Subject of consciousness and subjectivity

Abstract This paper revisits the constructional and functional properties of the Korean causal connective -( u ) n nameci . The paper argues that -( u ) n nameci is used when the speaker is reconstructing and evaluating past situations; focal situations that have already occurred and/or been processed are reviewed and framed as causally related by a narrator (Subject of Consciousness) who construes the situations from a conceptual distance. A usage-based investigation supports this argument, demonstrating that -( u ) n nameci subjectively encodes conceptual distance, often conveyed through quotation or emphasis, between the speaker and the focal situations. It uses the framework of the Basic Communicative Spaces Network (BCSN; Sanders et al., 2009 ) to model the construal process of -( u ) n nameci in examples with various degrees of subjectivity, and further demonstrates that it conveys higher degrees of subjectivity than the prototypical Korean causal connective - ese .