On the correlation of epistemic modality and interrogative

The aims of this paper are to investigate the correlation of epistemic modality and interrogative, and to describe some linguistic phenomena in Korean. 1 recognize that the semantic domain of epistemic modality and that of interrogative have an overlapping part. The meaning of Interrogative can be characterized as to demand an information from hearer' in communicative respect, and can also be characterized as 'to express speaker's ignorance' in modal respect. In Korean, it is observed that epistemic forms like '-ne, -guna, -gun, -damyeonseo(sentence final endings)' sometimes invoke a pseudo-interrogative effect. That's because the epistemic expressions used in the declarative sentences make the sentences to be less informative. I also observe that the meanings of interrogative endings like '-eunga, -eulgga' are apt to be interpreted as epistemic judgement. I think that these are endings of soliloquy, so they are not so much expressing speaker's demand for an information from hearer as expressing the state of speaker's knowledge