Jaemog Song

10.18399/acta.2013.16.1.004

Evidentiality PAST Person Mongolian Korean Subject Restriction First Person Effect Observee Experiencer-oriented Performer-oriented Observer-oriented

This article analyzes grammatical forms of Mongolian and Korean which can describe past situations. Mongolian suffixes -laa, -jee and -v are past tense forms, but they have different evidential connotations: firsthand past -laa, non-firsthand past -jee and neutral past -v. Korean has two grammatical forms which are mainly employed for past situation description: -ess- and -te-. Korean -ess- is a past tense form but -te- is an evidential form. Korean -te- is a firsthand evidential (past sensory observation), indicating that the speaker has firsthand information about the situation and that the information was acquired before the speech time. Non-firsthand past -jee in Mongolian and firsthand evidential -te- in Korean show a superficial similarity in their subject restriction. They are not usually allowed in first person contexts. When the first person participants lack awareness, control or intention of the situation, -jee and -te- are allowed with first person participants, the so-called ‘first person effect’. This article proposes to divide firsthand evidentials into three subtypes depending on the referential scope of the observee: experiencer-oriented, performer-oriented and observer-oriented evidential. ‘First person effect’ is redefined in this article to incorporate examples from ‘observer-oriented evidential’.