Sur Une Construction N0N1-Ita en Coreen

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe a class of sentences containing a noun in -ita, which are equivalent to an adjectival predicate. This set of sentences is of the form N0 W N1-ita (where -ita can be translated as one of the uses of être in French). Indeed, for this type of sentence: Léa-nín motín il-e (yôlsông + pulman)-ita Léa-Top everything-Pc (passion + discontent)-ita (Léa is (passionate about + discontented with) everything) we observe that N1-ita answers to the question ôtôha-(how), and not to nuku(who)/muôs(what). Further, N1-ita allows for an indication of intensity or comparison, but N1 can take no modifiers. This kind of predicate, with a human subject (noted Nsp-ita), shares some fundamental properties with an adjectival predicate. From this point of view, it is different from other types of N -ita predicates, such as: Max-nîn (haksäng + honsu-sangthä)-ita Max-Top (student + coma-state)-ita (Max is (a student + in a coma)) i congi-nîn (semo-k'ol + pola-säk)-ita this paper-Top (triangle-form + violet-color)-ita This paper is of (triangular form + violet color)) The fact that Nsp-ita (like SC-cok-ita) resembles the derived adjectives N1-hata or N1-sîlôpta puts into question the current definition of -ita: if -ita, in Nsp-ita, is analyzed as a particle attached to a noun, we would have no adjective in -ita, but only nouns. Under the hypothesis of a support term (here, the adjective supporting the predicative noun), we whould have only the adjective (ita). Finally, if we analyze this kind of -ita as an adjectival suffix, the data Nsp-ita and SC-côk-ita would all make up the entire corpus of adjectives. We underline the fact that this problem is not a simple question of terminology when one is trying to set up a corpus of adjectives for constructing a lexicon-grammar, even though the present study is limited to the classification and description of the nouns that make up the predicate Nsp-ita.