초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The current paper aims to identify the semantico-pragmatic role of the adverb wancen in Korean. Rather than treating wancen as a typical degree modifier, we propose the novel role of wancen as an illocutionary intensifier in this paper. Specifically, we suggest the core properties of wancen as follows: First, unlike the usual degree intensifiers, the illocutionary intensifier wancen targets a scale in the speaker’s epistemic attitude towards the proposition. By using wancen, the illocutionary effect of assertion can be maximally strengthened. Second, wancen gives rise to a pragmatic intensification effect by means of a subjective speaker-oriented adverb as a weak PPI (Ernst, 2009). The theoretical implication of the current study is to provide a widened view of cross-linguistic variation to cases where the intensifier does not necessarily have a lexical degree modifier, and languages parameterize the semantics and pragmatics of their illocutionary intensifier.
