현대국어 관형사의 어휘사적 고찰

Abstract

This study aims to identify the lexical origins of the contemporary Korean adnominals and to describe the noteworthy historical changes occurred in their morphology, syntax and meaning from the Middle or Modern Korean to the contemporary Korean. Summarizing the results are as follows: 1. There are over 500 adnominals in the Standard Korean Dictionary, which was published in 1999 by the National Academy of the Korean Language. However, a considerable number of them can be excluded from 'pure' adnominals. For example, all derivatives by the (Sino-Korean) suffix '-jeog(的)' and the majority of numerals are often classified as a word-class of adnominals, because they have a similar function of modification to adnominals when they precede a noun. However, such a function will not be different in nature from the modifying function of the precedent noun in the usual 'Noun-Noun' constructions. 2. The rest of adnominals cannot not be also 'pure' adnomials from their lexical origins. It is confirmed by this study that they participated, for the most part, in a declension of noun or a conjugation of verb in the Middle and/or Modern Korean. In other words they belonged not to a word-class of adnominals but to a word-class of nominals or verbals before the contemporary Korean. Therefore, the word-class of adnominals cannot be admitted as an 'independent' part of speech from a diachronic view, while it may be supported under a synchronic view, which makes a classification of parts of speech on the bases of 'morpological paradigm' and 'syntactic function'.