영어와 한국어 장소표현 비교 연구

Abstract

This paper investigates the comparative aspects of locative expressions in English and Korean. It focuses on the locative prepositional phrases in English and the locative noun phrases with postpositions in Korean. The first aspect has to do with the distinction between complements and adjuncts in English and Korean locative expressions. It is argued that the locative expressions in English may be on a gradient scale, but the distinction will be valid and relatively stable. On the other hand, the theoretical distinction in Korean locative expressions is not so well established compared to English counterparts. The second aspect relates to the realizations of locative expressions for stative or dynamic situations. Some prepositions in English inherently express the dynamic situations, while some other prepositions can express both stative and dynamic situations. The postpositions in Korean, however, does not reflect the specific type of situations. The third aspect relates to the achievement of goal locations for motion events. The achievement of goal locations is argued to be implied by the right choice of prepositions or postpositions in English and Korean. The fourth aspect relates to the gradience in the use of English preposition in and Korean postposition –ey. It is argued that the preposition in and the postposition –ey shows the gradience in the situation compatibility and goal feature, respectively.