주격조사 ‘-가’의 발달

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of the nominative marker -ka in Korean. Before the 16th century, Korean had only one nominative marker -i, whichcould not be realized after i or y. In the 16-17th century another nominativemarker -ka began to appear after i or y. In the 17th century the nominativemarker -ka extended its distribution to the position after all vowels. This paperargues that the nominative marker -ka developed from the interrogative marker-ka attached to the end of minor sentences. The interrogative marker -ka isequivalent to present-day Korean -i-nya, which is the interrogative form of thecopula -i-. (The i of -i-nya is deleted after a vowel.) In 16th century Koreanthere could be dialogues as follows:(1) A: kwot wo-li-la. “[ ] will come soon.” (Subjects are often omittedif they can be implied by context.)B: ① poy? / poy-ka? “A boat?” (poy ‘boat', -ka interrogativemarker)② salom? / salom-i? “A person?” (salom ‘person’, -i nominativemarker)(2) A: kwot pwonay-li-la. “[They] will send [ ] soon.” (Objects arealso often omitted if they can be implied by context.)B: ① poy? / poy-lol? “A boat?” (-lol accusative marker)② salom? / salom-ol? “A person?” (-ol accusative marker)Let's compare the minor sentences poy?, salom?, poy-lol?, salom-i? and salom-ol? in (1) and (2). The latter three have case markers and they are moreexpressive. For nouns that end in i or y the nominative marker -i waseffectless and it is believed that for such nouns the interrogative marker -kashould have been used for expressivity as poy-ka? in (1) shows. The minor sentence poy-ka? in (1) can be construed as representing the fullsentence kwot wo-l kes-i poy-ka?. It is equivalent to the present-day Koreanexpression (kot o-l kes-i) pay-nya? “Is it a boat (that will come soon)?” andin such contexts its meaning is the same as that of the present-day Koreanexpression pay-ka (kot o-keyss-nu-nya)? “(Will) a boat (come soon)?”. The -ka inpay-ka is the nominative marker. Here we see a case of contiguity betweentwo meanings―the meaning of the interrogative marker and that of thenominative marker. It is believed that in such contexts as (1) above theinterrogative marker -ka should have been reinterpreted as nominative marker. If this is true, the development of the nominative marker -ka is an instance ofcontext-induced reinterpretation and metonymic change of meaning. The reason why the interrogative marker was selected to develop into nominative marker is that among minor sentences interrogative sentences are far more frequent than declaratives. Korean has other grammatical forms that developed at the end of minor sentences. They are the politeness markers -yo, -(i)psyo, -(i)lawu, etc., which developed from the copula attached to the end of minor sentences. It should be noted that the interrogative marker -ka is equivalent to the interrogative form of the copula -i-.