From lists to universal quantification: Disjunction in Korean

This paper examines the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of the so-called disjunctive morpheme -(i)na used in various Korean constructions, first noted by Saman Hong (2002). The relevant constructions are grouped into three categories depending on the number and nature of disjuncts (i.e., uni-disjunction, di-disjunction, and multi-disjunction). Various constructions in context are examined to show that the three apparently unrelated meaning aspects (universal quantification, disjunction, and list enumeration) can be derived ultimately from multi-disjunctions through the covert operation of closure or exhaustification in Groenendijk & Stokhof's (1984) sense. The paper argues that the various usages can be accounted for in a uniform manner by assuming that -na is essentially a morpheme that indicates the presence of additional alternatives in the list, or an anti-exhaustivity marker in Kratzer & Shimoyama's (2002) sense. (Myongji University)