From nominal phrase ‘my word’ to agreement marker ‘Right(!)’: A pragmatic and prosodic analysis of Korean discourse marker nay mali

Abstract

Discourse markers are known to be derived from various sources, among the frequently cited being adverbials and prepositional phrases (e.g., English well and in fact). In this paper, we examine how Korean discourse marker nay mali ‘right’ develops from a nominal phrase. Using spoken data from the NIKL and Sejong corpora, and adopting a Discourse Grammar framework, we trace the development of nay mali as it transitions from a noun phrase meaning ‘my word’ to a solidarity-enhancing agreement marker via two major processes—ellipsis and cooptation. Ellipsis occurs when the predicate ku maliya is deleted from the sentence nay mali ku maliya (‘my word is the word’ > ‘that’s what I am saying’), giving rise to the agreement and affiliative use of nay mali ‘right’. Cooptation occurs as discourse and contextual cues are pragmatically incorporated into the semantics of nay mali, extending its range of function beyond the sentence grammar level into the discourse grammar level (i.e., the metatextual level). In this study, we further use spectograms from Praat analyses to provide evidence of the detachment of discourse marker nay mali from the sentence level, as well as to reveal prosodic distinctions between the different contexts-of-use of discourse marker nay mali as a solidarity-enhancing agreement marker in Korean natural conversations. Findings from this study point to an intimate interplay between prosody and pragmatics, and may contribute to prosodic studies of discourse markers in other languages as well.