Tense-Aspect Systems of Late Medieval Japanese and Modern Korean : The Problem of Grammaticalization(<Special Issue>Grammaticalization in Japanese)

Abstract

This paper makes the following observations which are typologically meaningful. Although it has rarely been mentioned, the tense-aspect systems of Late Medieval Japanese and Modern Korean have some common features: In both languages, the standard past forms -ta/-ess-ta can also express the present situation, like the resultative, and the basic verb forms of both languages can also express the present situation, like the progressive. The reason that the two languages have these common features can be explained from the viewpoint of grammaticalization. The paper presents some evidence to show that the lexical meaning of existential verbs iru, aru/iss-ta in both languages has a great influence on the usage of the aspect forms -teiru, -tearu/-ko iss-ta, -e(a)iss-ta. That is, the degree of grammaticalization of -teiru, -tearu/-ko iss-ta, -e(a)iss-ta is relatively low. The paper also argues that in both languages, the standard past forms-ta/-ess-ta and the basic verb forms express the present situation in order to compensate for the insufficiency of the aspect forms in these languages. The paper proposes that both languages are at similar stages in the progress of the change from the aspect forms to the tense forms. In addition to this, the tense-aspect systems of both languages show a pattern of the grammaticalization in which the usage of aspect forms extends under the influence of the meaning of "existence."