합성명사에서의 의미 전이와 관습화

Meaning Transfer and Conventionalization in Compounding Words

  The aim of this paper is to investigate when metaphorical meaning occurs in compound nouns. In compound words, transferred meaning may occur during or before the process of compounding. We treat this matter in the term of psychological processes which operate in production and interpretation of compounding words. We argue ‘conventionalization’ of the transferred meaning offers the key of solution. In metaphoric expressions, if the transferred meanings have been conventionalized to the lexical meaning of source nouns, meaning-transfer occurs before compounding. In the rest metaphoric expressions, meaning-transfer occurs during compounding. Conventionalizations of the transferred meaning take place in two domains, one of which is individual word level, and the other is schema level. The consistency of transferred meanings and the frequencies of source nouns play a critical roles in conventionalization. In conventionalization of transferred meanings of individual word level, token frequency of those words is important factor. The conventionalization of transferred meanings in schema level depends on type frequency of members of the schema. (Kunsan University)