본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

A diachronic study of ‘meomureuda’

  • Korean Language & Literature
  • 2008, (64), pp.95-120
  • Publisher : Korean Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature

Lee Raeho 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The conjugation of the verb ‘meomeul-’ in Korean language during the Middle Ages (15-16th century) was regular. Grammatically, it functioned as an intransitive verb. Its causative form were ‘meomeulo-/meomeulu-’, denoted by the causative suffix ‘-o/u-’. Today ‘meomeul-’ in modern Korean functions as an intransitive verb and the conjugation is regular just as it was during the Middle Ages. It could be highlighted that in modern Korean language, ‘meomeurʌ-/ meomeureu-’, a new form coming out of the category of the conjugated form of ‘meomeul-’, began to appear and functioned as a transitive verb with a causative meaning. The form of ‘meomeureu-’ is a form in which its verb stem became restructuralized through the process of ‘meomeulu-> meomeuru/meomuru>meomeureu/meomureu->meomureu-’. The coexistence of ‘meomeureu-’ and ‘meomeulu-’ continued until the 19th century, On the other hand, the spread of existing derivatives ‘meomeulo/meomeulu-’ were replaced by ‘meomeureu-’ from 17th century. ‘meomeureu-’ conjugated regularly when they first appeared, However, they started to show irregular conjugation in the late 18th century. The irregular conjugation of ‘meomeureu-’ seems to be inferred from the inflection of words having a stem ‘reu’ such as ‘gareu-’. From the 18th century, ‘meomeulge hʌ-’, the causative form of ‘meomeul-’, appeared. Therefore, there are three types of the causative expression of ‘meomeul-’ in modern Korean language; ‘meomeureu-’ in the lexical dimension, ‘meomeul-+-o/u-’ in the derivative dimension, and ‘meomeul-+-ge hʌ-’ in the grammatical dimension. ‘meomeureu-’와 ‘meomulo-/meomulu-’ of the same meaning and the same grammatical structure were in competitive relations and the distribution of ‘meomeulu-’ shrank as a result of getting behind in the competition. ‘meomeureu- functioned only as a transitive verb before Oryunhaengsildo: A book for moral rules to govern the Five Human Relations), however, many examples that they functioned as an intransitive verb appeared in the late 19th century. There were no restrictions in connecting ‘meomul-’ with the suffixes begin with vowels until the mid-19th century. However, this trend declined in the late 19th century, and finally it was settled that ‘meomeul-’ would connect only with suffixes that begin with consonants and ‘meomeureu-’ would connect with both types of suffixes in 20th century. At present, ‘meomureu-’ has no transitive verb function and can be divided into allomorphic types ‘meomul-’ and ‘meomureu-’ that function as an intransitive verb. The causative function of ‘meomeureu-’ was replaced by the form of ‘-ge ha-’ which has historically competed with ‘meomureu-’.

Statistics

  • 271 Viewed
  • 2 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

Basic Search Advanced Search