The Research on Case Marker Alternation in Korean and Corresponding Expressions in Chinese

This paper aims to clarify the universality between Korean and Chinese by comparing the Korean case markers {에(e)}, {에서(eseo)} and {를(reul)} with their Chinese counterparts through the lens of semantic mapping. It also seeks to shed light on the individual linguistic characteristics of both languages and their differences by examining how the Korean case markers {에}, {에서} and {를} can be interchanged, and how these correspond to Chinese expressions. When examining the patterns of Korean and Chinese, it becomes evident that, unlike Korean, Chinese is an unmarked language where grammatical roles are performed by word order rather than morphological changes. However, both Korean case markers and Chinese prepositions often indicate relationships between sentence elements, such as location, cause, and object, showing a certain degree of universality between the two languages. Upon analyzing the correspondence between Korean case markers and Chinese prepositions, it is found that the case markers {에} and {에서}, which can be interchanged in the roles of [gathering spot] and [residence], correspond to the Chinese preposition ‘在(zai)’. However, in the case of interchange between {에} and {를}, only [comparison target] corresponds to the Chinese preposition ‘于(yu)’, while the other roles such as [gathering spot], [object of attitude], and [object of contact] do not have corresponding Chinese prepositions. Thus, since Chinese prepositions have evolved from verbs and are not perfectly one-to-one correspondents with Korean case markers, they appear in various forms in Chinese, including unmarked, prepositional phrases, conjunctions, and verbs, depending on the case marker interchange pattern.