Despite the widely accepted rule of discourse that discourages a discourse participant from interrupting the speaker, interlocutors often interrupt the speaker for various reasons in reality. The interrupter’s intention is signaled most notably by the use of a discourse marker (DM). Since interruption is normally regarded impolite, the use of such signals must be not only kept to a minimum but also presented tactfully. For this reason, the interruptive DMs tend to originate from words signaling momentariness (cf. English wait a minute, just a sec, etc.) and indirection (e.g. ‘Wait!’ instead of ‘Stop talking!’, ‘You’re wrong!’, ‘I have an objection!’ etc.) unless hurting is intended.
Korean has interruptive DMs whose origins are traceable to two sources ‘eye-blinking’ and ‘quiet’ as shown in (1):
(1) a. camkkan (<camkan ‘duration of eye closing in blinking’)
b. camkkan-man (<camkan + man ‘only/just’)
c. kaman (<kAmAn onomatopoeic word for quietness)
d. kamanissca (<kaman iss-ca ‘quiet exist-let’s’)
An investigation into historical evolutionary paths and contemporary usages reveals interesting aspects in grammaticalization of these DMs. As for their sources, camkkan of (a) and (b) is of Chinese origin, which is peculiar since Sino-Korean words rarely develop into DMs in Korean and kaman of (c) and (d) is an ideophone to describe an action lacking noticeable sounds or motions, which is also unusual considering the rarity of DMs developed from onomatopoeic words. These DMs also signal momentariness of interruption, camkkan being more so than kaman, and indirection, as is evident from not making reference to the propositional content of the speaker’s utterance or objection to it. Despite their reference to temporary cessation of the talking of the current speaker, their typical and true function is to claim a turn. Furthermore, in contemporary Korean, these DMs are used in self-directed speech (as a monologue) to ‘interrupt’ the speaker’s own line of thought with sudden remembrance of something previously forgotten or to shift the perspective, an interesting state of affairs since it involves feigned interactivity by regarding the self as a discourse partner.
