‘What happened to the un-omitted subjects?’

What is it about?

This study investigates how speakers of Korean vary their referential choices when expressing first and second person subjects in conversation, revealing that factors such as relative age and socio-cultural context shape whether speakers use pronouns, kinship terms, professional titles, or other lexical forms rather than omitting subjects entirely.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study fills a critical gap by examining what forms Korean speakers choose when they do express subjects, not just when they omit them, revealing that social factors like relative age systematically shape whether speakers use pronouns, kinship terms, or professional titles. It challenges purely structural approaches to grammar by demonstrating that referential choices in Korean are fundamentally social and pragmatic, not just syntactic. This has important implications for understanding how pro-drop languages actually work in real conversation and for anyone learning or using Korean in social contexts.