Cognitive linguistics approach to semantics of spatial relations in Korean

Abstract

All languages have some ways to talk about the spatial relationship between two entities: a trajector (TR) and a landmark (LM) (Langacker 1987).Every language uses some combination of linguistic mechanisms (prepositions, postpositions, particles, spatial nouns, spatial verbs, adverbs, etc.) to talk about these spatial relations.Previous research on spatial language in Korean has not been performed in a comprehensive manner that considers all of the relevant elements of spatial language.My research attempts to address this gap in the literature by undertaking a comprehensive study to overview all of these spatial terms (i.e., spatial markers, spatial nouns, spatial verbs) in relation to one another while also investigating the complex semantic system of each spatial marker.This study follows a cognitive linguistics perspective, which claims that lexical or grammatical morphemes are meaningful as they are conceptualized as unique image-schema; that multiple meanings of lexical or grammatical morphemes are developed not accidentally or arbitrarily, but rather through regular cognitive processes, including cognitive associations formed by experiential correlations which reflect human physical-spatial experience with a particular spatial scene and humans' abilities to develop natural categories that take part in motivated organized semantic networks.