Development of the Korean proximal demonstrative into an affective stance marker

Abstract

Across languages, demonstratives grammaticalize into various grammatical and discourse-pragmatic markers. Using corpora of natural conversation and scripted drama conversation, and employing the theoretical frameworks of grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification, this study demonstrates that the Korean demonstrative construct i-ke ya ‘(it) is this’ has developed into an affective stance marker, a development not yet discussed elsewhere in the literature. As a stance marker, the form can encode (a) an emphasizing stance and (b) a boasting stance. The study shows that the development of i-ke ya is an instance of subjectification and of intersubjectification, as the functions of i-ke ya changed from exophoric (pointing to a physical object), to discourse deictic (pointing to a referent in a discourse), and then to expressive (encoding the speaker's stance). The analysis of its shifting functions indicates that i-ke ya obtained its affective meanings due to its frequent use in negative and disaffiliated contexts. Frequency information and a prosodic analysis further testify to the emergence of the new affective meanings of i-ke ya. The study contributes to recent research that investigates various emotive functions of demonstratives beyond accounts based on physical proximity.