Successive-Increase Reading of Tasi ‘Again’ in Korean

This paper investigates the Korean adverb tasi ‘again’, re-examining previous accounts of its multiple readings. Earlier studies have identified several readings of tasi ‘again’, including the repetitive, restitutive, pseudo-repetitive, purpose-repetitive, and sequential interpretations. I propose an additional successive-increase reading, not previously recognized in the literature. Based on a critical reassessment of prior analyses, I argue that this reading presupposes a prior increase along a lexical, phrasal, or contextual scale and asserts a further increase on the same scale. This account explains why superficially similar sentences are degraded when no coherent scale is available. The findings provide theoretical support for the lexical approach to repetitive adverbs since structural attachment alone cannot derive the successive-increase reading. More broadly, the proposal highlights the importance of gradability and discourse-based scales in shaping the semantics of the repetitive adverb tasi ‘again’.