『표준국어대사전』기반 독일어계 외래어의 형태 변화와 품사 분포에 대한 계량적 분석 = A Quantitative Analysis of Morphological Change and Part-of-Speech Distribution of German-Origin Loanwords in Korean: Focusing on Their Integration Patterns in the Standard Korean Language Dictionary

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study conducted a full enumeration of 1,138 headwords in the Standard Korean Language Dictionary whose etymon is explicitly marked as German, and quantitatively analyzed their part-of-speech distribution, types of morphological change, inflectional usability, and disciplinary dispersion. Unlike previous loanword studies, which have focused primarily on English and case-based descriptions, this research provides the first structural, empirical analysis of German-derived loanwords in Korean.
The analysis revealed that, in terms of adoption type (dictionary classification), hybrids combined with Sino-Korean or native morphemes accounted for 59.5%, surpassing German-only entries (40.5%). By word-formation unit, simplex items constituted 51.1%, slightly exceeding compounds (48.9%), indicating an active role of Korean word-formation strategies in the integration of loanwords. In part-of-speech distribution, nouns had the highest registration rate (49.6%), followed by entries marked as “no part of speech” (48.9%). Verbs accounted for only seven cases (0.6%), and other parts of speech appeared at less than 1%. Inflectional usability was generally low, with grammatical integration occurring mainly through affixation in the forms -hada or -doeda, suggesting that while loanwords were semantically integrated, syntactic integration remained limited.
In morphological change type, hybrid forms comprised 58.7%, full borrowing 38.7%, and partial borrowing 2.6%. Among these, seven cases (0.6%) were affixed or derived forms within hybrid types, reflecting tendencies toward derivational expansion according to Korean word-formation rules. By disciplinary field, chemistry (46.05%) accounted for the highest proportion, followed by music, life sciences, medicine, physical education, mining, economics, and philosophy—areas in which Germany has traditionally been strong—indicating that German loanwords have predominantly settled as specialized terminologies in advanced academic and technical domains.
These findings confirm that German loanwords in Korean are not merely phonetic borrowings but are internalized through dynamic interaction with Korean word-formation systems, language policy, and lexicographic practices. The tendencies toward fixed part-of-speech categorization, limited inflection, and hybridization are closely linked to the structural characteristics of Korean as an agglutinative language. This study offers an empirical perspective on the structural aspects of loanword integration and can serve as foundational data for dictionary compilation, language resource development, and loanword policy-making. Future research should incorporate corpus-based usage analysis, comparative studies with loanwords from other languages, and sociolinguistic approaches to explore the multidimensional patterns of loanword integration.