2.1Contrastive connectives

Contrastive markers such as the English but are argued to deliver two major meanings, which are exemplified in (1) and (2).

The first meaning in (1) is called semantic opposition (Lakoff 1971Lakoff, Robin 1971 “If’s, and’s and but’s about Conjunction.” In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, eds. by C. Filmore, and D. Langenden, 114–149. New York: Holt, Reinhard and Winston. 114–149.), external but (Halliday and Hasan 1976Halliday, M. A., and R. Hasan 1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman.), contrast use (Blakemore 1987Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell., 1989Blakemore, Diane 1989 “Denial and Contrast: A Relevance Theoretic Analysis of But.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 15–38. ), or contrast in proposition (Schiffrin 1987Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. )/ content (Sweetser 1990Sweetser, Eve 1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) domain. The second meaning in (2), on the other hand, is dubbed denial of expectation (Lakoff 1971Lakoff, Robin 1971 “If’s, and’s and but’s about Conjunction.” In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, eds. by C. Filmore, and D. Langenden, 114–149. New York: Holt, Reinhard and Winston. 114–149.; Blakemore 1987Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell., 1989Blakemore, Diane 1989 “Denial and Contrast: A Relevance Theoretic Analysis of But.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 15–38. ), internal but (Halliday and Hasan 1976Halliday, M. A., and R. Hasan 1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman.) or contrast in knowledge (Schiffrin 1987Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. )/ epistemic (Sweetser 1990Sweetser, Eve 1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ) domain. Whereas Lakoff (1971)Lakoff, Robin 1971 “If’s, and’s and but’s about Conjunction.” In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, eds. by C. Filmore, and D. Langenden, 114–149. New York: Holt, Reinhard and Winston. 114–149. contends the distinction between (1) and (2) to be semantic, scholars such as Dascal and Katriel (1977)Dascal, Marcelo, and Katriel Tamar 1977 “Between Semantics and Pragmatics: The Two Types of ‘but’ – Hebrew ‘aval’ and ‘ela’.” Theoretical Linguistics 4: 143–172. , Blakemore (1987)Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell., and Fraser (1998)Fraser, Bruce 1998 “Contrastive Discourse Markers in English.” In Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, eds. by A. H. Jucker, and Y. Ziv, 301–326. Amsterdam: Benjamins. claim that the two are derived from a single sense, from which specific meanings are fleshed out in the context. For example, in her pioneering work, Blakemore (1987)Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. proposes that but in both uses functions as a semantic constraint by guiding the listener to interpret the proposition introduced by but as being contrasted to the previous utterance (in contrast use) or to a derived proposition (in denial-of-expectation use). In (1), the two propositions are contrasted to each other because the two involve lexical antonyms short and tall couched in syntactically same constructions. In (2), on the other hand, albeit without an overt contrast either lexical or structural, the interpretation of the second proposition would guide the hearer to infer a proposition from the first one, which can be paraphrased as (3).

(3), which is an expectation inferable from the first conjunct in (2), is denied in the second conjunct of (2). Hence the use of but in (2) is a denial-of-expectation. Here expectations can come in many types, including presupposition, entailment and implicature. In the case of (3), the relevant expectation can be an implicature, more specifically, a particularized conversational implicature à la Grice (1989)Grice, Paul 1989 Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press..33.For various types of expectations, see Fraser (1998)Fraser, Bruce 1998 “Contrastive Discourse Markers in English.” In Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, eds. by A. H. Jucker, and Y. Ziv, 301–326. Amsterdam: Benjamins. .

In addition to these two uses of but, it can also connect two segments that differ in their speech acts, as illustrated in (4).

In (4), a statement is followed by a question and these are connected by but. Such uses of but as in (4) are called speech-act contrast in Sweetser (1990)Sweetser, Eve 1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . Still, the use of but in (4) appears to be licensed because a contrast relationship can hold between propositions derived from the two conjuncts, as spelled out in (5) and (6).

As proposed in most previous studies, this study takes ‘contrast’ to be the core and enduring meaning of such contrastive markers as but. That is, the ambiguity thesis will be abandoned on the grounds of the parsimony of the sense, spelled out by Grice (1989Grice, Paul 1989 Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press., 47) as “Modified Occam’s Razor: senses are not to be multiplied beyond necessity”. This principle states that senses are to be proliferated only when necessary as in lexical ambiguity, where unrelated meanings are derived from what is apparently the same word. Otherwise, the intuitive relatedness between the senses possible with but cannot be captured. This study adopts a unitary approach, suggesting that various senses possible with a -ciman construction carry contrast as an enduring or core sense. This core sense is then fleshed out as one of such various meanings in an ad hoc way in a specific context. That is, the intended meaning can be arrived at quite automatically or effortlessly by an interlocutor in a specific context, à la Jaszczolt’s Default Semantics (2005Jaszczolt, Kasia 2005 Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. , 2009Jaszczolt, Kasia 2009 Representing Time: An Essay on Temporality and Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 2016Jaszczolt, Kasia 2016 Meaning in Linguistic Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. , and references therein).

