23. Temporal expressions in Korean

Dynamic and Stative Information in Temporal Reasoning: Interpretation of Korean Past Markers in Narrative Discourse

“…However, most researchers (Ahn, 1995;Lee, 1987;Lee, 1991, among others) agree that the meaning of completion comes from the aspectual class of 'go home,' which is an accomplishment, rather than from -ess. In embedded sentences, -ess refers to a time earlier than the time in the matrix clause, as illustrated in (12a) (Lee, 1987). In order to receive a simultaneous interpretation, a null present tense must be used, as in (12b).…”

“…Existing analyses can be divided into two major groups: one group treats the double form -essess as pluperfect, which corresponds to the English past perfect (Martin, 1954;Sohn, 1995), and the other analyzes it as containing a special aspectual meaning in addition to past, such as discontinuous or experiential/contrastive (Kim, 1975;Lee, 1987;Oh, 2003). I argue that neither of these approaches is entirely correct.…”

“…According to him, the sentence containing the double past construction means not only that the event took place in the past but also that the same event is not taking place any longer. Lee (1987) claims that -essess truth-conditionally means that there was an event in the past and that the event or the result state of the event was discontinued at some time between the event time and the speech time. Sohn (1995) claims that -essess is pluperfect, which corresponds to the English past perfect form 'had -en,' encompassing both the notions of past in the past (remote past) and past perfective.…”

“…In (22a), it is assumed that Minji is still asleep while it is inferred that she is awake in (22b). Unlike -ess, -essess cannot be modified by a present time adverbial due to this ceasing sense (Lee, 1987).…”

Variation in Form-Meaning Mapping between Korean and English Counterfactuals

“…The literature, however, does not agree on the analysis of this morpheme. Some take it to be a marker of past tense (Choi 1983, Gim 1985, An 1980, Lee 1985, or a marker of perfectivity (Na 1971, Nam 1978, while others claim that it has a dual function of past tense and perfect (Sohn 1994, Sohn 1995, or that it is a marker of anteriority (Chung 1999). For the purposes of this article, what is important is that in constructions that convey counterfactuality, this morpheme at a minimum makes the same interpretive contribution as the English past tense morpheme.…”