Inflective constructions in German and Korean

Abstract

This article is a study of inflectives and their constructions in German and Korean. They are assigned to the category "inflective" because of the medial functions that they perform in different media genres and the structural features they exhibit in the two languages. Their basic medial function in media communication is to mark the boundary of the utterance in direct speech and to function as action, state, emotion, and setting details. Structural features characteristic of the inflective construction are non-inflectedness of the inflective stems, subjectlessness and inflective-final position. The comparative analysis undertaken in this study shows that these structural features together serve to characterize the underlying medial function assigned to this category. The study also shows that, in addition to the medial function, knowledge of grammar and communicative efficiency are also involved in the formation of structural features, so that they can be regarded as constitutive components of inflectives and their constructions. These can thus be regarded as a result of the inter-action of the components identified.