2.2Contrastive connectives in Korean

Contrastive connection in Korean can be made in at least two ways: by conjunctive adverbials or by conjunctive verbal suffixes. In this study, the second method will be taken up and labelled “contrastive connectives,” because it pertains to the topic of the present study. In Korean linguistics literature, representative contrastive verbal suffixes include, but not limited to, -(u)na, -ciman, -ato, and -telato. A group of studies put forward that contrastive connectives can be distinguished between contrast and concession senses and classified accordingly by a range of terms (e.g., Lee and Im 1983Lee, Iksep, and Hongpin Im 1983 Kwukemwunpeplon. [Korean Grammar]. Seoul: Tayhaksa.; Yoon 1989Yoon, Phyenghyen 1989 Kwukeuy Cepsokemiey Tayhan Yenkwu. [A study of Korean Conjunctive Suffixes]. Ph.D. Dissertation. Cheonnam National University. Korea.; Lee 2000Lee, Unkyeng 2000 Kwukeuy Cepsokemi Yenkwu [A Study of Korean Conjunctive Suffixes]. Seoul: Thayhaksa.). For example, Lee (2000)Lee, Unkyeng 2000 Kwukeuy Cepsokemi Yenkwu [A Study of Korean Conjunctive Suffixes]. Seoul: Thayhaksa. dubs -(u)na and -ciman contrastive and -ato and -telato concessive. As discussed in Section 2.1 above, these bifurcate approaches are not supported for the theoretical reason of Modified Occam’s Razor. Also such taxonomic accounts do not offer clear-cut criteria to demarcate boundaries between categories. After all, in many cases, the same connective is proven to convey both contrastive and concessive senses. Nor can these approaches exhaust all meanings or functions possible with a connective in a specific context, because the meaning quite often arises from the context.

On the other hand, another group of studies suggests a unitary approach, contending that both contrastive and concessive senses are derived from a single overarching sense, which is labelled in a variety of ways (e.g., Choi 1937Choi, Hyenpay 1937 Wulimalpon. [Korean Grammar]. Seoul: Top Publishing.; He 1977He, Wung 1977 Wuliyeysmalpon [Grammar of Old Korean]. Seoul: Saymmwunhwasa.; Nam and Ko 1983Nam, Kisim, and Yengkun Ko 1983 Phyocwunkwukemwunpeplon. [Grammar of the Standard Korean]. Seoul: Top Publishing). Nam and Ko (1983)Nam, Kisim, and Yengkun Ko 1983 Phyocwunkwukemwunpeplon. [Grammar of the Standard Korean]. Seoul: Top Publishing propose ‘incompatibility’ as the core meaning shared by contrastive connectives, which is then fleshed out in specific contexts. On the other hand, the way specific meanings are figured out, extended, or changed has also been explored. According to Park (2014)Park, Jae-Yeon 2014 “Hankwuke Yenkyelemi Uymi Hwakcangeyseuy Hwanyuwa Unyu [Metonymy and Metaphor in the Semantic Extensions of Korean Connective Endings].” Kwukehak [Journal of Korea Linguistics] 70: 117–155., the core meaning of -ciman (i.e., contrast) can be realized in an epistemic domain as in (7), or in a speech act domain as in (8) via metaphoric extension, which is carried out by means of a cross-domain mapping.

Even though previous research on contrastive connectives including -ciman has contributed to our deeper understanding of the phenomena under discussion, most studies have focused on constructed data drawn from researchers’ expertise on and knowledge of the Korean language. In contrast to previous studies, this paper suggests a fuzzy representation of senses of -ciman constructions surfacing from the corpus data. The identified senses include explicit contrast, denial of expectation/implicature, speech act hedges and idiomatic expressions. The rationale behind this fuzzy representation is at least two-fold. First, sometimes, the categorization of an example is rather fuzzy, suggesting that it can serve multiple functions simultaneously. Hence, the boundaries between categories in the current study will be analytical. Second, the fuzzy representation can better reflect relatedness among various senses of -ciman constructions. The so-called “pragmatic” senses of -ciman constructions, such as denial of expectations and speech acts, are accounted for by means of different levels of representations in which contrast occurs. Furthermore, the possibility of utilizing -ciman as a stance/discourse marker is pursued vis-à-vis certain idiomatic expressions.

