earticle

영어

Contrasting the Classical Japanese and Modern Korean aspectual forms that originated from existential verbs, this paper argues that there is a parallel relationship between the two languages in that both have intentionality as a factor in the choice of aspectual form. First, referring to An and Fukushima (2005) and Kim, Kyung-ae (2006), we confirm the similarity between Classical Japanese and Modern Korean as well as the difference between -ko iss- and -e iss- in Modern Korean. We go on to reveal that there are commonalities in the uses of aspectual forms in Classical Japanese and Modern Korean. One of the similarities between the two languages is that a factor in the choice of aspectual form is whether or not the relevant action or state is maintained by the subject, though the use of the two forms in Korean is not restricted by animacy or genericity. We suggest that the restrictions on animacy and genericity observed in Classical Japanese reflect the semantic difference between the existential verbs iru and aru.