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The semantic difference between the speculative expressions ‘-을까’, ‘-겠-’, and ‘-을 것 같-’ in the interrogative sentences

  • Korean Semantics
  • 2022, 75(), pp.147-173
  • Publisher : The Society Of Korean Semantics
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature
  • Received : February 7, 2022
  • Accepted : March 23, 2022
  • Published : March 30, 2022

GUO NING 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper was to clarify the semantic and distributive differences of ‘-을까’, ‘-겠-’, and ‘-을 것 같-’ in the general questions and rhetorical questions and to review the basic meaning of ‘-을까’. From the three different usage in the general questions between ‘-을까’, ‘-겠-’ and ‘-을 것 같-’ below, it can be seen that the basic meaning of ‘-을까’ is expressing ‘the speculation of speaker’. Firstly, only ‘-을까’ can be used in the context where ‘the unknown state of the speaker’ is emphasized, and only ‘-을 것 같-’ or ‘-겠-’ is used in the context where asking for ‘the speculation of listener’. Secondly, only ‘-을까’ can be used in the situations where the listener is well aware of the circumstance. Thirdly, when the speaker asks for the listener’s speculation of the proposition speaker knows, only ‘-을 것 같-’ or ‘-겠-’ can be used. And all of ‘-을까’, ‘-겠-’ and ‘-을 것 같-’ can be used in rhetorical questions, but it has been confirmed that ‘-겠-’ is the strongest and ‘-을까’ is the weakest in the terms of expressing the degree of the speaker's subjective thoughts. The stronger the speaker’s subjective thoughts are expressed, the weaker the expression of the listener’s speculations accordingly.

Citation status

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