A Syntactic Study On The Adverbial Bound Nouns Constructions In Korean

This dissertation attempts to examine the Adverbial Bound Nouns c onstructions which correspond to "Adnominal ending+Adverbial Bound Nouns+postposition" constructions in Modern Korean Grammar. This c onstruction plays a crucial role in Korean Grammar because it functio ns to link verb clause to phrase and phrase to phrase with the same s emantic and syntactic features as connective endings. Thus it is nece ssary to carry a systematical research on it on account of the fact t hat previous studies did not give an exhaustive explanation.The present study aims to probe into the semantic features, synta ctic features and the grammaticalization progress of Adverbial Bound Nouns constructions depending on the analysis of corpus. The methods of observation and description, the explanatory method included, are adopted here. Meanwhile Adverbial Bound Nouns constructions are compa red with connective endings because of the similarity of the two stru ctures. The overall structure is given as follows:In chapter One, the definition and the category of Adverbial Boun d Nouns constructions are given based on the previous studies. All to gether 24 dependency noun phrase structures are selected for the stud y after Adverbial Bound Nouns, along with the elements in front of an d behinds them, are chosen from the Bound Nouns category on the basis of linking preceding and following clauses.The second chapter analyzes the semantic features of Adverbial Bo und Nouns constructions based on the researches which have been done on Adverbial Bound Nouns and connective endings before. First of all, referring to the classification of connective endings, the Adverbial Bound Nouns construction is classified into 8 categories:contrast, background, cause, condition, temporal preceding, purpose, metaphor a nd comparison. At the same time, compared with the semantic features of connective endings, the semantic features of each category are dis cussed in details. It shows that the semantic features of Adverbial B ound Nouns constructions are similar to those of connective endings. And then the semantic system of connective endings can be supplemente d and improved.In chapter Three, the syntactic features are discussed based on t he results in chapter two. Like connective endings, the syntactic fea tures of Adverbial Bound Nouns constructions are also analyzed by sue h criteria as whether the preceding clause shares the same subject wi th the following clause; what are the features of predicate in preced ing clause; how it is used together with prefinal "(?) ", etc. It is f ound that the syntactic features of Adverbial Bound Nouns constructio ns are similar to the syntactic features of connective endings.Chapter Four examines the grammaticalization progress of semantic function of Adverbial Bound Nouns construction synchronically and di achronically. From the synchronical perspective, the changes of Adver bial Bound Nouns constructions in medial, modern, and contemporary Ko rean grammar are observed with the help of former researches. The stu dy mainly focuses on when the dependency noun status was obtained, wh en this construction was put into use as Adverbial Bound Nouns constr uctions, etc. From the diachronical perspective, the analysis is unde rgone from the aspects of the closeness degree of all the elements an d the change of dependency nouns. It shows that though these construe tions are the same in syntactic function, they are different in the d egree of grammaticalization in that they are all in the process of gr ammaticalization.Chapter Five will summarize what have been done in this dissertat ion.