Revolution in Korean Morphology

Abstract

The aim of this research is to inquire into the morphology of Contemporary Korean in order to verify whether the assumption that the global language contact may lead to borrowing of non-lexical structural features, that is linguistic processes, resulting in the existence of similar processes between different distant languages applies to Korean. The emergence of new word-formation processes in Korean under the influence of English offers the possible answer to this question. The research, using the example of Korean, will also try to show that the morphological system considered to be the most closed on the semantic plane begins to open, which could herald even further changes to the language. The multifaceted nature of the new word-formation processes, also referred to as the non-morphemic word-formation processes to which clipping and blending are included, compels the author to focus on one of them – clipping. As the number of various clipped forms, perceived as catchy and fashionable coinages, is constantly growing in Contemporary Korean, the research in Part 2 characterizes the nature of the process referring to descriptions of the process, terminology and possible classifications of the resultant forms. Part 3 presents Korean lexicon from the perspective of clippings with the division into the ‘imported clippings’ that is borrowed clippings and ‘Korean-made clippings’, that is, clippings coined in Korean. Part 4 discusses some of the semantic, morphological and syntactic properties of the forms under investigation.