

In line 6, the explicit subject, na ‘I’, is used to let H know that the performer of the focal-action would be solely S herself, and not H. Hence, -ca in (23) is clearly not used cohortatively. Nevertheless, the -ca utterance is still an invitation for H to perform a joint action: S is asking H (P1) to join her in creating the situation in which she (P2) listens to the recorder. Hence, P2 is indirectly demanding that P1 perform an action so that the focal-event (P2 listening to the recorder) becomes true. Although the action that P2 wishes P1 to perform is not explicit in line 6, P2 reveals the implicit request overtly in the following utterance by using an imperative utterance, ‘Try to say something’. We call this specific use of -ca the speaker hortative, as S is asking H to join in making it possible for S to perform the focal-event.

The speaker hortative -ca co-occurs with an explicit reference to a 1st person subject such as na ‘I’ in 13.8% of its occurrences in our data. Moreover, the speaker hortative -ca co-occurs with hedging expressions such as han pen ‘once’ or com ‘a little’ in more than half of the cases (51.7%). (23) shows an instance of the co-occurrence of han pen ‘once’ with the speaker hortative -ca (line 6), and (24) shows an instance co-occurring with com.

It is evident that -ca (line 2) in (24) is not used to invite H (P2) to join the focal-event described in the utterance, ‘receive, or have, P2’s name card’, as it is not very likely that P2 would be receiving her own name card from herself. Hence, the participant who would be performing the focal-event is solely the 1st person (either S only or S and other participants of the conversation). Similar to (23), -ca in (24) is used to invite P2 to perform a joint action: P3 is asking P2 to join her in bringing about the event of P3 receiving P2’s name card. This is another instance in which S is indirectly demanding H to perform an action (that P2 hand over her name card) so that the focal-event (P3 receiving P2’s name card) becomes true.

In (24), com ‘a little’ is found within the same utterance as the speaker hortative ca. The highly frequent co-occurrence (51.7%) of hedging expressions with speaker hortative -ca is related to the underlying assertiveness of the construction. The intention underlying this use is to demand that H act to change the current state of affairs so that S can perform the intended focal-event, although the speaker hortative -ca is formulated as an invitation to H to perform a joint action. A hedging expression can mitigate the strong assertiveness of the construction, which can potentially threaten H’s negative face.

3.4Exhortative -ca: 3rd person performer(s) of the focal-event

The least frequent use of -ca (Table 2) is when the intended-performer of the focal-event is solely the 3rd person, with a single occurrence. Ammann and van der Auwera (2001Ammann, Andreas, and Johan van der Auwera 2001 “Complementizer-Headed Main Clauses for Volitional Moods in the Languages of South-Eastern Europe: A Balkanism?” In Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 67, ed. by Olga Mišeka Tomić, 341–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins., 345) call this function the exhortative (see Section 2.1) and only one example was found in our data as in (25).

When P3 expresses his unhappiness with the current president of their club, P1 uses ca (line 5) to suggest what P3 is implying: ‘What you’re saying is, “Let’s one of us three do it”?’. -Ca is used exhortatively because the performer of the focal-event described in the utterance (‘one of us’) is not a specifically denoted person. Although the performer is neither S nor Hs, but a yet-unknown person, -ca is still used to invite Hs to perform a joint action with S (P3). The joint action that S wishes to perform is to reach an agreement that can make the yet-unknown person (one of us) become the new president.1212.Anonymous reviewers pointed out that the example in (25) is not an exhortative use because the performer of the action is one of the speakers in the context, and also that a single occurrence would not validate a functional category. However, this performer is not yet specified, and the explicit subject wuli seys cwung ‘one of us three’ is clearly a third person subject, not us, you, or me, which makes a valid example of ‘exhortative’ category. Moreover, a single occurrence does not necessarily indicate that the category is not valid. As a matter of fact, the exhortative subfunction of -ca has elsewhere been reported by a number of scholars. For instance, Park (n.d.,1) provides a made-up sentence such as ipen-ey-nun Inho-ka ka-ca [this.time-loc-top Inho-nom go-hort] ‘Let’s Inho go this time’. The occurrence of exhortative -ca in actual usage can be extremely rare, as it can only be used in a very specific situation: one in which the future state of affairs can be changed by a 3rd person, and must be primarily based on agreement between S and H. The rare occurrence would indeed indicate the highly specified function of the exhortative -ca.