한국어 연결어미 ‘-았/었어서’의 사용 양상 분석 -구어 말뭉치를 중심으로-

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the syntactic structure and usage frequency of the Korean connective ending ‘-아서/어서’ combined with the past tense prefinal ending ‘-었-’ on the basis of spoken corpora from native Korean speakers and Korean language learners. Firsly, the analysis of frequency shows that both groups frequently combine ‘-았/었어서’ with verbs denoting actions rather than states. However, among native Korean speakers, the difference between verbs and adjectives is not significant, with verbs being used more in the early stages, yet showing an increasing use of adjectives over time. In terms of the frequency of combining negative expressions with ‘-았/었어서’, native Korean speakers show higher usage than Korean learners, even though there was little difference in the frequency of combining them with auxiliary verbs. Additionally, despite the use of past tense markers in the preceding clause combined with ‘-았/었어서’, the subsequent clause often expresses present or speculative meaning, indicating a syntactic difference from the causal connective ‘-아서/어서’. Moreover, the use of both ‘-아서/어서’ and ‘-았/었어서’ in the same utterance by speakers suggests that they perceive the two forms differently.