4.1Prevalence of global connection

Connections between linguistic units can be either local or global. The literature on contrastive connectives has revolved chiefly around local connections, i.e., ones between two adjacent linguistic units (c.f., Schiffrin 1987Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). However, examination of the research data of this study reveals that global connections prevail as much as local connections do. The excerpt in (9) illustrates the global nature of -ciman connections. (9) is excerpted from a conversation between two speakers who talk about a long road trip they had together. The speakers, who are college students, agree that the trip enabled them to become true friends. The speaker mentions that he is very close to a female friend, Senhuy, even after the speaker and Senhuy have spouses. Before talking about Senhuy, he prefaces his utterance with a -ciman clause in line 2, which means that closeness to friends can vary from person to person. Here the -ciman suffixed clause stands in a loose contrastive connection with the content of the very last clause (line 5). The two connected conjuncts are intervened by a portion of utterance, which renders the connection global.

(9)

	01	cikum now wuli our moim-ey group-in iss-nun be-md chinkwutul-hako-nun friends-with-tc
→	02	etten some chinmilto-uy closeness-of chai-nun difference-tc iss-keyss-ciman be-sup-though
	03	seywel-i year-nm cinaka-to go-though …   Senhuy-ka Senhuy-nm mwe some namphyen-i husband-nm
	04	sayngki-ko have-and nay-ka I-nm anay-ka wife-nm sayngki-tunci have-regardless …   kaney regardless.of kelikkim-epsi hesitation-without
	05	manna-l meet-md swu possibility iss-nun be-md sai-ya. relationship-dc
		‘Even though there are differences in closeness with friends in our group, Senhuy and I can meet without any hesitation, regardless of whether she and I have spouses in the future.’ [#6CT_0051]66.For the transcription of the Korean data, the Yale Romanization was used. The abbreviations, which are borrowed and modified from Sohn (1999Sohn, Ho-Min 1999 The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., 2013Sohn, Ho-Min 2013 Korean. Seoul: Korea University Press), are presented in the Appendix. Because of the limited space, morpheme-by-morpheme glossing is sometimes provided only for relevant parts. File numbers in the Sejong Spoken Corpus are given in square brackets after examples.

In global connections, the -ciman clause repeatedly serves the function of speech act hedges, modulating the force of the propositional content of the utterance, as will be addressed in Sections 4.4 below. (10) is excerpted from a conversation about movies. Speaker A comments that film versions of novels are mostly disappointing. The interlocutors then elaborate on the topic by talking about an example of a film adaption of a novel, thoymalok ‘Exorcist’s Journal’.

A’s utterance in line 6 begins with a -ciman clause, which expresses the speaker’s negative attitude/evaluation toward certain types of movies. Noticeable is that the content right after the -ciman clause (line 7) does not contrast with the -ciman clause, because A digresses from the main topic by enumerating a variety of versions of thoymalok. Furthermore, A’s utterance in line 7 cooperates with B’s utterance in line 8 by elaborating on the different versions of thoemalok. As can be seen in A’s utterances in line 10, A conveys his negative opinions about thoymalok. Then the contents in the -ciman clause in line 6 and the succeeding utterances by A do not contrast. What A wants to deliver by the -ciman clause is his propositional attitude to the topic, which can be rephrased as in (11) and (12).

The second clauses of (11) and (12) contrast with each other. The -ciman clause in line 6 performs a concessive function from A’s perspective, attenuating A’s act of stating his evaluation of certain types of novels.

4.2Explicit contrast

Explicit contrast consists of occurrences in which contrast is manifested by means of explicit lexical or structural contrast combined by a -ciman, as demonstrated by the first sentence in Table 2 above. To repeat, this type is dubbed semantic opposition (Lakoff 1971Lakoff, Robin 1971 “If’s, and’s and but’s about Conjunction.” In Studies in Linguistic Semantics, eds. by C. Filmore, and D. Langenden, 114–149. New York: Holt, Reinhard and Winston. 114–149.), external contrast (Halliday and Hasan 1976Halliday, M. A., and R. Hasan 1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman.), or contrast use (Blakemore 1987Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell., 1989Blakemore, Diane 1989 “Denial and Contrast: A Relevance Theoretic Analysis of But.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 15–38. ). Another example can be seen in (13) below.

(13) is excerpted from a lecture on research methodology including quantitative measurement scales. In this specific part, the speaker explains the characteristics of interval scale with reference to other types of scales. What contrasts in this example are two lexical terms, addition and multiplication. Lexical contrast can be of various kinds (e.g., Lyons 1977Lyons, John 1977 Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) ranging from complementary antonyms (i.e., dead vs. alive and male vs. female) to taxonomic sisters (i.e., color terms and days of a week). In (13), the relevant contrast is that of taxonomic sisters that are from a set of paradigmatically contrasting elements. As Lyons (1977)Lyons, John 1977 Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press points out, contrast here does not carry any implication as to the number of contrasting elements in a set.

In some cases, the concept of lexical contrast needs to be expanded to accommodate examples like (14), because semantic contents of two units do not stand in a strict contrastive relationship. Excerpt (14) is from a monologue of a student who has been to Afghanistan as a participant in a relief work project. The speaker provides an account about a tribe whose language lacks a writing system.

