Attribution of Human Qualities to Non-Humans: A Look into Human Construal of Events

This paper presents instances of grammaticalization of certain lexemes denoting human properties, showing how cognitive mechanisms such as subjectification, metaphor and metonymy work as an enabling mechanisms of semantic change in grammaticalization, and discusses the implications of these states of affairs on the nature of human conceptualization. Korean has diverse grammatical markers, developed from lexemes that encode human attributes, whose use is not limited to humans but also non-humans such as animals, inanimates, and even abstract entities such as events and propositions (cf. personification ). Among the prominent cases of animacy attribution is the grammaticalization of conative lexemes, such as purposive -lyeko in order to. Another interesting grammaticalization phenomenon involves the verb of desideration such as siph- want , which also developed into markers of grammatical notions. Of significant findings in the analysis of these grammaticalization phenomena are: (i) that humans tend to attribute human qualities, animacy and conation, in particular, to non-human entities, (ii) that humans actively use metaphor and metonymy in grammatical encoding, and that (iii) humans perceive events and states of affairs through active use of subjectification.