Czym jest CHCENIE w języku koreańskim? Morfologia i semantyka konstrukcji wolitywnych
Conceptualization and Grammaticalization of WANT in Korean – Morphology and Semantics of Volitional Forms

Author(s): Gwangseok Kim, Romuald Huszcza
Subject(s): Morphology, Syntax, Semantics
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Korean language; semantics; syntax; grammaticalization; the notion of want / desire and its adjectival and verbal conceptualization
Summary/Abstract: The Korean volitional sentence pattern -ko sipta -고 싶다 is – from the typological point of view – an original example of grammaticalization where the final predicate sipta 싶다 itself belongs to the category of adjectives. Contrary to this, in most natural languages, including Polish and English, the notion of want is grammaticalized as a verbal predicate. Moreover, the Korean form -ko sipta -고 싶다 in its uses is strongly connected with the meaning of the 1st and 2nd person, while the 3rd person uses are based on the verbal predicate -ko sipŏ hada -고 싶어 하다, morphologically derived from the basic adjectival construction. The basis for the above-mentioned conceptualization scheme are specific perception mechanisms of mental and emotional phenomena. Thus, such concepts as feature, spiritual property or mental state prevailed here over the concepts of active behavior, process or action. An important role was also played by epistemic limitations of direct knowledge and higher degree of certainty. These limitations are confirmed in the fact that only the 1st person uses of -ko sipta -고 싶다 are acceptable in declarative sentences, while the 2nd person uses can be acceptable in questions or suppositions only. However, the 3rd person uses, when the speaker has no access to direct source of knowledge on others’ feelings or desires, are acceptable only with verbal predicates, where behavioral conceptualization of desire is observed.

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