Nominalized clauses and reference to propositional content

Abstract

We investigate the semantics of Korean embedded clauses that bear the nominalizer kes and declarative marker ta. Such clauses can be embedded by mit ‘believe.’ While such clauses are not factive (Shim and Ihsane 2015), we present elicitation data that shows that nominalized (ta-kes) clauses are felicitously embedded by mit only if their conveyed content was previously asserted in the context; no such restriction arises for non nominalized clauses. Our analysis of such nominalized embedded clauses argues that they do not denote a proposition— a set of possibleworlds—but rather a definite description of a discourse event—an assertion event— that carries propositional content. The use of ta-kes embedded clauses allows Korean verbs like mit to acquire felicity conditions similar to those proposed for response-stance verbs (e.g. agree, deny) (Cattell 1978, Anand and Hacquard 2014).