Leiden University Student Repository

Ravenhorst, Jeroen van 2020

Korean verbs of perception

Bachelor thesis | Taalwetenschap (BA)

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This thesis is a descriptive account of the form, function, and meaning of Korean verbs of perception in the modalities of SIGHT, HEARING, TOUCH, FEEL, TASTE and SMELL. I categorize the perception...Show moreThis thesis is a descriptive account of the form, function, and meaning of Korean verbs of perception in the modalities of SIGHT, HEARING, TOUCH, FEEL, TASTE and SMELL. I categorize the perception verbs by means of Viberg’s (1983) dynamic system of perception events, distinguishing ACTIVITIES, EXPERIENCES and STATES for each of the six modalities. Focussing on experiencer-based expressions, I find that Korean verbs of SIGHT, HEARING, FEEL, and SMELL do not lexically distinguish between an ACTIVITY and an EXPERIENCE. Stimulus-based verbs derive from experiencer-based basic verbs by means of middle marking. I also find that Korean obligatorily requires a perceived stimulus rather than a source in the domains of HEARING, FEEL, TASTE, and SMELL. Furthermore, an introductory review of the literature on intrafield ‘polysemy’ reveals inconsistencies in the hierarchical models of perception verbs. I put forward a new model that unifies earlier proposals and includes the extensions from SIGHT to TASTE and FEEL to TASTE found in Korean. Examples were retrieved from the highly contemporary VLIVE (2020) spoken corpus as well as various non-spoken corpora, accessed through the online NAVER Korean-English Dictionary (2020).Show less