Suffixal taeng-i derivatives denoting pejoration in Korean

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explain the semantic and formal characteristics of ‘taeng-i'. ‘taeng-i’ is widely used as a suffix in ‘pejoration’. However, aside from the meaning ‘pejoration’, it is also used in ‘emphasis’, even for ‘affection’ and ‘intimacy’, presenting positive connotations. Like so, the meaning of ‘taeng-i’ can include from ‘pejoration’ and ‘emphasis’ to ‘affection’ and ‘intimacy’ because of their commonality in which the speaker uses such words to evaluate a subject. On the other hand, the most reasonable explanation of how the term ‘taeng-i’ was created is that it derived from diminutive. This is to say, from a cross-linguistic perspective, diminutives also include meaning from ‘pejoration’ and ‘emphasis’ to ‘affection’ and ‘intimacy’. Moreover, there is an important factor to consider that ‘taeng-i’ shares the base with other similar suffixes in its form and meaning such as ‘ttaeng-i, pang-i, tung-i, ‘jab-i, jaeng-i, tae-gi, du-la-ji, dung-a-li, and dung-i’ to form synonyms.