A Polysemic Analysis of the Japanese Verb “Motsu” — A Contrastive Perspective with Korean —

This paper analyzes the polysemy of the Japanese verb motsu using frame semantics and examines its correspondence with the Korean verbs japda, deulda, and gajida. Motsu evokes a physical possession process frame that yields the meanings ① [grasping], ② [acquisition], and ③ [possession] through focalization. These three meanings are metonymically related. From meaning ③, physical control is metaphorically extended to abstract domains—legal/social, attributive, relational, and cognitive/psychological— producing meanings ④, ⑥, ⑦, and ⑧. Meaning ⑤ [psychological acquisition] extends metaphorically from ②, while intransitive meaning ⑨ [attribute maintenance] derives from ⑥ via synecdoche. Korean correspondence varies by focalized components: grasping－japda, acquisitiondeulda, and possession－gajida. Japda and deulda apply only to concrete and tactile objects, whereas gajida covers both concrete and abstract objects. Intransitive usage lacks a one-to-one Korean equivalent and requires context-dependent verb selection.