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Abstract
In accord with Verhagen’s (1996) insights regarding epistemic uses of the predicator promise (e.g., Tomorrow promises to be a fine day), this paper identifies another type of these epistemic uses. It focuses on constructional cues in complex-clause utterances of the form I promise X: whether or not the subject of the embedded clause X is congruent with ‘I’ in the main clause and whether the tense of X is past or non-past. It investigates how it is used epistemically, especially in its colloquial uses; how the constructional cues (the kind of subject and the tense information) influence its construal; and how the different conceptual structures underlying the construals of the commissive and the epistemic modal senses of the construction can be modeled within Mental-spaces theory. It also discusses that the conceptual structures may be differently reified cross-linguistically briefing on the Korean constructs yaksokha- ‘(I) promise’ and cangtamha- ‘(I) assure’.