A Comparative Analysis of Grammaticalization of English and Korean Adpositions

The objective of this paper is twofold: examining the adpositional systems in English and Korean from a grammaticalization perspective, and comparing the two systems to show commonalities and differences. Based on the description of these adpositional systems, we attempt to identify theoretical implications of the findings and offer explanations. Focusing on such theoretical issues as frequency, source characteristics, form-meaning isomorphism, conceptual division, and semantic change patterns, it is argued here that the two languages show differences not only in recruiting source lexemes but also in the patterns of grammaticalization processes. These differences are attributable to the different syntagmatic environments in these two typologically dissimilar languages. In particular, some of the differences are attributable to the idiosyncrasy of the two languages, such as heavy reliance on verb serialization and preposition-adverb intercategorial fluidity. It is also shown that certain morphosyntactic change mechanisms as well as some semantic change mechanisms are commonly operative in the two languages.