In (14), the two lexemes, mal ‘spoken language’ and kul ‘alphabet’, are contrasted. Then a set of contrastive lexemes is set up, in which spoken language and written language constitute the elements of the set. Structurally the two contrasted lexemes are couched in parallel syntactic patterns: malum issta (spoken language exists) vs. kulcaka epsta (written language does not exist). On the other hand, as will be discussed in Section 4.3 below, occurrences like (14) can be construed as an instance of denial of expectation because the clause suffixed by a -ciman evokes an inferred proposition that if a tribe has a spoken language, it commonly has a written language. This very expectation is denied in the second clause. This phenomenon supports the fuzzy representation of categories proposed in this study, because a -ciman clause performs dual functions at the same time.

4.3Denial of expectations

Examples in this category contain the use of -ciman which signals that the content of an upcoming talk is read as a denial of any expectations inferable from the content of an expressed clause (e.g., Blakemore 1987Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.; Schiffrin 1987Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). For that reason, contrast in this use is claimed to have a cancellative function (Bell 1998Bell, D. M. 1998 “Cancellative Markers: A Core/Periphery Approach.” Pragmatics 8: 515–541. ). Excerpt (15) is from a monologue about a movie, Beautiful Mind. The speaker comments that the main character of the movie was a brilliant man, although the speaker thinks he was beautified too much in the film.

In (15), there is no pair of contrasted lexical items in the two clauses connected by -ciman. Instead, the clause suffixed by -ciman can trigger an inference as in (16).

However, this inferred information expressed in the second clause of (16) is denied in (15). By means of this, the contrast conveyed by -ciman is legitimized. Propositions derivable from the first clause can differ in their nature (Fraser 1998Fraser, Bruce 1998 “Contrastive Discourse Markers in English.” In Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, eds. by A. H. Jucker, and Y. Ziv, 301–326. Amsterdam: Benjamins. ; Lee 2002Lee, Hye-Kyung 2002 “Towards a New Typology of Connectives with Special Reference to Conjunction in English and Korean.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 851–866. ). Specifically the choice of such propositions is constrained by the content of the second conjunct, as shown in (16). Blakemore (1987Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell., 1989Blakemore, Diane 1989 “Denial and Contrast: A Relevance Theoretic Analysis of But.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 15–38. ) contends that the English discourse connective but constrains the way the utterance but introduces. However, Lee (2002)Lee, Hye-Kyung 2002 “Towards a New Typology of Connectives with Special Reference to Conjunction in English and Korean.” Journal of Pragmatics 34: 851–866. proves that discourse connectives including but also contribute to the way the preceding utterance is construed, as illustrated in (16).

(17) is an excerpt from a conversation between two speakers about an array of topics such as cultures, movies, and life. Speaker A says that he had pizza with a mutual friend, Ciyeng. Responding to A, B comments that A should sometimes eat pindayttek77.“This is one of the mandatory dishes on traditional holidays or special festive occasions. Also called nokdujijim or binjatteok, bingdaetteok is made by peeling and soaking mung beans, grinding them, and then pan-frying with various vegetables.” (Retrieved on 27 August, 2019 from https://​terms​.naver​.com​/entry​.nhn​?docId​=5700793​&cid​=42701​&categoryId​=63067) (obviously as opposed to the representative western dish, pizza), because A is old enough to prefer Korean food to western food (line 7). As a response to B’s comment, A says that although he likes pindayttek, he eats pizza only rich with cheese (lines 8–9).

In lines 8 through 9, A conjoins two clauses using -ciman. Here we can observe a lexical contrast between pintayttek and pizza, whereby the use of -ciman is accommodated. At the same time, the contrast can be viewed to hold between derived/inferred propositions of the two conjuncts. From the first conjunct of A’s utterance in line 8, we can derive an assumption that A behaves according to his age (i.e., A likes bindayttek, as expected by ordinary Korean adults). From the second conjunct, we can infer a proposition that A does not quite follow this convention (because he eats the representative western food, pizza, even rich with cheese which is generally believed to be dispreferred by average Korean adults). The contrast here occurs between these two derived propositions.

4.4Speech act hedges

As discussed in Section 4.1 above, -ciman clauses can serve as a hedge of an assertion, marking the speaker’s concessive attitude toward the assertion (c.f. Schiffrin 1987Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ). Even though definitions and usages of the term, ‘hedge’, may vary in the literature, a hedge usually refers to “a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set” (Brown and Levinson 1987Brown, Penelope, and Stephan Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , 145). Hedges can also be defined as methods of mitigating the force of an assertion for pragmatic reasons such as displaying politeness or avoiding full commitment.

(18) is excerpted from a dialogue between two friends about employment. The speaker of (18) states that her employed friends complain about excessive working hours. Never having prepared for job hunting, the speaker feels envious of such friends despite their complaints about long working hours.

