Reflections on the Grammaticalization of Korean the 'ground'

The objective of this paper is to illustrate how subjectification and intersubjectification (Traugott and Dasher 2002) are manifested in grammaticalization of a single lexeme the 'ground' in Korean, and how such processes exerted pressure onto Korean grammar. The extensiveness of grammaticalization and significance in emergence of new grammatical paradigms resulting in re-organization of grammar should merit in-depth research. Despite such significance, however, the 'ground' has received very limited attention beyond a simple description of metaphorical semantic extension, and a thorough analysis from the grammaticalization perspective has been under-represented. This paper intends to fill the gap. Human conceptualization of logical structure in terms of a physical building seems robust across languages (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) as is shown by the fact that English ground refers to not only a spatial basis for a building but also a logical basis for a claim. Korean nominal the 'ground' is also polysemous with these meanings (i.e. 'land' and 'situation'), which is by no means surprising considering the pervasiveness of metaphor in human language. More importantly, however, this lexeme the further advances in grammaticalization into diverse grammatical markers, such as connectives and sentential endings with numerous functions. For instance, the develops into connectives of consequentiality (e.g. -ltheyni, -ltheynikka, -ltheyko, etc.) and of adversativity (-ltheyciman, -ltheyntey, -ltheynteyto, etc.), a process attributable to subjectification of meaning. Of special significance is its development into sentential endings. The lexeme the becomes a part of the verbal morphology, where diverse markers of grammatical concepts such as TAM, honorification, style indication, etc. form a constellation. From this process arises an array of sentential endings marking determinative intention (e.g. -ltheyta, -ltheynya, -ltheyya, etc.), regret and desideration (e.g. -ltheyntey, -ltheynteyyo,etc.), contingency (e.g. -ltheyko), supposition (e.g. -ltheynikka,-ltheynikkayo,etc.), and others. The emergence of this new paradigm of markers is attributable to subjectification and intersubjectification. Through subjectification, diverse epistemic and conative conceptualizations make wayinto the semantics of these grammatical forms. The role of intersubjectification in this context is intriguing: these forms, largely originating from clausal connectives, lack markers of intersubjectivity, (which is highly grammaticalized in this language and must be obligatorily marked on the main verb,) and therefore, they employ other means of supplementing the absence of the intersubjectivity markers. Furthermore, since these sentential endings developed from connectives, acquisition of meanings as sentential endings entirely relies on the addressee's reconstruction of the ellipsis, which is a strikingly intersubjective phenomenon (cf. Rhee 2002). Drawing upon the historical corpus data this paper traces the historical developmental path of the 'ground' from its lexical source in Middle Korean to diverse grammatical markers in Present Day Korean, and presents how elaborate subjectification and intersubjectification not only changed the life of a linguistic form but also exerted a far-reaching impact on the grammar of Korean.