This paper examines the use of the suffix -si- in the customer service register, namely allocutive agreement—agreement with the addressee. This form has become more common in spoken Korean. We compare the distribution of the standard subject honorfic -si- with that of allocutive agreement and find that allocutive agreement cannot appear on the lexical verb if an auxiliary is present and cannot give rise to verbal suppletion. Additionally, we find that allocutive agreement is possible in embedded clauses in Korean. We review previous analyses, which are unable to account for the range of facts reported here. We propose an analysis that makes use of node sprouting (from previous work on the subject honorific in Korean) and the Speech Act layer (from previous work on experiencer verbs in Korean). We show that these two previously proposed mechanisms can account for the facts of allocutive agreement in Korean. We end with a few typological remarks.
1. Introduction
2. The Varied Function of Case Morpheme
3. Previous Research
4. Theoretical Background
5. Analysis
6. Conclusion
References
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