In line 4, the speaker employs a -ciman clause, which asserts that she is not in a position to say anything because she did not go through the employment problem herself. Then she expresses her envy of her employed friends. The -ciman clause in this excerpt clearly conveys the speaker’s concessive attitude toward the upcoming assertion about her feeling about such friends, mitigating the force of this assertion.

When combined with a concessive marker, phrases corresponding to the English phrase I don’t know in different languages have turned out to function as a forward-looking marker revealing that “the speaker is not fully committed to what follows in his/her turn” (Weatherall (2011Weatherall, Ann 2011 “I Don’t Know as a Prepositioned Epistemic Hedge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 44(4): 317–337. , 317) in English and Helmer et. al. (2016)Helmer, Henrike, Silke Reineke, and Arnulf Deppermann 2016 “A Range of Uses of Negative Epistemic Constructions in German: ICH WEIß NICHT as a Resource for Dispreferred Actions.” Journal of Pragmatics 106: 97–114. in German). In these cases, both lexical and structural properties compositionally contribute to engendering such concessive meanings. (19) is taken from the same corpus as (9) above, in which two interlocutors talk about a long road trip. In line 1, speaker A, who is a college student in his twenties, makes a verbal mistake. He must have wanted to say that he has not lived very long, but actually he said that he has lived long. Noticing this mistake, A corrects himself in line 3, but his mistake is laughed at by B in line 4. A repeats himself in line 5 by saying that because he has not lived long, he does not know very well. Then he gives his opinion about the subtlety involved in relationships between men and women.

In (19), the predicate used in the -ciman clause is moluta ‘not know’, which is a representative epistemic modality marker. As in other languages such as English and German, the predicate alta ‘know’ and the ending -ciman collectively yield a concessive meaning, making the whole -ciman clause a hedge.

A few senses of -ciman clauses drawn on or related to the speech-act-hedge meaning are identified including comparison (i.e., as), addition (i.e., as well as), and topic introduction, which are discussed in Sections 4.4.1 through 4.4.3. Although the senses they carry are subtly distinguished, they still retain a common property of packaging the content in the -ciman clause as if it were given/old information or background knowledge. The -ciman clause in these cases thus functions as a hedge for the speaker to reduce the onus of presenting a new sub-topic. To repeat, these functions compositionally result from lexical meanings of the predicate, the marker -ciman, and the context. This is why the following three senses collapse under the overarching speech-act hedge category.

4.4.1Referring to a precondition or prior information (i.e., as)

A -ciman clause sometimes can carry the meaning of the English word as or like. Specifically, a -ciman clause can be employed to refer to a previously mentioned or presupposed assumption, simultaneously conveying the speaker’s hedging attitude that she wishes to be excused for repeating what has already been discussed or known to the interlocutors (Lee 2018Lee, Keum-Hee 2018 Pocosa manun kyelhaphyeng yenkyel phyohyeney tayhaye: -cimanun, -tamanun, -(u)kkamanun lyu cwungsimulo. [Final endings + particle Maneun on coupled forms focused mainly -jimaneun, -damaneun, -eulkkmaneun]. Kwukehak [Journal of Korean Linguistics] 86: 63–88.). By doing so, the speaker can achieve a couple of discourse goals. She can remind her interlocutors of information already presented or presupposed, helping them comprehend what follows. In addition, the speaker can lessen the burden of repeating the same piece of information by adopting such hedging strategies.

(20) is an excerpt from a doctor’s lecture on children’s mental-health issues, including autism. In line 3, the doctor cites autism as the most representative mental disorder which was discussed with reference to a Korean movie, Marathon. The main character of the movie is an autistic young man who overcame adversity to be a great marathoner.

(20)

	01	i cenpancekin paltaley mwunceyka issnun aytul ceyka chilyohanun pangpepiketunyo
		‘(This is) the way I treat the children who have a problem with overall development.’
	02	kuntey i cwungeyse kacang tayphyocekin cangayka yelepwun sowi malhanun
		‘But among them, the most representative disorder is, ladies and gentlemen, the so-called, ’
→	03	akka a.while ceyka ago ku that malathon Marathon yayki-to story-too ha-yss-ciman tell-pst-ciman caphyey autism cangay disorder kyeythong-i-eyyo type-be-dc
		‘as I mentioned the movie Marathon a while ago, it is a kind of the autism disorder.’
	04	ike icey caphyey cangaynun cenpancek paltal cangayla kulayse …
		‘So autism is called an overall developmental disorder.’ [#9CT_0006]

The -ciman clause can also be used to represent the information available from the context in some form or other. (21) is from a medical lecture to the public by a doctor, in which the doctor starts his lecture by mentioning osteoporosis. As the excerpt is from the very onset of the talk, nothing was discussed before. However, it is inferable from the speaker’s utterances that the topic of the talk osteoporosis must have been presented as the title of the presentation material. The -ciman clause in line 4 informs the audience that the topic appears as the title. At the same time, it serves as a hedge, allowing the speaker to excuse herself to repeat the same information.

