한국언어과학회

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the semantics of the taste term sweetness by comparing two representative predicates tal- in Korean and tian in Chinese. To do this, we mainly focus on their uses and distributions in proverbs in each language. After reviewing the dictionary meaning of each predicate, we compare how various (extended) meanings can be derived in the proverb by utilizing the syntagmatic relations induced in the interpreting process of proverbs. As a result, we present six criteria to specify the core semantics of each term: 'positive taste description,’ ‘positive emotion (or judgment or attitude),’ ‘positive description on various situations,’ ‘the direct expression on benefit,’ ‘negative/positive flavors derived through the contrast with the taste term bitterness’, and ‘the residual meaning which rests on the causal relation conveyed in some proverbs.’ Concomitantly, we also pay attention to which words are closely related to tal-/tian, and thus more frequently used in proverbs. Given their distributions based on the semantic co-occurrence, it is briefly discussed which semantic features play a crucial role to specify the overall usages and meanings of tal-/tian in Korean/Chinese proverbs.