Sino-Korean words composing more than half of Korean vocabulary are the important way by which normal people try to understand Korean language. This article will elaborate the features of the Sino-Korean words used in Korean and their word formation f... Sino-Korean words composing more than half of Korean vocabulary are the important way by which normal people try to understand Korean language. This article will elaborate the features of the Sino-Korean words used in Korean and their word formation from the angle of a Chinese student whose native language is Chinese. The first chapter gives a description of the subject, the objective, and the scope and methods of the study, as well as a brief review of the previous researches. The second chapter mainly explains the concepts and features of the Sino-Korean words. The Sino-Korean words in this article refer to the languages derived from Chinese characters, to which extent, their sources also include Chinese characters created in Korea in addition to those flowing into Korea from China or other countries. Although such Sino-Korean words have been incorporated into Korean language for long, they still keep the features of Chinese characters. As one of the features, the compound words keep smoothness during their formation. The severability of languages generates a productivity-enhancing effect in daily life. The Sino-Korean words also derive plenty of new words in the modern Korean language due to their word-building ability. The third chapter analyses the features of the word formation of the Sino-Korean words. Sino-Korean words comprise simplex words and compound words. The simplex words comprise one-word simplex words and several-word simplex words, while the compound words are divided into derivational words, composite words, reduplicative words and abbreviation words. The Sino-Korean words are different from the original Korean words. It is a problem whether affix words could be set in the Sino-Korean words. Since the parts composing Sino-Korean words are all word stems which have their inherent meanings, it is hard to distinguish word stems from affixes of the Sino-Korean words. The fourth chapter analyses the standards of setting affix words in the Sino-Korean words, explore their utility functions by reference to previous researches, and reaches the conclusion of necessity to set affix words based on the analysis. On the basis of comparison with the system of affix words in Chinese characters, it has been ascertained that the setting of affix words of Sino-Korean words is a unique system different from both Chinese characters and original Korean words. Furthermore, in the Korean Language Dictionary, the Our Words Dictionary, the National Language Dictionary, and the New National Language Dictionary, the Sino-Korean words are divided into eight types as follows: (1) prefix-noun, (2) prefix-determiner, (3) prefix-determiner-noun, (4) determiner-noun, (5) postfix-noun, (6) determiners-postfix, (7) prefix-postfix, and (8) prefix-postfix-noun. The fifth chapter reconfirms the significance of this study on the foundation of summarizing the content of this article. |
