초록 열기/닫기 버튼
In grammaticalization studies, the notion of 'subjectification' has attracted much attention as a descriptive term or an enabling mechanism of semantic change contingent upon grammaticalization processes. Subjectification, largely referring to the phenomena where the semantics of a grammaticalizing source lexeme changes into one that describes the speaker's internal state or subjective attitude, is often considered to be one of the strong tendencies attested in grammaticalization processes. The cognitive strategy in the opposite direction is objectification, whereby a more abstract notion is treated as a more concrete object. This paper reviews these notions in grammaticalization studies, and presents examples of typical instances of such cognitive operations. It also presents the cases that can be either interpreted as instances of subjectification or of objectification, and those that do not exhibit such cognitive strategies with a definite directionality. Based on these examples, this paper claims that characterization of grammaticalization processes in terms of subjectification and objectification requires considerations including the levels of analyses, such as the lexical level where the semantics of the grammaticalizing form is focused, or the levels of encoding strategies whereby the language user is treating a target concept in linguistic representation.
