Overt Subjects Signaling Floor Shifts in Korean Discourse

Abstract

Despite ample literature on the frequent occurrence of subject omission in Korean, the discussion of subjects that are not omitted in utterances has not been fully developed. While some researchers have focused on emphasis and contrast as the main reasons for a subject not to be omitted, the current study addresses floor-shifting in spoken discourse as a primary motivation for a subject to be overt. With respect to shifts of the floor in discourse, I analyze occurrences of overt subjects in spoken Korean corpora and clarify the discursive roles of first- and second-person subjects that are overtly expressed. The analysis shows that overt subjects referring to the interlocutors of discourse function as an explicit sign of the intention to take or give the floor. The findings of this study extend our understanding of overt subjects in Korean by expanding our focus from subject omission in sentences by relating it to the speaker’s stance toward the floor of discourse.