This paper aims to describe the meaning of Korean temporal nouns used as a head noun and to reveal the correlation of tense of adnominal clause and adnominal ending. What we discussed in this paper can be summarized as follows.
First, temporal nouns can be divided into two types: a temporal noun for referring point of time and a temporal noun for referring span of time. The temporal noun for referring point of time such as ‘ttay(때)’, ‘cek(적)’, ‘mwulyep(무렵)’ or ‘cuum(즈음)’ precede particle ‘kkaci(까지)’, ‘pwuthe(부터)’ which mean starting point and ending point of certain period. On the other hand, the temporal noun for referring span of time such as ‘swunkan(순간)’, ‘chalna(찰나)’, ‘sai(사이)’ or ‘tongan(동안)’ can not combine with ‘kkaci’, ‘pwuthe’.
Second, ‘ttay’ and ‘cek’ denote specific point of time or unspecific point of time, but ‘mwulyep’ and ‘cuum’ indicate only unspecific point of time. Thus, ‘ttay’ and ‘cek’ follow adnominal ending ‘-ul’ and ‘-un’, but ‘mwulyep’, ‘cuum’ mostly combine with adnominal ending ‘-ul’. Since adnominal ending ‘-ul’ is a irrealis marker in Korean, it's meaning harmonize the unspecific point of time.
Third, among the temporal noun for referring span of time, ‘swunkan’, ‘chalna’ are modified by adnominal clause that contains punctual verb and possible to compose ‘punctual verb + prefinal ending ‘-te-’’ construction, because the span of ‘swunkan’, ‘chalna’ is shorter than ‘sai’, ‘tongan’.
Finally, the construction of temporal nouns are interpreted in various way and constrained by diverse and complex factors such as the property of temporal nouns, tense of adnominal clause, the meaning of adnominal ending and aktionsart of adnominal clausal predicates, etc.