Semantic expansion of the connective ending -daga in Korean

In this paper, we try to show the process of semantic expansion of the connective ending -daga in Korean. We hypothesize that -daga originally meant diversion of a course of discourse, from which three other meanings of causal relation', conditional relation' and enumeration are derived. The processes of semantic derivation are believed to be as following.: (a) diversion → causal relation → conditional relation (b) diversion → enumeration The ending -daga and the topic marker nun are often combined to represent conditional relation. This combination is, however, affected by the strength of two semantic factors, that is, condition and conjecture. As the degrees of condition and conjecture are stronger, -daga and nun can be combined more easily. For this reason, one of the strongest condition, a counter-factual one, is always represented by the restructured ending -daganun

On the functions of adpositions - the typological perspective

This paper tries to examine the functions of adpositions from the typological perspective. Nine different languages including Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, English, German, French, Spanish, and Russian are surveyed for this research. Below are some new observations. (a) Adpositions have three different functions: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic. While some languages contain just two of these functions (syntactic and semantic), other languages like Korean and Japanese contain all three functions. Besides indicating the case, syntactic adpositions also contribute to conjoin both nouns and clauses. Semantic adpositions are used to express various lexical and grammatical meanings besides the case. Pragmatic meanings, such as the speaker's emotions or honorific relations, are represented by pragmatic adpositions in Korean and Japanese. (b) The case of human language can be indicated by word orders, inflectional endings, and adpositions. The difference in amount of cases that these three types can express is represented in the scale of inclusion: adposition 그 inflectional ending 그 word order'. The priority of selecting the core case by these three types is word order > inflectional ending > adposition. (c) The case hierarchy can be postulated on the basis of the three types of case indication: nominative > accusative > dative > genitive, ablative, *locative, instrumental > comitative, purposive, allative, perlative, comparative'. While the cases located to the right have a tendency to be represented by adposition, the cases located to the left tend to be indicated by word order and inflectional ending.이 논문은 한국학술진흥재단 기초학문육성지원사업의 연구비 지원을 받아 수행된 세계 주요 9개 언 어의 유형론적 비교 연구(과제번호 KRF 2003-074-AM00l8)의 일부이다

Scrambling and Acceptability in Korean

This brief paper treats scrambling and its resulting variations of acceptability in Korean. In general, the structure of a sentence can be defined in terms of hierarchical and syntagmatic relations which can be changed by scrambling procedure. Syntagmatic relation involves the relative precedence and adjacency relations of the constituents in a sentence. So it can be said that scrambling affects the precedence and adjacency relations of the constituents. All possible sentences generated by scramb1ing within the syntactic islands are regarded as acceptable by native speakers, but their degrees of acceptability are so different that we can calculate them in terms of their degrees of deviance from the basic word-order sentence. And these degrees of deviance are identified as those of syntagmatic relations, that is, precedence and adjacency

On the Derivational Suffixes in the Jeonnam Dialect of Korean(Ⅱ) - Adjectival and Adverbial Suffixes -

This paper examines adjectival and adverbial suffixes in the Jeonnam dialect. The main goal of the study is to examine the formal and functional differences of suffixes between the dialect and standard Korean. Most adjectival and adverbial suffixes of the dialect share the same meanings and forms with those of standard Korean. However, some suffixes show dialectal variations. Having no semantic content, the suffixes -ap-, ‐op‐ and ‐p‐ contribute to form the regional variants and divide the Jeonnam dialect into two sub‐dialects. The suffix ‐deuranha‐ corresponding to ‐daraha‐ of standard Korean has many variants, among which ‐danha‐ has been developed from ‐ deuranha‐ by the deletion of /eur/. Another variant ‐deurakha‐ or ‐ deuraksinha‐ is different from ‐deuranha-, as /k/ and /n/ alternate with each other. We can see the /k/ alternation in the south‐western part of the Jeonnam area. Many other adjectival suffixes including ‐eumak‐, ‐jik‐, ‐jimak‐, ‐jigeun‐, ‐gorom‐, ‐seureum‐, ‐khom‐, and ‐sirop‐ have the same forms of standard Korean, but differ in productivity. ‐Jik‐ and ‐jigeun‐ are less productive and ‐sirop‐ is more productive as compared with standard Korean. There are two uses of adverbial suffixes. While one is to add lexical or grammatical meanings to the roots, the other is to form adverbial variants without any semantic contribution. The adverbial suffixes ‐i, ‐ro and ‐na have both uses, but ‐ni, ‐ssi and ‐khe only exhibit the morphological function of word‐formation, not semantic or grammatical

The Historical Replacement of -a with -ko in the Ending System of Korean

This paper tries to discuss the limits of the study of diachronic Korean syntax and to trace the process in which conjunctive ending "- a" was replaced with "ko" within this limits. Two facts contribute to the replacement of '- a' with 'ko' . One is the weaking of the productivity of ending '- a' which result from the historical change of '-a+is-' to '-as-' in middle Korean. The other is the special semantic function of progressive expression '- ko + is- ' to signify the state-duration as well as the action-progress