A Comparative Analysis Of The Extended Meanings Of English "Eat" And Korean "(?)"

This paper studies the high-frequency polysemous verbs of "eat" and "(?)" in English and Korean.This paper conducts a semantic analysis of these two verbs and tries to explain the motivations that cause the polysemy mainly from conceptual metaphor and metonymy,as well as etymology when necessary.This research finds out the basic meanings of "eat" and "(?)" are identical.They are both a kind of action done by humans or animals,which is[+ORAL][+CHEW][+S WALLOW][+STOMACH].Moreover,it finds out 6 extended meanings of "eat" and "(?)" are identical.They are "to feel(negative feelings)","to reduce or destroy(something visible)","to use","to inhale directly","to occupy",and "to absorb".This research also finds out that 12 extended meanings of "eat" are specific to the English language,while 8 extended meanings of "(?)" are specific to the Korean language.This research also finds out that conceptual metaphor and metonymy are the main factors that motivate the various extended meanings of both "eat" and "(?)".On the whole,more extension by way of conceptual metaphor and metonymy has been found in "eat" than "(?)" in terms of both NP1 and NP2,especially extension into "space" and "abstraction".NP1s of both "eat" and "(?)" extend from"humans/animals" to "object" and "events",and NP1 of "eat" also extends into"abstraction".NP2s of both "eat" and "(?)" extend generally from "concrete" to"abstract".Besides,the most extended meanings in number have been found "when NP1s of "eat" and "(?)" are both "humans" and their NP2s are both "abstraction",6 in "eat" and 4 in "(?)".Moreover,more extension in NP2s has been found in "eat",namely,extension into "human","animals","space" and "abstraction",while these extension in NP2s has not been found in "(?)".In addition to conceptual metaphor and metonymy,etymology plays a role in the meaning extension of both "eat" and "(?)(?)" such as "to eat humble pie","to eat crow" and "(?)".This research is helpful to the learners and scholars of both Korean and English to understand the polysemous meanings of the high-frequency verbs of both "eat" and"(?)".