단어 형성 요소로서의 결합형

Abstract

This study examines the morphological and semantic characteristics of combining forms—a newly emerging morphological unit frequently observed in the formation of recent Korean new words—and explores their morphological status. Combining forms refer to splinters derived from blended words that, through repeated participation in word formation, come to function as independent formative elements. Unlike traditional roots or affixes, these units exhibit distinct behaviors that cannot be adequately explained by existing categories. Based on new words data, this paper compiles a list of combining forms and analyzes their formation patterns, grammatical constraints, semantic density and stability, and analogy-based word formation mechanisms. The findings show that combining forms cannot be used independently, do not determine syntactic categories, and carry lexical meaning—demonstrating that they are morphologically and semantically distinct from both roots and affixes. As products of word formation that become productive schemas for new words, combining forms offer insight into how the structure of word networks can be reorganized. This study contributes to expanding the theoretical understanding of word formation and the study of Korean new words.