Abstract

Among Korean vocabulary, there is an animal noun, ‘gae’ (dog) that has negative meaning though it has intimate relations with people. That is, ‘gae’ forms compound nouns, phrases and proverbs focusing on its negative meanings: ‘Gae’ is not clean; ‘gae’ always reads another’s face; ‘gae’ shits any place; ‘gae’ lines anywhere. Except ‘gae’ of some positive meanings, ‘gae’ of negative meanings seems to have been fixed through the semantic change like vulgarism or slang. This word is combined with other constituents and forms larger noun phrases, idioms and proverbs. The constituent formulas take on ‘gae + noun’ and ‘noun + gae.’ Again, ‘Gae + noun’ is divided into ‘gae+ genuine Korean noun’ and ‘gae + noun of Chinese character.’ There is another formation like ‘modifier + gae’ and ‘gae+ noun + suffix’ and they also form syntactic noun phrases when combined with genitive case marker, locative casemarker, instrumental case marker or commutative case marker. The compound noun phrases connected with ‘gae’ in sentential components become subject components or object components and form the phrases like idioms or proverbs. ○ The formation formulas of noun phrases connected with ‘gae’ are as follows. ① ‘Gae’+noun, noun+‘gae’ ② Modifier + ‘gae’ ③ Noun phrases formed with ‘gae’ + suffix ④ ‘Gae’+ case marker + noun ○ The Negative Semantic Change of ‘Gae’ ① Compound noun ② Syntactic noun phrase ○ The Constituent Relations between ‘Gae’ Compound Nouns and Idioms, Idiomatic Phrases and Proverbs