The Journal of Studies in Language ISSN:1225-4770(Print) 2671-6151(Online) 언어연구

This study aims to compare and analyze the syntactic and semantic characteristics of the ‘kathta’ construction through practical examples, focusing on the epistemic modality of the ‘haoxiang’ construction in Chinese. Specifically, the lexical meanings of ‘kathta’ and ‘haoxiang’ undergo a process of meaning semantic abstraction and become grammaticalized as expressions of epistemic modality, conveying a sense of speculation. However, in terms of syntactic characteristics, ‘kathta’ can be divided into cases where it takes an external argument and cases where it does not. In the former case, it retains its descriptive nature as a psychological adjective, relating to the subject’s speculation, while in the latter, it is grammaticalized as an epistemic modal, reflecting the speaker’s speculation. On the other hand, ‘haoxiang’ is fully grammaticalized as an epistemic modal, expressing only the speaker’s speculation. Therefore, this study distinguishes between the speaker’s speculation and the subject’s speculation, interpreting the syntactic differences between these two constructions through their respective syntactic structures.