활동(motion)∙소비(consumption)∙창조(creation) 동사의 사건 구조에 대한 연구:생성 어휘부 이론을 중심으로

Abstract

Since Vendler (1967), the verbal aspect has been one of the most important issues in the Lexical Semantics. In particular, the differentiation between activity verbs and accomplishment ones is the very tough problem for many lexical semanticists. Motion verbs like push (Eng.) or mil-ta (Kor.) are obvious activities and creation verbs like build (Eng.) or cis-ta (Kor.) behave as clear accomplishment, while consumption verbs like eat (Eng.) or mek-ta (Kor.) express activities or accomplishment. Therefore, this paper aims to suggest the Event Structure of motion/consumption/creation verbs based on the Generative Lexicon Theory by Pustejovky (1995, 2000a, 2000b). As for the argument structure, three kinds of verbs are different from one another in terms of incrementality, quantization, and lexical closure as follws: This paper also analyzes the internal event structures of these three type verbs considering the causation and the event persistent structure with the opposition structure. Motion verbs do not belong to the causation because their themes are not affected. They, however, have the transitivity and their event structures are complex. Consumption verbs also denote complex events and the causation because their themes are incremental and affected. On the other hand, creation verbs also express the complex events, but their themes are not affected. So the complexity of the event is determined by means of the transitivity. But, the events related to these three types of verbs imply the change and the more minute examination is required. Thus, I investigate their internal event structures using the event persistence structure (EPS) and the event overlapping. Motion verbs belongs to the persistent function, while consumption verbs and creation verbs mean the gate function. The latter ones are different in terms of the changing aspect. Consumption verbs means the change related to the polar property, but creation verbs express the change with the binary property. In addition, motion verbs have the overlapped complex events, and consumption verbs express the partially overlapped ones. On the contrary, the event structures of creation verbs are strictly ordered, and creation verbs are the typical accomplishment verbs.