Morphological Types and Similarity Judgment in Korean Adverb Synonym Pairs
Hwan-il Yoo · Korean Semantics · 2024
This study investigated whether there are statistically significant differences in semantic similarity assessments, as judged by humans, based on the morphological types of adverb synonym pairs. We aimed to elucidate the perception of semantic similarity judgment of contemporary Korean speakers and derive linguistic implications. The data used in this study is NIKLex(Version 1.0). First, we classified 926 pairs of adverb synonyms into analytical and non-analytical types based on morphological manipulations. Then, within the analytical type, we further subdivided them into metathesis(4 pairs) where morphological inverting is found, augmentatives(358 pairs) where morphological addition or reduction is observed, and replacives(215 pairs) types where morphological replacement is detected. When considering analytical and non-analytical types, statistically significant differences in the types of synonym pairs were observed, and the similarity of analytical types was evaluated to be higher. Thus, it can be concluded that synonym pairs with high morphological similarity, enabling the understanding of underlying structures, are perceived as more similar within the cognition of contemporary Korean speakers compared to types with simple semantic similarity. Furthermore, when considering four specific subtypes, contemporary Korean speakers perceive adverb synonyms with altered morphological order, termed metathesis as the most similar. Additionally, augmentatives are recognized to have very high similarity. Moreover, this type exhibits a highly productive distribution quantitatively. Subsequently, types with morphological substitution, termed replacives and those considered difficult for analytical approaches, referred to as non-analytical types are perceived to have lower similarity. Finally, we extensively addressed issues related to usage and frequency, the relationship between iconicity, and the recognition of the functions of affixes and base, in connection with the perceived similarity derived from the above.