공포(terror)'와 관련된 단어의 문법화에 대한 연구 - 'terribly'와 'afraid'를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines the meaning changes of adverbs and adjectives related with ‘terror’ in the perspective of grammaticalization. Terribly, awfully, dreadfully, tremendously, and horribly are originated from ‘terror’ or ‘fear’ related words. But in colloquial English they are used as emphatic markers to show hyperbolical intensive of speakers, meaning ‘excessively, extremely, very greatly.’ In this article, terribly is chosen to be representative of the adverbs mentioned just above to avoid the overlap of similar analyses. A politeness marker afraid is also derived from some ‘fear’ related word, meaning ‘I am sorry to say that....’ The meaning changes of terribly and afraid can be accounted for in terms of the mechanisms of grammaticalization such as metonymy, metaphor, generalization and subjectification. The conventionalization of implicature induces derived meanings to exist with the original ones together. Grammaticalization offers more comprehensive views to grasp the motivations of the meaning changes because it presents diachronic as well as synchronic descriptions of language phenomena.