時間論 : 지금의 意味

Abstract

With explicit analysis of the temporal expression cikim nowin Korean, this paper attempts a unified interpretation of certain tensed sentences in Korean. The expression cikim closely reflects properties of the present time, both dividing and linking the past and the future. Taking the present time as a logically indivisible moment of time, the expression cikim may fìrst be defined as referring to its neighborhood, an indefìnite interval of time containing the present moment of time. Because of this durative, discrete property of cikim，actions and events in volving the process of change and becoming may take place at the time of cikim, for their occurrence involves more than two moments, or points, of time. Closely related to this neighborhood concept of cikim is its property of being a cIosed interval having the future time as its upper boundary and the past as its lower boundary, and containing both its upper and Iower boundary points. The time cikim thus contains a point of time contained in the past, and another point contained in the future. For this reason, the past events marked by -eSS- in Korean may occur at the present time of cikim, and so is the case with the -kess- marked future events without any logical incongruíty.