Evidentiality and Its Interaction with Tense: Evidence from Korean
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Evidentiality and its Interaction with Tense: Evidence from Korean DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jungmee Lee, M.A. Department of Linguistics The Ohio State University 2011 Dissertation Committee: Prof. Judith Tonhauser, Adviser Prof. Craige Roberts Prof. Carl Pollard c Copyright by Jungmee Lee 2011 ABSTRACT Evidentiality is a linguistic category that specifies the source of information conveyed, such as direct observation, inference, or hearsay (Aikhenvald 2004). Through a detailed study of three distinct evidential readings that arise from the Korean evidentials –te and –ney, this dissertation studies the close interaction between evidentiality and other semantic cat- egories, particularly temporality and modality. The goal of the dissertation is to develop a formal analysis which adequately captures the following empirical patterns of the meaning of Korean evidential utterances. First, three distinct evidential readings, i.e. direct vs. inferential vs. reportative, arise from the evidentials –te and –ney, by means of their interactions with tense and mood. Second, Korean evidential sentences behave like epistemically modalized sentences with respect to anchoring patterns, constraints with their subjects, and modal subordination. Third, the meaning contribution of Korean evidentials in discourse has a different status from that of the expressions occurring in the scope of the evidentials: unlike the latter, the former cannot be the main point of utterances. But the two different types of implications exhibit a bi-directional interaction in the course of interpreting a single evidential utterance. I formally analyze the first two empirical findings in Kratzer’s (1977, 1981, 1991) modal theory. In particular, I capture the evidential meaning of Korean evidentials in terms of the two central components in Kratzer’s modal theory, i.e. the modal base and the or- dering source. For the not-at-issue meaning contribution of Korean evidentials, and its ii interaction with at-issue meanings, I discuss why Faller’s (2002) and Potts’ (2005) theories cannot be applied to the meaning of Korean evidentials, and a dynamic semantic analysis is sketched out in terms of Murray’s (2010) formal system that models discourse anaphora. The empirical findings presented in this dissertation points to a close connection between evidentiality and temporality and modality, and suggest that a theory of evidentiality should allow for interactions between at-issue and not-at-issue content, as Amaral et al.(2007) has argued for at-issue and not-at-issue content in general. iii For my parents and husband iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing a dissertation was an enjoyable adventure. Many people have accompanied me on this adventure. Without their constant encouragement and wonderful support, I would not have been able to complete this dissertation. My first thanks goes to my advisor Judith Tonhauser for her unwavering commitment to my project. She joined the OSU linguistics faculty in my second year. Since taking her first semantics seminar, I have had the privilege of being her first Ph.D student, and have benefited enormously from working closely with her. Her willingness to spend time in discussion has always impressed me, and her sharp insight has tremendously improved my work. Regular meetings with her have always been engaging and motivational, with con- structive and inspiring comments on every topic that I have worked on. In particular, I have had great opportunities to give conference talks and write several proceedings and journal papers with her. Such invaluable experiences contributed enormously to my development as a semanticist. This dissertation project also started from her excitement about my data, and encouragement to explore more aspects of the meaning of Korean evidentials. Without her commitment to this dissertation project, I might not have been able to enjoy every step of it. Judith, thank you so much! You have my eternal thanks, for being such a wonderful advisor, and for sharing my excitements and anxieties over the past few years! I am extremely grateful to my other two committee members, Craige Roberts and Carl Pollard, too. Craige Roberts greatly influenced my decision to become a semanticist ever v since I began my Ph.D program in OSU. I benefited a lot from interacting with her, not only in her semantics/pragmatics seminars and individual meetings, but also in the modality study group that she organized. She was the first to suggest that I put serious thought into the relationship between evidentiality and modality, thereby putting this dissertation on the path it has ultimately taken. Her linguistic expertise and keen insight have drawn my attention to novel aspects of the