Conditional usages of jussives

Another candidate where discrepancy between a jussive construction and a subject is allowed is the conditional usage, and this is referred to as conditionals. ¹⁰⁷ However, a conditional imperative exhibits similiar restrictions to a genuine jussive updating a conversational participant’s To- do list.

All jussives can be easily contextualized as in the English case in (99).

According to Aikhenvald (2010), contextualization of jussives is a common strategy in many languages. That is, an expected result is given before or after a jussive clause: be quiet, and the baby can sleep well; be quiet, or the baby can’t sleep well.

(99)These children of yours keep out of my garden,

or I’ll set the dog on them. (Aikhenvald 2010: 69)

Korean also uses jussive constructions to express a conditional meaning, and the usage seems to impose a relatively loose restriction on a subject

106 As Prof. Seungho Nam (p.c.) pointed out, premonitives (or admonitives), which deliver a warning to a hearer are marked by the sentential particle -lla in Korean, which can be further decomposed into -l- and -la. Some might think that the final -la is the same particle as the jussive particle. Admonitives are irrealis in common with jussives. However, according to Pak (2008: 144-145), the -l- is a presumptive particle and -la is an allomorph of the declarative particle -ta. That is, premonitives are a sub- class of declaratives in Korean under Pak’s (2008) analysis. I agree with this since -ta can often replace -la in Gyeongsang dialect: namely, -lta. In this thesis, I will not dicuss premonitives in depth, and refer the reader to Pak (2008) on premonitives in Korean.

107 This is a conditional construction since it is usually followed by an expected result.

regarding a person feature, as in (100).

(100)Yeca-ka 100nyen hay po-a-la!¹⁰⁸ woman-nom 100.year do try-a-imp Int. ‘Let a woman try (it) for 100 years!’

Conditional jussives are not limited to any person, hence (100) can be conditional whether a subject is non-third person or not. Such conditional imperatives contain distinctive intonation: a sentence-final high flat or contour tone, and this seems to contribute to introducing a counter proposition, unlike the English data, and always bears an ironic sense¹⁰⁹.

Some might argue that yeca ‘woman’ is re-interpreted as a second person who is distant, so that (100) is just an extended use of typical imperatives.

However, a third person demonstrative proves that a genuine third person subject is licensed under the imperative marker as in (101).

108 This data is taken from the website:

<http://www.ibulgyo.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=137277> [Access: Jan 15, 2017].

In an original context, (100) is uttered targeting a female addressee, a Buddhist nun, so it is a canonical imperative. However, even when two male conversational participants talk without any female participants and the gibberish is said, it is still perfect. It is read as a conditional sentence like ‘if a woman tries (it) for 100 years’.

Furthermore, it implies the opposite meaning of the uttered order, and can be followed by a sentence like ‘it is not possible’ or ‘a woman can never succeed it’.

109 Gunlogson (2003) investigates declarative questions with a rising intonation.

Unlike declaratives with a falling intonation, the rising one can function as a question, which has a biased meaning. Gunlogson argues that the rising intonation does not have an inherent property of questioning, but that it “attributes commitment to the Addressee (ibid.: 93).” Thus, if a high flat or contour tone is assumed to be the same as the rising tone of declarative questions, it can be analyzed as the lack of a speaker’s commitment, too. Accordingly, an ordered set is not closed, and it can imply an opposite property as well: {do P, do not P} in a naïve term, and an ironic meaning arises.

(101)Kyay-ka 100nyen hay po-a-la!

that.kid-nom 100.year do try-a-imp Int. ‘Let the kid try (it) for 100 years!’

Nevertheless, a loose personal restriction on a subject is illusory, in fact, contrary to the optative cases. This is because a third person subject is only allowed with an auxiliary predicate po- ‘try’ which is originally a verb of perception, see. This item brings about a hypothetical meaning, so it can be easily coordinated with a conditional imperative. When conditional imperatives contain a non-third person subject, the auxiliary is not necessary as in (102).

(102) (Kulay,) Halwu congil ca-la!

yeah day all sleep-imp Int. ‘All right, sleep all day!’ (You idiot!)

In contrast, when po- is removed from (100), the subject can only be read as a hearer; (101) becomes completely ungrammatical without po- since kyay

‘the kid’ cannot get the second person reading at all.¹¹⁰

Moreover, selection of predicates is limited, unlike optatives, even when a subject is second person. Thus, the jussive particle cannot accompany a stative predicate as in (103). To be grammatical, the verb should imply a change of state, as in yeypp-eci- ‘become prettier’. In contrast, in (78), yeyppu-

‘pretty’ is fine with an optative sense. In addition, emotive, inchoative, auxiliary predicates are not allowed, either.

(103)* (Kulay,) acwu yeyppe-la! cf.(78) yeah very pretty-imp

Lit. ‘Be very pretty!’

Also, a tense or aspect is more restricted than optatives. For instance, the past tense -ess- particle is not allowed under the conditional meaning. Again, (104) is acceptable with an optative reading. Those properties of conditional

110 A third person subject seems to be quite acceptable when a context is immediately evoked as in (i). However, when a context is not salient, conditional imperatives with a third person subject are difficult to understand as in (ii). Inserting po- before the imperative marker, the sentence becomes perfect. Thus, the contrast between (i) and (ii) results from pragmatics. That is, when a context is sufficient, a covert po- is easily recoverable, the grammaticality improves as in (i). In a similar vein, when a focus particle is inserted, the sentence with a third person subject becomes natural without po- (Prof. Jong Un Park (p.c.)) as in (iii).

(i) ?Ipen-ey-to Hyeki-ka 1tung hay-la.

this.time-in-too H.-nom first.prize do-imp Lit. ‘Hyeki (, not you,) be the first prize this time, too!’

(I will be disappointed.) (ii) * Hyeki-ka caki emma-hanthey malhay-la.

H.-nom self mom-to say-imp

‘Hyeki say (it) to his mom.’ (Then I will kill you.) (iii) ?Hyeki-ka 1tung haki-man hay-la.

H.-nom first.prize do-focus do-imp

Lit.‘Hyeki (, not you,) be the first prize this time!’(I will be disappointed.)

imperatives so far pattern with genuine jussives rather than optatives. Thus, in all respects, they are a sub-type of directive jussives with a special property: depending on an intonation, the order can be related to either an uttered action or an inverted one.¹¹¹ Accordingly, they cannot be analyzed as having a subjunctive T.

(104)* (Ney-ka) chengso-lul ta hay-ss-e-la!

you-nom cleaning-acc all do-past-e-imp Lit. ‘Tidy (it) all up!’