‘몇’의 의미와 ‘몇’계 복합어

Abstract

This paper categorizes the meaning of ‘myeot’ in two ways: interrogative usage of ‘how many’ and numeral usage of ‘several’, explains the differences and observes how it compounds and complexes other words. In this discussion, interrogative usage of ‘myeot’ indicating ‘unknown number of countable nouns’ is compared to ‘eolma’ of ‘unknown number of uncountable nouns’, while the numeral usage of ‘myeot’ implying an approximate number between 3 to 5 is to a smaller concept of ‘yakgan[若干, a few]’, or a bigger one of ‘yeoreot[여럿, several]’ and ‘dasu[다수, many]’. Interrogative usage of ‘myeot’ and numeral usage of ‘myeot’ show significant difference especially in their numeric-adjective usage. While interrogative usage of ‘myeot’ is not strongly bound when used as an adjective, studies found out that numerical usage of ‘myeot’ has restrictions when used as a numeral meaning ‘several’ in terms of adjective usage for dependent nouns attached closed groups of numeral expression. The paper further explores how the interrogative usage and numeral usage of ‘myeot’ make compound words or derived words, focusing on the usages mentioned above.