한국어 복수 표지 '들' 연구

Abstract

There is an infinite number of words to express numerable and innumerable objects. Words to express numerable objects are categorized into singular and plural. Plural of Korean language has not been organized as a grammatical category as it is not regular. So this study aims to analyse grammatical categories of 'deul' which is frequently used in spoken English and its semantic functions. Chapter 2 identified the grammatical categories of 'deul' through looking at existing data and dictionaries and discovered that 'deul' is divided into a dependent noun, a suffix, a special postposition, and a colloquial postposition. Then it compared its characteristics with the standards to represent such categories to determine whether it is appropriate to organize it as a marker. First, 'deul' has definitive idiomatic languages as a dependent noun. It can not be determined as a general suffix but as derivative suffix as it is combined with phrases as well as words. However, this study decided to accept it as it was thought that it is not necessary to create contrary words such as' 'syntactic' and 'derivative' and a new category instead of existing categories. As ‘deul’ is well matched with special suffixes in distribution such as nouns, adverbs and inflected words and can have a syntactically structure, it is considered as a special suffix. A colloquial postposition as a sub-category of special suffixes is added to put an emphasis on a colloquial element among functions of special suffixes. Therefore, it is hard to determine the grammatical category of colloquial postpositions by emphasizing only colloquial element. Chapter 3 discussed semantic functions of 'deul.' To examine nouns which are not matched with deul, they have ambiguous character of singular and plural except the cases for quantitative representation or colloquial elements. Because of such characters of nouns, deul can not freely combined with them. The ‘deul’ is combined with other components with a subject omitted in imperative sentences, prositive sentences and interrogative sentences, plurality of the subject is transferred to other components, and it has a listener-oriented character. When the plural form of ‘deul’ is not interpreted into the plural form of the subject, cases are plural and repetition occurs in colloquial cases with time difference. Second, semantic functions of ‘deul’ have individual relativity. That is, plural forms of 'deul' have both individuality and collectivity, but individuality has more weight. Unmarked plural has both facets of individuality and collectivity, but collectivity has more weight. If nouns with collectivity are combined with plural form of 'deul' with individuality, it indicates individuality in collectivity. On contrary, unmarked plural forms with collectivity are combined with nouns with individuality, collectivity has more weight. The third semantic function is animacy. The plural form of deul is used for animate objects rather than inanimate ones, and nouns with more animacy has more individuality. Likewise, it was discovered that plural forms of deul have close relations with individuality and animacy. This study analysed grammatical categories of deul and its semantic functions. Because of various distribution of 'deul', it can be considered as a dependent noun and a special suffix and it was discovered that its combination does not appear regularly as it has plural forms as well as singular although it is not combined.