A Study on the Usage Patterns of Intentional Connective Endings in Korean: Focusing on ‘-(eu)ryeo, -(eu)ryeogo, and -goja’

This study investigates the differential usage patterns of the Korean intentional connective endings '-(eu)ryeo', '-(eu)ryeogo', and '-goja'. The research analyzed the semantic preferences of 3,000 examples extracted from <the Yonsei 20th Century Korean Corpus>, comprising 200 samples each from textbooks, literature, newspapers, magazines, and informational texts. Results indicate that '-(eu)ryeogo' differs from the other two connective endings at the superordinate conceptual level of semantic preference, while '-goja' exhibits distinctive features at the subordinate level. Furthermore, a register-specific semantic preference analysis revealed varying usage patterns for each connective ending across different text types. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the three connective endings and provide valuable insights for Korean language education and learning. The study's methodological approach of examining semantic preferences offers new perspectives on the subtle functional differences between seemingly synonymous grammatical forms, potentially informing future research in Korean linguistics and language pedagogy.