(21)

	01	yey yelepwun annyeng annyenghasyesssupnikka cehuy ku seypulansu pyengwenhako
		‘Hello, everyone, how are you? Severance Hospital and,’
	02	hankyeleysinmwuni kongtongulo kaychoyhanun wuli a kenkang kongkaykangcwaey …
		‘the Hankyoreh newspaper are co-holding this public lecture on health.
	03	a onulun ceyka malssum tulilyeko ha-nun kenun,
		‘What I am going to present today is’
→	04	a ‘ah yeki here ceymok-ey-to title-in-too ilehkey like.this nawa appear iss-ciman be-ciman
		‘um, as shown in the title here,’
	05	a soli epsnun a pamsonnim koltakongcung ilen nayyongul kaciko
		‘the topic of a soundless thief, Osteoporosis.
	06	a ceyka malssumul tulikeysssupnita.
		‘I am going to give you a talk about it.’

4.4.2Adding information (i.e., in addition to)

Some -ciman clauses impart the sense of addition, roughly synonymous with the English expression in addition to. Still, they simultaneously convey a hedging connotation, reducing the weight of the information contained in -ciman clauses and thus bringing to the foreground what follows the -ciman clauses. Then the contrast can be made between different degrees of importance allotted to two compared parts. In examples classified as belonging to this category, the particle -to ‘too’ concurrently plays a significant role in constituting this information-adding interpretation. The compositional nature involved in the elucidation of a -ciman clause is again buttressed here.

In (22), the speaker talks about his close friends, one of whom is said to be especially cherished by the speaker. In line 2, the speaker states that he remembers that specific friend because he is an old friend of the speaker. In upcoming talks, the speaker adds another reason why he remembers that specific friend.

(22)

01	i chinkwunun mwel hanun salaminyamyen hayyangtaylul colephako
	‘What this friend does is, he graduated from the Ocean University,’
02	kwuntay taysin cikum paylul sam nyen thako isse il hang sam hangsalo …
	‘instead of serving in the army, he’s been on a boat for three years now as a first, a third mate.’
03	i this chinkwu-ka friend-nm way why kieknamnya-myen-un be.remembered-if-tc na-lang I-with olaytoyn old chinkwu-i-kito friend-be-too ha-ciman, be-ciman
	‘The reason I remember this friend is that in addition to being an old friend of mine,’
04	cengmal nayka kunkka i chinkwu maley i chinkwuka ilehkey hayla han ke
	‘(I can really follow) what he advised me to do.’
05	nay insayngi kellin mwunceyil ttay nayka ttalakal swu issul mankhumey chinkwuya.
	‘He is such a friend that I can follow his advice on matters of my life.’ [#5CT_0017]

What the speaker intends to convey is that in addition to being an old friend, this very friend is memorable because he can be consulted with even about life-threatening problems. Therefore the -ciman clause here conveys information which is treated as primary, serving as a springboard for further crucial information.

This function of a -ciman clause is more conspicuous in (23). The speaker in (23) talks about how he won his girlfriend’s heart and eventually got married. The speaker and his wife first met in the U.S. when they were students. After a while, the speaker alone returned to Korea, but he went back to the U.S. again to see her with a special present. The ostensible reason was to pick up his luggage in the U.S.

(23)

	01	me senmwuley cip kathun ke issessnuntey me ssayngssu suthoanka?
		‘There was a gift shop or something. Um, Thanks Store?
	02	kekise phocang com yeyppukey phocanghay talla kulayssnuntey,
		‘I asked them to wrap the present beautifully there.’
	03	kuke kaciko mikwukey kasseyo.
		‘I went to the States with the present.’
→	04	cey my yuilhan only mokcek-un purpose-tc cim luggage kaci-le bring.back-to o-n come-md kes-to thing-too iss-ciman, be-ciman
		‘The only purpose of my visit was to bring my luggage back, but in addition to that,
	05	tasi han pen e phyohyenhaki wihayse wase
		‘Once again, um, I went there to confess my love.’
	06	mannacakwu kulayssteni kkamccak nollay. e hankwuk tuleon ke aninya kwu?
		‘When I asked her to meet, she was surprised and said, “Huh, didn’t you go back to Korea?’ [#8CT_0031]

In line 4 in (23), the speaker mentions that the only reason to return to America was to bring back his luggage. Right after that, the speaker continues that the more important reason was to confess his love. In this narrative, the excuse contained in the -ciman clause is described as ostensible, whereas the reason revealed by the following utterance becomes far more prominent and relevant. In this respect, this function of -ciman is quite similar to another Korean contrastive connective -nuntey, which was proven to provide background information (e.g., Lee 1991Lee, Hyo Sang 1991 Tense, Aspect and Modality: A Discourse-Pragmatic Analysis of Verbal Suffix in Korean from a Typological Perspective. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA.; Lee 1993Lee, Keedong 1993 “The Pragmatic Function of the Connective Nuntey.” Ene [Korean Journal of Linguistics] 5(1): 119–135.; Park 1999Park, Yong-Yae 1999 “The Korean Connective Nuntey in Conversational Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 31:191–218. ) or establish the situation.

