Acquisition and Distribution of the Korean Person Possessives Wuli and Nay among Elementary Schoolers

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Korean language demonstrates some confusion in the number distinction of the first person possessives wuli ‘our’ and nay ‘my.’ Several studies have attempted to explain the reasons, but little research has investigated the acquisition and distribution of the two pronouns among children. Thus, this paper asks three questions: first, what pattern young native speakers of Korean such as elementary schoolers demonstrate regarding the usages of the two person possessives; second, when Korean speakers acquire the variations; third, whether or not such sociolinguistic factors as gender play a role in the distribution. This study investigates the patterns in the distribution of the wuli + NP and nay + NP that are produced by 60 elementary-school subjects through an oral Discourse Completion Test (supplemented with pictures). The data demonstrate that even the children make the wuli-nay distinction consistently, predominantly opting for the “canonical” forms. This study, therefore, empirically demonstrates that the number distinction between wuli and nay is prescriptive at best. However, the data do not present a clear pattern of age or gender influence on the distribution.