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

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On the relationship between middles and passives

A polyfunctional analysis of -eci in Contemporary Korean

 | Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
 | Chinese University of Hong Kong
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 17 April 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00081.ahn
Abstract
Previous studies using diachronic data from the Sejong Historical Corpus have traced the semantic extension of voice marker -eci from middle to passive uses (e.g. Ahn, Mikyung & Yap, Foong Ha. 2017. From middle to passive: A diachronic analysis of Korean -eci constructions. Diachronica 34(4). 437–469. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). In this study, based on data from the Sejong Contemporary Spoken Corpus, we further examine the relationship between middle and passive uses of -eci constructions, with special attention to the neutralization of adversative readings that give rise to generalized (in addition to adversative) middle and passive -eci constructions. Our analysis reveals that judgments about adversative readings in Contemporary Korean are not emergent solely from the semantics of the verb or adjective preceding -eci but additionally are emergent and grounded in the interaction between discourse participants. The distributional characteristics of -eci also show a strong interaction between voice and tense-aspect-mood (TAM). There is also some interaction effects from register and text type/genre, particularly in the usage frequency distribution of spontaneous and passive -eci constructions. In addition, contrary to the traditional notion that -eci is essentially a passive marker, in real usage, -eci is still far more frequently used as a middle marker than a passive marker.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Middle and passive uses of Korean -eci
    • 2.1Korean middle marker -eci
    • 2.2Korean passive marker -eci
  • 3.Development of voice marker -eci from adversative to non-adversative contexts
  • 4.Usage frequency of -eci middle and passive constructions
    • 4.1Distribution of tense-aspect marking and voice functions in -eci constructions
    • 4.2Distribution of voice-marking functions of -eci across text types
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Sources
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (50)
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