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Particles are Expressives: the case of Korean

This Friday’s seminar at SOAS is on the subject of linguistics:

Friday, March 11th, 5pm, room G50 (main building)
Dr. JIEUN KIAER, University of Oxford
Particles are Expressives: the case of Korean

Abstract:
Often, the dimensions of meaning beyond propositional meaning have been understudied or put aside, as those meanings have been considered insignificant and marginal. Contrary to these commonly-held beliefs, Potts (2005) has given us a new way of looking at meanings, by pointing out and discussing the “other”, rather hidden aspect of meanings; their expressive content. This talk was inspired by this observation, and further extends the scope of “expressives”. Previously, Potts and Kawahara (2004) and Kim and Sells (2007) argued that so-called honorific particles represent expressive meanings. I extend this view and argue that most particles in Korean/Japanese have expressive contents and behave like expressives. In particular, I will focus on “repeatable/incremental” use of various particles and their meaning.

Speaker Bio:
Jieun Kiaer is a Young Bin Min-Korea Foundation Lecturer in Korean Language and Linguistics at the University of Oxford. Her research interests are Syntax, Phonology and their interface, Psycholinguisitcs and Korean-Japanese comparative/contrastive linguistics.

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