인지의미론의 관점에서 본 한국어 ‘-질’ 파생어

Unified Account of Korean -cil Suffixation from the Perspective of Cognitive Semantics

The suffix -cil in Korean seems to take heterogeneous nouns as its bases. For example, sensayng teacher in sensayngcil teaching is an agent, kyeycip woman in kyeycipcil womanizing is a patient and kwayngi hoe in kwayngicil hoeing is an instrument. Therefore, the suffix -cil has been regarded as having various meanings. However, from the viewpoint of cognitive semantics, the various bases of the suffix -cil can be interpreted as consistently referring to an event through metonymy. In sensayngcil teaching, the base sensayng teacher refers to an event through AGENT FOR EVENT metonymy. An agent has a conceptual contiguity with the whole event because it is one element of the event. Similarly, the patient, keyecip woman in keyecipcil womanizing, and the instrument kwayngi hoe in kwayngicil hoeing, as participants of an event, refer to the whole event by the PATIENT FOR EVENT metonymy and the INSTRUMENT FOR EVENT metonymy, respectively. Close examination of -cil suffixation reveals that all the elements in an event can be a base of -cil suffixation because each of them metonymically refers to the whole event. Therefore, it can be concluded that, from the viewpoint of cognitive semantics, seemingly different meanings of the suffix -cil can be unified to one when the different bases consistently interpreted as an event through metonymy.