초록 열기/닫기 버튼
This study investigates the meaning relationship between the equative tautological expressions and the adverb ‘yeoksi.’ We observe that the adverb ‘yeoksi’ occurs naturally in tautological expressions, but the pragmatic meaning of the expressions does not seem to be affected by the presence, or the absence, of the adverb. As a main set of concrete examples for our investigation, we select texts of online newspaper articles. We also include in our discussion meaning descriptions provided in some of the leading Korean dictionaries. We then present discourse conditions for the use of the adverb ‘yeoksi’ in equative tautological expressions. Ultimately based on the hypothesis that the predicate of the tautological expression states the action or properties of the subject, we argue that the expression contains the modality of the adverb ‘yeoksi’. The cases where the expression is taken as a compliment and combined with a disjunctive conjunction support the argumentation. Lastly, we discuss the mechanism of the related expression ‘yeoksi is yeoksi’.