4.4.3Introducing a sub-topic

The -ciman clause can also be deployed to introduce a sub-topic of a main topic, organizing the content of the -ciman clause to be already known to the interlocutors. Here the compositional nature involved in the construal of a -ciman clause is pronounced most prominently, because the predicate immensely contributes to this topic-introducing sense.

(24) is an excerpt from a dialogue between two persons who converse about politics focusing on recent presidential elections. Speaker A describes how the then presidential candidate of a minority party (Mr. Kwenyengkil) made fun of the then two major political parties. In line 4, speaker B introduces a sub-topic, which is election campaigns, utilizing a -ciman clause. He then elaborates on that sub-topic by commenting that the ways election campaigns are conducted have changed in a positive way. As well as bringing up a new sub-topic, the -ciman clause in (24) accomplishes a hedging purpose by rendering the sub-topic introduced in the -ciman clause familiar to the interlocutors.

(24)

	01	A:	mak selo mak mincwutang ccokilang hannalatangi yaykihanikka
			‘As the Democratic Party and the Grand National Party were talking to each other,
	02		kwenyengkil ssika hanun yaykika e hannalangtangun wencopwuphaytangiyo
			‘Mr. Kwenyengkil said, “the Grand National Party is the original corruption party,’
	03		mincwutangun sincangkayeptangintey mwel hal mal issnyako …
			‘and that the Democratic Party is a novice party, so what can you say?”’
→	04	B:	kunikkan so senke election wuntong-ul campaign-ac pwa-to see-even al-keyss-ciman know-sup-ciman
			‘As you can notice from the election campaigns,’
	05		ma senke wuntongilan kaynyemto manhi tallacyesse.
			‘the notion of election campaigns has changed dramatically.’ [#7CT_0038]

As discussed in 4.4 above, the predicate alta ‘know’ in (24) plays a substantial role in conveying the above-mentioned function. However, even non-epistemic predicates can denote a similar sense, as shown in (25), where the predicate nukkita ‘feel’ is used. In (25), a male speaker in his twenties recites a narrative about love. Prior to this excerpt, he talked about his first love, which failed badly. He adds that he had recently started reading a book, Men are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which is about common relationship problems between men and women. He then brings up a sub-topic about the book, i.e., what he feels about the book in line 5.

(25)

	01	kulen ke (hethalkam) ttaymwuney swipkey isengeykey takakaci moshantanun cem
		‘Because of that (despondency), (I) cannot easily get close to girls.’
	02	mwe mwe kathun namca chinkwutul kathun kyengwuya mwe
		‘Um, um, in the case of male friends,’
	03	ilen yayki celen yaykihata pomyenun chinhaycil swu issciman waynci kelikami nukkyecinun
		‘I can make friends with them, talking to each other. But, somehow I feel distant (with female friends).’
	04	mwe yocumey poki sicakhan chayki mwe hwasengeyse on namca kumsengeyse on yeca?
		‘Um, the book I recently started reading is “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”?’
→	05	ku that chayk-ul book-ac ccokum a.little ilkepo-myense read-while nukki-nun feel-md ke-ciman , thing-ciman
		‘This is what I feel while I read the book.’
	06	cham pyelkayuy sayngmwulikwuna sayngkakhanun phaytheni ayey thullitanun ke
		‘(Men and women) are totally different creatures. The ways they think are different.’ [#7CT_0010]

By couching this subtopic in a -ciman clause in line 5, the speaker can hedge against the burden of introducing this new sub-topic, thus making his utterance sound more modest.

4.5Idiomatic expressions

When -ciman is combined with some lexical hedges such as sorry, excuse me, and I don’t know, the whole -ciman clause constitutes an idiomatic expression. Indeed, it is well known that hedging can be achieved by a variety of devices ranging from particles to prosodic clues (e.g., Brown and Levinson 1989). In Korean, expressions such as I am sorry-ciman, excuse me-ciman, and I don’t know-ciman have been approached as stereotypical examples of -ciman-based idioms (e.g., Lee and Lee 1999Lee, Huyca, and Conghuy Lee 1999 Theyksuthu Pwunsekcek Kwuke Emiuy Yenkwu [A Text-Analytic Approach to Korean Endings]. Seoul: Hankwukmwunhwasa; Park 2014Park, Jae-Yeon 2014 “Hankwuke Yenkyelemi Uymi Hwakcangeyseuy Hwanyuwa Unyu [Metonymy and Metaphor in the Semantic Extensions of Korean Connective Endings].” Kwukehak [Journal of Korea Linguistics] 70: 117–155.). Among the data of the current study, a set of such idiomatic expressions was also identified.

