Development of the Korean connective ultheyntey into a final particle of wishing and worrying

Abstract

Recent studies demonstrate that connectives can develop into final particles that perform interactional functions in turn-final position. Using natural conversation data and the theoretical frameworks of (inter)subjectification and insubordination, I demonstrate that the Korean connective ultheyntey ‘conjecture + but/so’ has developed into a final particle that expresses speakers' stances of wishing, regretting, worrying, or hedging. The functional shift of the logical connective into an emotive marker was enabled by its recurrent use in negative contexts. In particular, speakers often use the contrastive ultheyntey (‘conjecture + but’) with conditional or deontic modal expressions to imagine an ideal situation that contrasts with a current, undesirable situation. Eventually, the co-occurrence of imagined ideal situations and ‘but’ engendered the final particle's sense of wishing or, in the past tense, regret. On the other hand, speakers often use the causal ultheyntey (‘conjecture + so’) to express a reason for worry that they imagine. Speakers also employ it to provide the reason for a negative assessment, often without the main clause containing the actual negative assessment, to create a hedging effect. Through these uses of ultheyntey in providing a reason for a speaker's worry, it came to encode the meaning of worry.