‘-보다’ 성분의 유형과 유사 비교 구문

Abstract

This paper surveys comparative constructions so assumed by most of previous analyses and finds that not all sentences accompanied with -poda constituents are genuine comparative constructions. This paper classifies '-poda' constituents into three classes. First of all, there are '-poda' constituents as complement, which are strictly subcategorized by predicates. This kind of constructions do not allow '-poda' constituents to be deleted, and at the same time, they do not allow comparison adverb te 'more' to be inserted. Second type of '-poda' constituents is as optional as in normal comparative constructions, but they conveys different meaning, i.e. contrastive meaning. Thus, the postposition '-poda' can be replaced with '-ka anira'. They are typically followed by discourse particle -nun or -to. This kind of '-poda' constructions do not allow comparison adverb te 'more' to be inserted, too. This paper calls them 'pseudo-comparative constructions'. The third type of '-poda' constituent is obtained through subtracting the first and second type of '-poda' constructions from the relevant data, and these are expected to be genuine comparative constructions. This paper observes that where a comparative construction is headed by a verb and compared entity is something other than the subject of a given sentence, normal comparison and pseudo-comparison can be overlapped. In the light of this observation, it is concluded that the analysis of comparative constructions in Korean should be confined to the third type of constructions.