• 한국언어정보학회지:언어와정보
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.37-53
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• 2015

It has been widely accepted that Korean -i/ka, known as the nominative marker, can give rise to exhaustivity effect. However, it has been rarely discussed and still remains unclear how and why the particle can convey exhaustivity. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on this issue, based on Kim's (2014) analysis of the function of -i/ka. The main claim is that the exhaustivity expressed by -i/ka is a pragmatic effect derived from the interaction of the function of -i/ka, namely, unique specification, and the existence of alternatives to the denotation of an -i/ka-marked phrase in discourse context. Thus, the nature of the exhaustive implicature induced by -i/ka is not conventional but conversational.