The borrowing of the character “Mou” (某) originally meaning “sour plum” as a pronoun should lag far behind the spoken language. Therefore, the pronoun “Mou” (某) in the Chinese literature can no longer explain its origin. Through cognate affiliation and related analogy, it is inferred that the pronoun “Mou” (某) should go through such a stage of development as “negative indefinite pronoun to indefinite pronoun, and then to specific pronoun”. From the etymological point of view, the earliest usage of “Mou” (某) should be a negative indefinite pronoun. Zhou Guangye of the Qing Dynasty thought that the use of “Mou” (某) as a pronoun began with taboo, which was not the source of its pronoun usage. The usage of the word “Mou” (某) used as a taboo should be the third stage of its development.

Since the Korean pronoun system does not specify gender indication, Korean speakers of English tend to have difficulties when they use English pronouns. This paper explores how absence of obligatory gender marking in Korean affects gender errors in the production of English. Gender pronoun errors made by Korean learners of English were analyzed using recordings of English conversations of seven Korean subjects. Findings of this study revealed that Korean English learners struggled with the use of gender pronouns due to differences in gender pronoun systems between Korean and English. Both gender-neutrality and pro-drop practices do not require Korean speakers to pay close attention to gender factors when using pronouns in their native language, resulting in native language interference. Considering that the Korean language lacks specific gender orientation in its usage of pronouns whereas English requires clear gender specification, findings of this study imply that native language gender concept can influence second language use.

Despite previous research on the use of the first-person pronoun in academic writing, it has rarely been studied in L2 writing and learner corpus research. In this study, the pronoun I was analyzed and compared between native speaking (NS) and Korean nonnative speaking (NNS) corpora of English argumentative writing samples. To identify differences in its discourse functions, three categories (essay commentator, experience provider and opinion provider) were formulated. The findings show that the normalized frequency of the pronoun was higher in the learner corpus. However, the pronoun occurred less frequently within individual essays but was found in more essays. Unlike the NS corpus, the opinion provider occurs more frequently than the experience provider in the learner corpus. For the opinion provider, Korean students usually selected the verb think. The present study suggests the need to develop students’ awareness of the discursive usage of the pronoun and expand their repertoire of metadiscursive devices.

The English language does not possess a 3rd person singular epicene pronoun normally used in a sex-indefinite or gender-neutral context, so the masculine 3rd person singular “he” has taken the role for over centuries. However, many researchers have indicated that generic he is not exclusively sex-neutral in that it evokes masculine imagery. For this reason, in English speaking countries, singular they has successfully evolved as an alternative to generic he. Nevertheless, in the Korean EFL setting, where the importance of English education has been emphasized, the actual use and perception of the English epicene pronoun has rarely been considered. In this context, this study investigated Korean EFL learners’ use and perception of the 3rd person epicene pronoun in sex-neutral contexts. The research observed that generic he was the learners’ most preferred choice of pronoun though it indeed evoked masculine images, whereas singular they was neither widely accepted, nor often used. The present study also determined to what extent the use and perception of epicene pronouns were related to and affected by linguistic and biographical variables. It was also demonstrated that simplicity in epicene pronoun use could have assumed priority over nonsexist expression among some Korean EFL learners. The present study has implications in that it contributes to epicene pronoun education in Korean EFL settings, and to build awareness in Korean EFL learners regarding the issue of sex bias in language.

