Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles
Subject of consciousness and subjectivity
A cognitive semantic approach to the Korean “reconstructive” causal connective -(u)n nameci
Published online: 4 November 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00237.kwo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00237.kwo
Abstract
This paper revisits the constructional and functional properties of the Korean causal connective
-(u)n nameci. The paper argues that -(u)n nameci is used
when the speaker is reconstructing and evaluating past situations; focal situations that have already occurred and/or been
processed are reviewed and framed as causally related by a narrator (Subject of Consciousness) who construes the situations from a
conceptual distance. A usage-based investigation supports this argument, demonstrating that -(u)n
nameci subjectively encodes conceptual distance, often conveyed through quotation or emphasis, between the speaker
and the focal situations. It uses the framework of the Basic Communicative Spaces Network (BCSN; Sanders, T., Sanders, J., & Sweetser, E. (2009). Causality,
cognition and communication: A mental space analysis of subjectivity in causal
connectives. In T. Sanders & E. Sweetser (Eds.), Causal
categories in discourse and
cognition (pp. 19–60). Berlin & NY: Mouton de Gruyter. ) to model the construal process of -(u)n nameci in
examples with various degrees of subjectivity, and further demonstrates that it conveys higher degrees of subjectivity than the
prototypical Korean causal connective -ese.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Previous approaches to the -(u)n nameci construction
- 3.Subject of Consciousness and the Basic Communicative Spaces Network
- 4.Mental spaces in the construal of the -(u)n nameci construction
- 4.1Corpus analysis
- 4.2The -(u)n nameci construction in the BCSN
- 5.Discussion: Subjectivity as the source of -(u)n nameci’s construals
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Abbreviations
References
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