Bound Noun kak in Korean

This paper addresses the grammaticalization of a bound noun kak in Korean from the Internet sources. We observe different types of kak in Korean. First, a lexical noun kak which has a lexical meaning ‘angle’. Second,a bound noun kak which also has the same meaning, but it shows the typical characteristic such as obligatory aid from other phrase (e.g., the adnominal form of a complement). Third, in addition to these uses, we find a novel construction with a new functional meaning ‘likelihood/probability/expectation’(i.e., an Epistemic modal meaning) in the Internet. I assume that the bound noun kak merges in the position of N (reflecting the observation that kak has a lexical meaning) and subsequently moves to the position of small n (since kak has a functional meaning) following the bound noun kes given in Kim (2016). I also assume that this grammaticalization process is facilitated by a meme phenomenon in the Internet.