The segment in (26) is excerpted from a multi-party conversation of three close friends, addressing an array of topics including movies. In (26), the participants exchange their thoughts about a movie, The Rainmaker. This movie features stories and scenes of trials, in one of which the main character’s (lawyer of a plaintiff) skillful performances stand out prominently, quieting the court and even influencing the jury’s decision. In (26), the three interlocutors share their opinions about such clichés of Hollywood movies’ court scenes. In line 9, participant C, prefacing his utterance with I am sorry-ciman, states that court scenes are all the same. Indeed the same speaker (speaker C) utters the same assertion in line 2 and repeats it in line 9. The only difference is the presence of I am sorry-ciman in line 9. The speaker does not utilize this -ciman clause because he literally feels sorry. Rather, he uses it as an idiomatic expression, emphasizing his opinion about such a typical unfolding and simultaneously showing and seeking consent among the speakers. The other speakers agree and use the same expression, as demonstrated in lines 3, 8, and 10.

Another -ciman-based idiom recurrently addressed in the literature is I don’t know-ciman. Of special interest is that this construction involves the so-called epistemic predicate know in its negative form. Examination of contexts of this idiomatic phrase frequently indicates that users do not lack knowledge about the issue in question. Rather this idiomatic expression serves as a prepositioned epistemic hedge (Weatherall 2011Weatherall, Ann 2011 “I Don’t Know as a Prepositioned Epistemic Hedge.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 44(4): 317–337. ), showing that the speaker is not completely committed to what follows.

The monologue in (27) is taken from a seminar on language learning and errors. While explaining redundancy in spoken language, the speaker mentions a scholar called George who criticized the methodology of oral auditory language teaching with great acrimony. The expanded context indicates that the speaker is quite knowledgeable about redundancy in language use and its relevant literature. Nevertheless, he moderates the force of his argument by using an I don’t know very well-ciman in line 4.

This ciman clause as an idiomatic chunk fulfills a politeness purpose, marking the speaker’s concessive attitude to the audience rather than conveying its literal meaning.

As such, these rather fixed chunks such as I am sorry-ciman and I don’t know-ciman can serve as stance or discourse markers (Carter and McCarthy 2006Carter, Ronald, and Michael McCarthy 2006 Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.),88.Stance markers are classified as a sub-category of pragmatic markers by Carter and McCarthy (2006)Carter, Ronald, and Michael McCarthy 2006 Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.. In linguistics literature, the same marker has been dubbed in different terms, including, but not limited to, discourse markers (e.g. Schiffrin 1987Schiffrin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ; Fraser 1990Fraser, Bruce 1990 “An Approach to Discourse Markers.” Journal of Pragmatics 14: 383–395. ), discourse particles (e.g. Schourup 1985Schourup, Lawrence 1985 Common Discourse Particles in English Conversation. New York: Garland.; Mosegaard Hansen 1998Mosegaard Hansen, Maj-Britt 1998 The Function of Discourse Particles: A Study with Special Reference to Spoken Standard French. Philadelphia: Benjamins. ), and discourse connectives (e.g. Blakemore 1987Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic Constrains in Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.). which express the speaker’s stance/attitude towards the following message much more than delivering propositional content meanings, largely because their literal meanings are bleached, conveying instead the speakers’ concessive stance or attitude toward the upcoming utterances and simultaneously meeting any desired politeness expectations. It is seldom the case that function words (i.e., pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions) or affixes (i.e., suffixes and prefixes) serve as stance markers. Cross-linguistically, most stance markers developed out of content words, such as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs (e.g. Gray and Biber 2014Gray, Bethany, and Douglas Biber 2014 “Stance Markers.” In Corpus Pragmatics, eds. by Karin Aijmer, and Christoph Rühlemann, 219–248. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.). However, as discussed in Lee (2015)Lee, Hye-Kyung 2015 “A Corpus-Pragmatic Analysis of Wuli .” Discourse and Cognition 22(3): 59–78. , the Korean first-person plural pronoun wuli ‘we, our’ functions as a stance marker in contemporary spoken Korean. This argument was supported by the fact that the pronoun wuli demonstrates the properties of common nouns such as pluralization (e.g., wuli-tul ‘we-plural’) or suffixation by a possessive marker -uy (e.g., wuli-uy ‘we-of’). In a similar vein, the ending -ciman may function as a stance marker together with certain co-occurring idiomatic expressions, even though it is not a content word or a free morpheme.