From the incomplete to the complete: The emergence of a new paradigm of sentence-final particles in Korean

Abstract

This paper analyzes a case of grammaticalization of a sentence-final particle (sfp) -tanun that developed from an adnominal complementizer (comp) structure ta hA-non in Middle Korean (mk). This newly emerging sfp carries a wide range of subjectified and intersubjectified, i.e., stance-marking, meanings such as boastful talk, fake-mirativity, pejoration, self-degradation, attention-seeking, and attracting sympathy. It is argued that this grammaticalization process was initially triggered by the constructional similarities between the mk comp sentences and the desiderative and doubt-marking indirect interrogative sentences. In the course of grammaticalization, this marker shows increasing collocational compatibility and expansion of its use as a stance marker in Present-Day Korean (pdk). Ellipsis of the head noun induces the addressee to reconstruct the missing noun that is compatible with the explicitly presented comp sequence with which the utterance is ended. As it frequently occurs sentence finally, -tanun becomes conventionalized as a sfp. Notably, the development of the declarative-based sfp -tanun triggered a parallel development involving the other sfps, i.e., imperative, interrogative, and hortative markers. Based on these observations, this paper argues that grammaticalization processes can be paradigm-based and can be triggered by analogy by virtue of structural similarity among the forms involved.