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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 34:4 (2024) ► pp.588–614

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Notes on word order variation in Korean

ORCiD logo with link | University of Minnesota Duluth
 | SOAS University of London, The Academy of Korean Studies
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 20 July 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.22023.par
Abstract
This article aims to develop an analysis of scrambling or word order variation in Korean from a pragmatic/cognitive perspective. Although extensive research has been carried out on this issue, most extant research attempts to provide analyses of the phenomenon by identifying grammatical features posited for syntactic operations. Unlike the previous research, we demonstrate that word order variation needs to be understood with respect to its communicative function; it is motivated by the speaker’s intention to convey information more effectively. It is emphasized that understanding the association between information structure and word order variation should be an essential task for the analysis of the latter phenomenon. We further discuss five conversational strategies that motivate non-canonical word orders, which include juxtaposition, backmasking, right dislocation, add-on, and floated quantifier strategies.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Topic in Korean
    • 2.1Defining topic
    • 2.2Reference point
  • 3.Focus in Korean
  • 4.The juxtaposition strategy
  • 5.Postposed topic
    • 5.1The backmasking strategy
    • 5.2The right dislocation strategy
  • 6.The add-on strategy
  • 7.Floated quantifiers
    • 7.1Issues with FQs
    • 7.2Why do quantifiers float?
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • The abbreviations used in the glosses are as follows
  • References
References (64)
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