earticle

영어

The study examines inanimate subjects in transitive emotive verbconstructions as in '-을 기쁘게 하다‘(to make - happy) to determine ifthey are unique to translated texts as a result of being importedfrom English or equally observable in authentic Korean texts. Traditionally, such a construction has been viewed as unacceptablein Korean as its grammar construes only conscious human subjects as capable of such emotive actions as making someone happy. Yet,instances of inanimate entities bringing emotive impacts on humansubjects are spotted in authentic Korean texts. The present studyanalyzes a translational corpus of translations of contemporaryEnglish novels and a comparable corpus of Korean novels in thesame genres of general fiction to find out if the two differsignificantly. The results show little statistically significantdifference, indicating that inanimate subjects in transitive emotiveverb constructions are a feature not unique to translated Korean butshared by authentic Korean as well.