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Article published In: Beyond Corpus Data — Complementary and Alternative Methods in Cognitive Linguistics
Edited by Anton Granvik, Veera Hatakka, Olli O. Silvennoinen, Riku Erkkilä and Eveliina Mäntylä
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 23:2] 2025
► pp. 634–665

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Regular article

Setting subject and the inferential cleft construction in Korean

ORCiD logo with link | University of Minnesota Duluth
 | Academy of Korean Studies, SOAS University of London
 | Kyung Hee University
Published online: 29 April 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00182.par
Abstract
This article aims to develop a cognitive-functional analysis of the Korean inferential cleft construction (ICC) by identifying two motivations. It is demonstrated that the ICC must be understood as a mechanism to improve coherence and relevance in the text; it is first and foremost motivated to establish relationships between the preceding context and the event denoted by the subordinate clause headed by kes. By pointing out that attempts to ascertain concrete meanings of the ICC are bound to be futile, we argue that various meanings the ICC exhibits arise by mapping it onto the result phase of the epistemic cycle. The second motivation for the ICC is to put the proposition in the spotlight by indicating that the global circumstances, not the speaker, warrant judgment. Consequently, the speaker staves off the responsibility for her epistemic judgment.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1The ICC in other languages
    • 2.2Cleft constructions in Korean
    • 2.3Setting subject and reference point
      • 2.3.1Setting subject
      • 2.3.2Reference point
  • 3.Characteristic properties of the Korean ICC
    • 3.1Two types of -n kes-i-ta and differences in genres
    • 3.2Copular constructions
    • 3.3Similarity to the specificational copula
    • 3.4Topicality and subjectivity of the ICC
  • 4.Discursive properties
  • 5.A cognitive linguistic turn
    • 5.1Information structure (IS) of the ICC
    • 5.2The conceptual structure of the ICC
    • 5.3Epistemic control
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • The abbreviations used in this article are as follows
  • References
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