Syncretism of Semantic Categories of Old English Multifunctional Suffixes

• 영문명: Syncretism of Semantic Categories of Old English Multifunctional Suffixes
• 발행기관: 한국영어학학회
• 저자명: 김유강
• 간행물 정보: 『영어학연구』제29권 4호, 1~21쪽, 전체 21쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2023.11.30

영문 초록

Semantic categories like Action, Agent, Instrument, and Place are frequently marked by the same derivational affix in European Languages (e.g., player (Agent), steamer (Instrument), and diner (Place)); therefore, it has been widely accepted that the synchronic syncretism of the semantic categories results from semantic extension from Action through Agent and Instrument up to Place (Panagl 1975, 1978, Dressler 1980, 1986, Booij 1986, 2007, Luján 2010). In this paper, I investigate Old English (OE) multifunctional derivational suffixes and the cross-linguistic distribution of the semantic categories along the semantic extension axis. A closer look at the synchronic distribution of the categories reveals that some OE instances of the syncretism have not arisen by semantic extension, and the scenario about semantic transitions of the categories is hypothetical at least in the cases of the OE suffixes. I argue that the syncretism should be understood, instead, as the result of change in the status of semantic features comprising the categories, and that my feature-based analysis gives more reliable insights into the mechanism underlying the cross-linguistic recurrence of linguistic patterns.

목차

1. Introduction

2. OE Multifunctional Derivational suffixes

3. Empirical Evidence Against the Semantic Extension/Map Approach

4. Multifunctionality and Feature Change

5. Conclusion

References

키워드

Old English suffix action agent instrument place semantic extension