The Processing and Representation of Korean Auxiliary Verbs in the Mental Lexicon

Hwang, Yu Mi; Yi, Ho Young; Nam, Kichun

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2009;14(2): 173-182.

Yu Mi Hwang^` , Ho Young Yi^` , and Kichun Nam^`

황유미(Yu Mi Hwang)| 이호영(Ho Young Yi)| 남기춘(Kichun Nam)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
The purpose of this study was to investigate the processing and mental representation of main verbs and auxiliary verbs. Korean auxiliary verbs take the same structure as main verbs but their syntactic and semantic functions do not correspond to those of main verbs.
Methods
Nine verbs that can be used as both main and supportive verbs were selected to examine the semantic priming effect during semantically primed lexical decision tasks. For example, the verb form “ga-da(가다)” can be used in the main verb context (철수가 집에 갔다: “Cheol-Su went home”) as well as in an auxiliary verb context (밥이 다 되어 갔다: “The rice was getting almost ready”). These two verb contexts were compared to examine semantic priming effects. In Experiment 1, SOA (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) was controlled for 150ms and in Experiment 2, SOA was controlled for 1,000ms.
Results
The results of this study demonstrate that there is a significant semantic priming effect for the target verb form in both main verb and auxiliary verb contexts when SOA was 150ms (Experiment 1) and 1,000ms (Experiment 2).
Discussion & Conclusion
In conclusion, although Korean auxiliary verbs can be semantically and syntactically distinguished from main verbs, similar processing aspects were observed. Therefore, the relevance of auxiliary verbs to main verbs should be considered when establishing a mental lexicon for auxiliary verbs