A Contrastive Study of the Korean Kwiyepta/Yepuda and Japanese Kawaii/Kirei

This study conducts a contrastive analysis of the Korean adjectives kwiyepta and yepuda and their Japanese counterparts kawaii and kirei. Focusing on the collocation relations in adnominal clauses, this study analyzes noun categories following each adjective using written corpora: the Yonsei Corpus for Korean and the BCCWJ for Japanese. The statistical findings reveal that kwiyepta and kawaii share a strong affinity with younger individuals and animals, reflecting affectionate emotions toward subordinate targets. However, kwiyepta is more strictly confined to younger subjects, whereas kawaii exhibits a broader usage that extends to adult females and inanimate objects, displaying a structural similarity to yepuda. Meanwhile, kirei demonstrates a significantly different pattern from the other three adjectives; it is less frequently combined with human subjects, but highly co-occurs with concrete objects and abstract concepts, such as colors and shapes. This indicates that while yepuda approaches targets with intimacy and subjective affection, kirei evaluates them from visual, objective, and analytical perspectives, encompassing the meanings of neatness and cleanliness.