본고는 조선조 초기에 편찬한 高麗史 列傳에 나타난 二人稱代名詞中平稱詞에 대한 연구이다. 중국의 고문에서 사용된 二人稱平稱詞의 종류는 ‘汝’, ‘女’, ‘若’, ‘而’, ‘爾’, ‘乃’, ‘戎’ 등 7가지로 다양하다. 고려조에 발간된 三國史記와 三國遺事에서는 ‘汝’․‘爾’․‘若’․‘而’ 등 4 가지의 이인칭 평칭사가 두 책에서 동시에 수용되어 사용되었으나, 조선조에 발간한 高麗史에는 고려시대에 사용되던 ‘而’가 사용되지 않고, ‘而‘와 통사적 특성이 동일한 ‘乃’가 새로 사용되었다. ‘汝’․‘爾’․‘若 등은 그대로 사용되었으나, ‘女’․‘而’․‘戎’ 등은 수용되지 않았다. 이들의 통사적 특성을 분석하면 중국의 고문에서 쓰인 용법과는 달리 쓰여진 면이 보이고, 또한 三國史記나 三國遺事에서의 용법과 다른 점도 발견된다, 개개대명사의 특성을 살펴보면 다음과 같다. ‘汝’는 중국의 문장에서와는 달리 修飾語와 被修飾語사이에 관형격 조사 ‘之’가 배합되는 유형이 나타난다. 그리고 중국의 고대 문장에서는 ‘汝’가 관형어로 잘 쓰이지 않는 현상이 특징이었으나 􋺷高麗史􋺸에서는 관형어로 쓰인 경우가 주어나 목적어로 쓰인 횟수와 대등하게 나타나고 있다. ‘若’은 모두 ‘若等’․‘若輩’․‘若曹’ 등의 복수의 형태를 취하여 문장의 主語와 冠形語로만 사용되었다. ‘爾’는 단독으로 쓰여 복수를 나타내는 경우가 있고, 관형어로 쓰인 ‘爾’와 被修飾語사이에 ‘之’가 배합된 유형이 나타난다. 그리고 지시대명사로 쓰인 경우가 있는데 중국에서는 遠稱(彼), 근칭(此), 不定稱 (其)등으로 쓰였으나 高麗史에는 ‘近稱’과 ‘遠稱’으로 쓰였다. ‘乃’는 三國史記나 三國遺事에서는 이인칭대명사로 사용되지 않았다, 高麗史에는 대명사로 사용되었는데, 모두 관형어로 사용되었다. 이러한 현상은 중국에서 ‘乃’가 관형어로만 사용된 어법상의 특성이 조선조에 다시 수용되었다.

본고는 朝鮮朝 초기에 간행된 『高麗史』 列傳에 나타난 二人稱代名詞 중 謙稱詞의 특성을 분석하였다. 『高麗史』 列傳에서 사용된 謙稱詞는 크게 세 가지로 분류된다. 신하가 임금에게 자신을 표현한 경우는 臣, 小臣, 老臣, 微臣, 下臣, 陪臣, 愚臣, 犬馬 등이 사용되었고, 임금이 신하에게 사용한 경우는 寡人, 寡躬, 寡君, 孤, 不穀, ?昧 등이 사용되었다. 그리고 그 외의 관계에서 사용한 경우는 老夫, 僕, 妾 등이 사용되었다. 먼저 이 겸칭사들을 중국에서 사용된 형태적 특성과 비교 분석하였고, 다음으로 高麗朝에 발간된 『三國史記』, 『三國遺事』에서 사용된 특성과도 비교 분석하였다. 이러한 연구를 통해 『高麗史』 列傳에 사용된 개개 謙稱詞들은 중국에서 사용된 특성이 그대로 유지되는 것과 조선조에서 달리 변용된 것이 분석되었고, 고려조에서 사용된 形態的 特性도 조선조에서 변화된 것을 볼 수 있었다.

The present study investigates the collocations of the first person plural possessive pronoun in order to identify L1 influence in Korean EFL learners' writing, in comparison with native English speakers’ writing. From a cognitive linguistic perspective, this learner corpus research focuses on the use of the first person pronoun OUR in English, which seems to be negatively transferred by somewhat peculiar usages of the Korean equivalent pronoun wuli. The contrastive interlanguage analysis first shows that Korean learners significantly overuse first person plural pronouns whereas they significantly underuse first person singular pronouns, compared to native English speakers. Second, it also indicates that the distribution of frequencies of the ‘OUR + noun’ collocations according to a classification based on the Sejong Corpus seems very similar in both corpora, and that the frequencies are likely to be dependent upon specific individual collocates. Third, Korean learners appear to particularly overuse six specific ‘OUR + noun’ collocations rather than ‘MY + noun’ collocations, which can be argued to be empirical evidence of L1 influence. The findings of the present study are expected to provide valuable implications to English language teaching in classroom in Korea.

We claim in this paper that null arguments are a pronoun linked to a topic in their minimal CP domain. This claim is basically a unification of the following three existing proposals accounting for null argument phenomena: flexible null topic analysis that null arguments are bound by a flexible topic, pro analysis that they are a pronoun, and a proposal that pronouns are linked to CP edge. We show that this unified analysis nicely deals with distribution and interpretation of null arguments in Korean.