중ㆍ한ㆍ일 정도부사 ‘更’, ‘더’, ‘もっと’의 대조분석 ― ‘트랜스-동아시아’ 언어 연구의 일례

Abstract

This study conducts a comparative analysis of degree adverbs ‘더’, ‘更’ and ‘もっと’ from South Korea, China, and Japan, respectively, based on actual language data from big data corpora, from a ‘Trans-East Asian’ perspective. Firstly, the ‘BCC corpus’ reveals that in Modern Chinese, the degree adverb ‘更’ generally appears before adjectives, verbs, nouns, adverbs, prepositions, and idioms in a sentence, typically modifying the subsequent words directly. When appearing before prepositions, it usually refers to the entire sentence containing the prepositional phrase. The adverb ‘更’ can convey meanings of ‘degree intensification’, ‘emphasis’ and ‘action duration’. The ‘꼬꼬마 세종 corpus’ shows that the degree adverb ‘더’ primarily appears before nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs in a sentence and can be used repetitively. It has a relatively rich semantic range, including ‘degree intensification’, ‘manifestation of difference’, ‘action duration’, ‘addition’, ‘exceeding’, ‘emphasis’ and ‘state extremity’. According to the BCCWJ corpus, the degree adverb ‘もっと’ in Japanese is similar to ‘더’ primarily appearing before nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs, and can also be used repetitively. It can express ‘degree intensification’, ‘emphasis’, ‘manifestation of difference’ and ‘addition’ in a sentence. Secondly, comparing the degree adverbs ‘더’, ‘更’ and ‘もっと’ across the three languages reveals both similarities and differences in syntactic structures and co-occurring words. While there are semantic overlaps, there are also notable differences. For instance, ‘更’ can appear before prepositions, which ‘더’ and ‘もっと’ cannot. Both ‘더’ and ‘もっと’ can be used repetitively, whereas ‘更’ cannot. Semantically, ‘더’ has the broadest range of meanings in sentences and overlaps with the meanings of both ‘更’ and ‘もっと’ though ‘更’ and ‘もっと’ do not overlap with each other. This phenomenon might be explained through typology considering geographical locations. Future research based on these findings will explore whether these differences in ‘더’ ‘更’ and ‘もっと’ could pose challenges in second language acquisition.