The Semantics of -ess in the Complement Clauses of the Korean Propositional Attitude Constructions

Ess-under-ess sentences, where the so-called past tense marker –ess in the complement clause of propositional attitude verbs occurs under –ess in the matrix clause, can be interpreted differently in some contexts. To take account of the semantic difference between the ess-under-ess sentences, I argue in this paper that the semantic contrast is due to types of predicates associated with -ess. After pointing out some problems with the previous treatments of –ess, I claim that –ess shows duality in the sense that it is parallel to the past tense in some contexts and to the present perfect in other contexts. As a way of disambiguating –ess, this paper comes up with certain types of predicates. That is, the exact meaning of –ess in a given context is dependent upon the types of predicates it is combined with. The predicate types, together with the duality of –ess, bring out semantically different interpretations of ess-under-ess sentences.