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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 30:4 (2020) ► pp.557–585

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Korean general extenders tunci ha and kena ha ‘or something’

Approximation, hedging, and pejorative stance in cross-linguistic comparison

ORCiD logo with link | Claremont McKenna College
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 3 December 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18035.kim
Abstract
Using natural conversation corpora, I demonstrate that the Korean x-tunci ha ‘x-or do’ and x-kena ha ‘x-or do’, which originally list options (e.g., ‘x or y do’) have emerged as independent constructions that can indicate approximation, epistemic uncertainty, tentativeness, and even polite hedging. I argue that these Korean “general extenders” (Overstreet, M. 1999. Whales, Candlelight, and Stuff like That: General Extenders in English Discourse, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) followed a similar (inter)subjectification process to English x-or something and Japanese x-tari suru ‘x-or do.’ I also illustrate how these two Korean general extenders specialize in different hedging strategies.
Ironically, Korean tunci ha and Japanese tari suru can also convey a speaker’s negative affective stance. I demonstrate that tunci ha was frequently used in making non-imposing suggestions (hedging) and obtained its negative affect in the context of suggesting an obvious but untried solution (i.e., the frustration of the suggesting speaker). This result differs from Suzuki 2008. “Expressivity of Vagueness: Alienation in the verb-tari suru Construction.” Japanese Language and Literature 42(1):157–169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar’s argument of the Japanese case which attributes this development to a speaker’s non-committal attitude.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies on English or something and Japanese tari suru
  • 3.Two Korean general extenders and their distributional skewing
  • 4. Tunci general extender
    • 4.1Epistemic uncertainty and the tentativeness of a plan
    • 4.2Polite hedging
      • 4.2.1Propositional hedging
      • 4.2.2Speech act hedging
    • 4.3Speaker’s negative affective stance
      • 4.3.1Criticizing attitude toward Others
      • 4.3.2Pejorative stance toward the speaker’s own problems
  • 5. Kena general extender
    • 5.1Vague category and epistemic uncertainty
    • 5.2Qualification and propositional hedging with negation
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (36)
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Takanashi, Hiroko
2023. The utterance-finaltari siteconstruction in interaction: a general extender as a play stance marker. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 39:1 ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
Kim, Minju
2022. Intersubjectivity, stance, and Korean general extenders. Journal of Pragmatics 193 ► pp. 253 ff. DOI logo

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