범주화의 불안정성 : 스와힐리어의 U-부류를 중심으로 = Unstability of Categorization with special reference to Kiswahili U-Noun Class

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Noun class system in Bantu languages is well known not only for its elaborate class division, but also for its marking on its relevant noun using prefixes. Furthermore the head noun in noun phrase controls all its agreement on the adjectival modifiers, On the clause level the subject noun agree with its predicate serving as subject concordant marker. In this way the Kiswahili noun class system seems to be a rigid, fixed, and unchangeable structure, each class construing balanced, harmonized and stable category which fulfil necessary and sufficient conditions for satisfying the relevant classes. So it has been claimed that all given classes have the same status as a member of noun class system However new perspectives are proposed recently, mainly in the circle of cognitive grammarians like Lakoff(1987), and others in grammaticalization school, concerning the nature and its way of categorization.
In this paper we tried to show the basic characteristics of Kiswahili u-class on two levels; namely formal, and semantic aspect of the u-class nouns. As it is well known to Bantu scholars, Kiswahili u-class came originally from Proto-Bantu 11 & 14 classes, which represent mass noun and abstract nouns respectively. So it can be regarded as hybrid class, not only in formal side, but also in semantic one. As for the pattern of agreement u-class does not have its own plural equivalent class as the other typical noun classes have.
Following Contini-Morava's contribution to semantic presentation of u-class noun, we have tried to show the very unstability of categorization, namely this u-class in the semantic side as well as in formal side. So in the same line as the main stream of recent cognitive linguists including grammaticalization scholars, we conclude the categorization be a unstable, or flexible on its nature in the course of language change, also in cognizing the world by speaker and speech communities.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. 서론
• 2. 범주화 이론과 언어분석
• 3. 맺는 말
• 〈참고 문헌〉
• Abstract