한국어와 반투어의 격 표지 대조 - 쇼나어를 중심으로 -

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to do a contrastive analysis on case marking in Korean and Shona- a bantu language. To achieve this, the structure, method of presentation and function of these were analyzed and the similarities and differences were presented. Korean’s case marking is realized through a postpositional particle on the argument, whereas in Shona, a prefix allomorph attached to the verb complex for subject marking and an infix on the post-initial position of the verb complex for object marking is employed. In Korean the choice between ‘-i’ or ‘-ka’ for subject marking , and between ‘-eul’ or ‘-reul’ for object marking relies on the phonological characteristics of the language. In Shona on the other hand, the choice of case marking is dependent on up to 20 noun classes and save for the position, the morphology of both subject and object markers are considerably similar. Korean and Shona case marking also differ in terms of function, namely, Korean’s case markers serve a ‘distinguishing role’, whilst Shona’s serve an ‘identifying’ role. While Korean’s structural case particles are commonly dropped in spoken language, Shona’s subject markers cannot be dropped, and the object marker, depending on the animacy, definiteness or information structure it represents, is used optionally. Knowing the differences in Korean’s and Shona’s case marking will aid Shona native speakers learning Korean in their understanding of Korean’s sentence structure.