data, and its theoretical implications. I thank her for all that she has taught me, and for our stimulating interactions. It was a great pleasure to have Carl Pollard on my dissertation committee, as well. His comments on the formal analyses were invaluable in the development of this dissertation. He has been very patient in guiding me through details of formal analyses that I overlooked. His deep knowledge and enthusiasm about linguistics and languages have always been an inspiration to me. In addition to my committee, my dissertation project owes a great deal to many other people. I’d to like to thank Sarah Murray for her generosity with her time and wonderful suggestions for the dissertation. Her talk about Cheyenne evidentials at the 19th Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) conference has been an inspiration for my exploration of the meaning of Korean evidentials. I am also deeply grateful to Lisa Matthewson. It was a great honor for me to have an opportunity to interact with her. I truly thank her for our fruitful discussions, for constructive comments on my work, and wonderful new ideas for the future. Special thanks goes to my former teachers at Seoul National University. I have never doubted my enthusiam about linguistics and language, but when I decided to apply for Ph.D programs in the US, I was going through a difficult time due to some personal issues. Without their constant encouragement, I would not have been able to make the decision to study abroad. vi I would like to thank in particular Prof. Eun-Jung Yoo, my former advisor in my MA program. It was after her syntax class one day when I first expressed my interest in studying more about syntax, and requested her to be my advisor. Since then, she has been my mentor, wherever I am. Particularly, when I was overwhelmed with demanding course requirements in my first year in OSU, I was so fortunate to have her on campus as a visiting scholar. Her excellent advice as a former OSU linguistics student immeasurably helped me with academic and non-academic issues. I am also grateful to Prof. Ki-Sun Hong. The first semantics course that I have ever taken was from her in 2003, which extended my research interest to semantics and its interface with syntax. Ever since that semantics course, she has been my role model as a female semanticist in Korea. So it was a great happiness to please her with my academic achievements in OSU. I am so thankful to her for giving me an opportunity to present my research at the workshop organized by her in the summer of 2010. I also greatly enjoyed discussions with her about my research. I’d also like to thank Prof. Chungmin Lee for his wonderful support for this dissertation project. Although I had no chance to take his semantics/pragmatics courses in my BA and MA programs, I already knew well about his enthusiasm for linguistics. He first contacted me after reading my co-authored paper around 2008, and since then he has been an inspi- ration in my research. It was a pleasure to participate in SALT 2010 and the Evidentials Fest in 2011 with him. I am grateful to him for sending me numerous papers related to my research, and kindly sharing his own papers. My thanks goes to my other teachers at Seoul National University, too: Prof. Chang- Yong Sohn, Prof. Mi-Jeong Song, Prof. Jae-Young Lee, Prof. Yong-Yae Park. They all contributed in innumerous ways to the very beginning stage of my training as a linguist. vii I would also like to thank those who have commented on this research at some point in the course of developing it: Peter Culicover, Robert Levine, Chris Barker, Anna Szabolsci, Paul Portner, Dong-sik Lim, Yusuke Kubota, Anastasia Smirnova, and Gregory Kierstead. Some parts of this dissertation have been presented at several places. I am thankful for the feedback from respective audiences at the 2009 Colloque de Syntaxe et Semantique´ a` Paris, the 2010 LSA Annual Meeting, the 2nd workshop on Projection, Entailment, Presup- position and Assertion (PEPA 2), the 41st English Linguistics Workshop at Seoul National University, and in Judith Tonhauser’s semantics course. My life in Columbus would have been very depressing without my friends. Specifi- cally, I am thankful to Jeff Holliday, who has been my closest friend since we took Peter Culicover’s syntax course and Carl Pollard’s formal foundations course together in my first year. It was him who first introduced Chung’s work on Korean evidentials to me, which contributed to the early stages of this research. He has not been hesitant to help me whenever I need his help, from giving me a ride somewhere to proofreading this entire dissertation. It has been a great pleasure to see his development as a phonetician over the past few years. Thank you, Jeff! I also learned a lot from working with Yusuke Kubota. I owe a lot to his willingness to help me with anything related to linguistics.