英語의 被動者 主語構文에 關한 硏究

Abstract

영어문장 중에는 용법이 특이한 구문이 존재하는데, 이것은 동사에 대한 주어의 관계가 보통이 아닌 구문들 이다. 이들 동사는 모두 타동사와 관계가 있는 자동사인데, 이 구문에서는 동사의 의미상의 피동사(patient)인 명사구(NP)가 주어가 되고 의미상의 행위자(agent)는 표면구조에서 사라지고, 동사는 그대로 능동형으로 남어, 자동사적 역할을 하게 된다. 이러한 구문을 보통의 문장인 행위자주어구문(agent-subject construction)에 대하여, 피동사주어구문(patient-subject construction)이라 하겠다(이하 PSC라 칭함). 형식적으로 PSC와 피동사가 역시 주어의 위치에 오게되는 수동형문장과의 차이점은 동사가 전자에서는 능동형이고 후자에서는 수동형(조동사 be+동사의 과거분사)이라는 것이다. 의미상으로는 동사의 행위에 대한 요인이 어디에 있으냐에 있어서 두구문이 완전히 다른데 전자에 있어서는 피동자이고 후자에 있어서는 의미상의 주어이다. 모든 타동사를 가진 보통의 문장에서 목적어(피동자)를 주어의 위치로 옮기고 본래의 주어인 행위자를 삭제하므로서 타동사를 자동사로 변경시킨다고, 모든 문장이 옳은(well-formed) PSC가 되는 것은 아니고, 이 구문이 여러 방법에 의하여 -부사, 부사구, 종속절, 동사, 주어 등-제약을 받고 있다. 어떤 경우에 이 구문은 부사를 요구하고 어떤 경우에 부사를 요구하지 않는지? PSC가 어순을 바꾸는(permute) 방법에 있어서의 변화성(variability), 등에 대하여 미해결의 문제가 많다. 그러나 한가지 명백한 것은 PSC의 주어인 피동자 또는 그의 속성이 동사의 행위에 대한 요인이 된다는 것이다. 다시 말해서 행위의 피동자가 어느 정도 행위자로서의 역할을 한다고 우리가 주장하고 싶을 때 PSC는 사용된다. PSC의 존재는 언어학 이론에 여러 중요한 결과를 가져오는데, 예를들면, 어떤 동사가 PSC가 될 수 있느냐의 여부는 그 동사의 의미구조(semantic structure)를 추정하는데 도움이 되고, 이 구문을 유치하게 되는 일차적 원인인 책임(responsibility)은 의지(volition)나 통제(control) 같은 것 보다 더 중요한 주어의 속성이라는 것이다. 또한 영어에 있어서 행위자나 피동자는 별개의 격(case)이 아니라, 하나의 명사는 같은 문장에서 동시에 행위자의 속성과 피동자의 속성을 갖게 된다는 것을 PSC는 보여주고 있다. 아직은 이 구문에 대하여 해결하여야 할 많은 문제가 남아 있으며 앞으로의 활발한 연구가 요망된다.;The purpose of this thesis is to find out the semantic characteristics of the patient -subject construction and some restrictions imposed on this construction. After stating the outline of the thesis in Chapter Ⅰ, I reviewed some previous studies on intransitive use of the transitive verbs in Chapter Ⅱ. Traditional grammar did not have any concept of patient-subject construction, and accordingly no satisfactory study had been done on this construction; Jesperson (1933) classified the intransitive use of the transitive verbs into a few classes and collected many examples of the verbs. And he observed that the verbs of motion and change are frequent in double employment as transitive and intransitive, and when such verbs are used thus intransitively, we very often think of a thing as moved of itself or through an inward impulse. Curme (1947) and Eckersley and Eckersley (1960) simply collected examples and sorted them into several different classes. However, they did not bother to analyze the intransitive use of transitive verb semantically. Schibsbye (1965) made an important observation that intransitive formulation often connotes something characteristics of the subject rather than action. Traditional grammarians seem to have been aware of the existence of the particular type of intransitive verbs (corresponding to the patient-subject verbs), but they did not try to discover some underlying regularity of the intransitive verbs. In Chapter Ⅲ, I compared the patient-subject construction with other constructions, such as the passive and the agent-subject constructions. Semantically the patient-subject construction is similar to the passive in that both have the patient-subjects. But formally they are different in that with passive the verb receives a marked morphology, whereas with the patient-subject construction there is no such marking. Because of the above reasons, the patient-subject construction has usually been called 'middle' voice. The patient-subject in the patient-subject construction bears partial responsibility for the action of the predicate which in the agent-patient construction porperties of the agent subject normally assumes. In Chapter Ⅳ, I summarized an analysis of the patient-subject construction by Van Oosten(1977) and Lakoff(1977). Van Oosten claims that when the patient is made the subject of the sentence, it or a property it has is understood to be responsible for the action of the verb, that is, the choice of subject depends on what the speaker sees as most responsible for the successful occurrence of the action of the verb. She also observed that the construction is restricted in its occurrence, however, in many mysterious ways: the type of adverb, another clause, verb and subject influence the acceptability of the patient-subject construction. Lakoff observed that the choice of subject seems to be controlled by a process of partial pattern matching, and the agent typically gets expressed as subject. He thinks that it is a matter of matching a grammatical property, subjecthood, with the corresponding cluster of agent properties such as primary responsibility, control and volition. He claims that the point of using the patient-subject construction is to show that the patient is responsible for what happens. In the patient-subject construction subjecthood(grammatical property) pairs with primary responsibility(semantic property). In Chapter Ⅴ, I studied about 1,500 verbs from A to M in two dictionaries; Longman's Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1978) and Omungak's New English-Korean Dictionary (1978). I randomly chose about 30 agent-patient sentences and transformed them into patient-subject constructions to find out the difference of meanings in both constructions. I also, collected some verbs which do not allow patient-subje ct construction and tried to find out the reason why they are not allowed as patient-subject construction. I, also, contrasted patient-subject construction with passive construction As a result of my investigation, I found out that patient-subject construction is used when the patient-subject in the construction has the primary responsibility for the action of the verb, and adverbial modifications, chiefly adverb of manners, are added to the construction to clarify the meaning, and our knowledge of the world affaire helps us in deciding the well-formed patient-subject construction. Chapter Ⅵ is the conclusion; I mentioned several important consequences of patient-subject construction. In short, the patient-subject in patient-subject construction has the primary responsibility which is one of the agent properties.