Rethinking “5 bun meonjeo garyeoda 50 nyeon meonjeo ganda”(‘One would die 50 years earlier if he tries to go 5 minutes earlier.’)
Dongju Choi · Korean Semantics · 2021
The purpose of this paper is to reanalyse the Korean slogan “5 bun meonjeo garyeoda 50 nyeon meonjeo ganda”(a warning against wild driving) within conceptual blending theory, which was analysed in Kwon(2013). The results are as follows. First, the adverb “meonjeo”(‘earlier’) evokes two input spaces. One is the space about arriving at the destination earlier and the other is an alternative space about arriving at the expected time. In the blend there are two people going to the same destination, and their positions can be compared. This is a mirror network. Second, “ga-”(‘go’) of “50 nyeon meonjeo ganda” means ‘die’ by metaphorical blending, which is a single-scope network. Third, the whole slogan is constructed by blending into cause-effect relation of the intention space (“5 bun meonjeo ～”) and the resulting unintended situatiuon space(“50 nyeon meonjeo ～”), which is a double-scope network. Finally, the slogan is understood as a warning through blending with the space of warning frame, which can be regarded as a simplex network.