고구려 지명 혈구군(穴口郡)의 혈(穴)에 대하여

Abstract

This paper attempts to reconstruct the correct form and meaning of the word kappi (甲比) that corresponds to hyeol (穴) in the Goguryeoic toponym Hyeolgu-gun (穴口郡)which appears in Samguksagi (三國史記).Acouple of hypotheses have been put forth on kappi (甲比). Yang (1942/1965) and Shin (1958) simply said that the word represented the middle Korean word form /kumu/ or /kum/, not to mention the peculiarity involved in the toponym. Lee (1968) made it clear that the word in question represented the Goguryeoic language, referring to ravine, gorge, etc. However, it is emphasized that the Chinese letter hyeol (穴) should be read as given. It is undeniable that the letter itself refers to hole, not to ravine, gorge or river. It is natural to see that the word kappi (甲比) corresponding to hyeol (穴) refers to hole in the toponym. The problemis that it is infelicitous to apply the same word to Ganghwa (江華) island, which is located in front of Gyeonggi-bay (京畿灣) in Korean peninsular. Examining the correspondence relations holding between the previous toponyms and the later or revised ones that appear in Volume 34-37 of Samguksagi, this paper reconstructs the word form/*kapi/ that refers to hole, whichwas applied to a ferry point. The original meaning of /*kapi/ referring to hole shows some metaphorical extension in toponym. The correspondence between the second consonant /*p/ of /*kapi/ and the second one /m/ of /kumu/ iswell attested in the comparative linguistics between Goguryeoic and Old Japanese. This paper claims that these kinds of correspondences can be captured by Abstract Reconstructed Form(ARF) like *KVXW, in which *K stands for the initial consonant, *V the first vowel, *X the second consonant, and *W the second vowel. It can be said that the Goguryeoic /*kapi/ shows the predecessor form of the middle Korean form /kumu/ hole. The Altaic lexical entries representing the semantic category hole in Starostin et al. (2003) are the forms like * kŏbú, *kúmi, and *aƞa. Starostin et al. (2003) lists these entries separately in the lexicon.However, this paper claims that the three forms stemfrom the same root. The form *kŏbú is very similar to Goguryeoic /*kapi/ hole, the form *kúmi is very similar to the Middle Korean /kumu/ id., and the form *aƞa is very similar to Japanese /ana/ id. As far as these three forms can be listed under the same heading, the languages like Mongolian, Tungusic, Turkic and Koreanic with Japonic can be claimed to form an unquestionable language family called Altaic, although the Altaic hypothesis is under severe attack fromthe anti-Altaists like J. Janhunen and A. Vovin etc.