On the Meaning and Distribution of TUL in Korean:Evidence from Corpora

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss semantics and pragmatics of the so-called plural marker TUL in Korean based on the distribution in the corpora and interviews. In this paper, I showed that the level of plurality which TUL represents is beyond truth-conditional and is instead expressiveand context-dependent. That is, TUL-attachment is pragmatically decided rather than lexically decided. By attaching TUL, what the speaker aims to express is his/her commitment to explicitly convey the plurality of the argument. Furthermore, by using TUL, the speaker implies that the majority of the argument under discussion takes part in the ascribed event structure.