This paper is concerned with investigating the meaning of the ‘swu construction, [-l swu iss-], and its syntactic characteristics. The ‘swu construction, having originated from the noun swu,‘ has taken up the modal function since the latter part of modern Korean. In the premise of possibility, the ‘swu’ construction indicates [capability] or [permission] of the subject in the deontic modality, while it implies [uncertain possibility] of the statement contents which can turn out true or not true in the epistemic modality. Besides this difference, there are syntactic differences in such aspects as negative sentence forms, sentence type constraints, preceding verb constraints, aspect constraints of preceding and succeeding verb, and clause/adverb clause constraints.
1. Introduction
2. Grammaticalization of Modality Category
3. Modality Meanings of swu Construction
4. Syntactic Characteristics of swu Construction
5. Conclusion
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