Im Sun-hee and Kim Sun-hoi. 2014. A study on the discourse marker functions of “ye/ne” in Korean through analyzing the Sejong Corpus. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 22(1). The expressions called discourse markers universally have three shared features, that is, connectivity, optionality, and non-truth-conditionality (Schourup 1999). Kim (1989), Lee (1993), and Kang (2009) have shown that the expressions “ye/ne” in Korean have the propositional meaning in some cases, but exhibit these features in other cases. Based on these previous studies, where the various functions of “ye/ne” were classified, this paper investigates, focusing on their discourse marker functions, the function-based frequencies of “ye/ne” occurring in the spoken component of the Sejong Corpus. From this investigation, the following results are derived: First, “ye/ne” is used much more frequently as a discourse marker than as a propositional meaning form, second, their most frequently used function is a back-chaneling one, and last but not least, “ye/ne” is also used within a speaker’s turn very frequently and “ye/ne” in these cases is not used for responding to another's utteran

• 임선희(Im Sun-hee) | Im Sun-hee 제1 저자
• 김선회(중앙대학교) | Kim Sun-hoi 교신저자