일부 방언들의 주체 높임법에 나타나는 ‘-겨-’의 역사(2) - 선어말 어미 ‘-어겨-’의 형성과 ‘-겨-’의 분포 변화

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to search for the origin of -gyeo- indicating subject-honorification in some Korean dialects. It always follows eo that cannot be recognized as an independent morpheme. In truth, the honorific marker in question is not -gyeo- but -eogyeo-. It can occur only before endings beginning with eo, which is obligatorily deleted by a phonological rule. Before other endings appears -(eu)si-, which is used in all the dialects. The first example of -eogyeo- is found in the middle of the 19th century. The forms given below are of the 19th century. In the past tense appears -eogyeos-/-eogyeosi- (henceforth, the preconsonantal allomorph is presented before the slash, and the prevocalic one after it), which looks as if it had been formed from the sequence of -eogyeo- plus the past-tense marker -eos-/-eosi-. However, as demonstrated in Ko (2000), -eogyeos-/-eogyeosi- developed from -eo gyeosi- just as -eos-/-eosi- did from -eo is/isi-. gyeosi- is the honorific form of is-/isi-. We see here two parallel instances of morphologization. There are two alternatives for the source of -eogyeo-. First, it may have been back-formed from -eogyeos-/-eogyeosi-. In other words, it is quite likely that -eogyeos-/-eogyeosi- was reanalyzed as -eogyeo- plus -eos/-eosi-. However, if we accept this interpretation, it will be somewhat difficult to explain why only eo-initial endings can occur after -eogyeo-. Second, -eogyeo- may have been created from -eo gyeosi-eo used equivalently to -(eu)si-eo in meaning. In other words, it is possible that -eo gyeosi-eo was reinterpreted as -eogyeo-eosyeo, which is phonologically identical with the former. Originally, -eosyeo is the sequence of -eo plus the particle -syeo. Other eo-initial endings occurring after -eogyeo- are -eo, -eodo, and -eoya, the last two of which are the sequences of -eo plus the particles -do and -ya, respectively. If the second interpretation is right, we can easily understand why only eo-initial endings can occur after -eogyeo-. However, -eo gyeosi-eo used equivalently to -(eu)si-eo is found so rarely in documents that we cannot be confident of the second interpretation. It is reserved here to select one from the above alternatives. It is also possible that -eogyeos-/-eogyeosi- and -eo gyeosi-eo interacted to produce -eogyeo-. No matter which is the immediate source of -eogyeo-, the ultimate origin of it is -eo gyeosi-. There is no reason to search for its origin elsewhere.