Yoon, Kyung-Joo (2001). The semantic prime THIS in Korean. In Cynthia Allen (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2001 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2001.html.
Abstract:
Korean is known to have three different demonstratives, i, ku, and ce, which are used differently according to context. Despite numerous studies on the meaning and function of these three words, it is difficult to find a clear semantic analysis of them in the literature. The main goal is, therefore, to identify the exponent of the prime THIS in Korean and, on this basis, to explore the possibility of explicating the meanings of the remaining demonstratives. Close examination of i, ku, and ce reveals that the exponent of the prime THIS in Korean is i. The remaining demonstratives, ku and ce, are found to be decomposable via the prime i and other semantic primes. The word ku is found to be polysemous, accordingly two different explications are proposed alongside one for the word ce. Two different texts are presented to test the validity of the analysis.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
