이 논문은 Sweetser(1990)의 개념영역(概念域) 이론과 Traugott(1995)의 주관성 이론으로 중국어 ‘如果’와 한국어 ‘-(으)면, -거든’ 가정조건문의 의미적 특성을 고찰하고 대조하였다. 의미의 개념영역은 현실 세계 영역(行域), 인식 영역(知域)과 화행 영역(言域) 등 세 개의 하위분류로 나눌 수 있다. ‘如果’ 조건문과 ‘-(으)면’ 조건문은 현실 세계 영역에서 조건-결론 관계를 나타낼 수 있다. 이때 ‘如果’ 조건문은 ‘-(으)면’ 조건문보다 인과 관계의 객관성이 더 엄격하게 요구되고 주관성도 더 약하다. 인식 영역으로의 의미 확장은 범주 은유의 작용 결과이다. 인식 영역에서 ‘如果’ 조건문과 ‘-(으)면’ 조건문은 의미적 기능이 비슷하다. 화행 영역에서 ‘如果’와 ‘-(으)면’에 비해 ‘-거든’ 조건문은 조건과 결론에 대한 제약이 더 많다. 대부분 경우에 ‘-거든’은 화행 영역에서만 조건 의미가 있고 인식 영역과의 의미 중첩 현상을 가끔 보인다.

The current study focused on acquisition of If-conditionals by L2 learners of English with two different native tongues, Spanish and Korean, and with two different proficiency levels, high and low. An experiment with two subparts, each focusing on production and comprehension respectively, was performed in order to explore which factor among input frequencies, grammatical complexities and L1 influence best explains the acquisition of If-conditionals by L2 learners. The results from both production and comprehension data suggest that If-conditionals with lower hypotheticality are acquired before than those with higher hypotheticality by L2learners, just as they are by children learning their L1, and hierarchies of input frequencies best explain the acquisition order of If-conditionals. At this point, it is not possible to distinguish between influences of input frequencies and typological universals, as they coincide. One thing for sure is that both L1 and L2 acquisitions seem to be influenced by them, suggesting the universality of language acquisition. Influence of instruction, on the other hand, was also found, especially in the production data of the higher-level L2 learners. Even though there were no differences in the acquisition order of If-conditionals between the two groups of learners with different L1 backgrounds, the influence of L1 was also found in the analysis of non-target forms produced by learner participants.