The meaning of the polysemous words Alda[알다] and Methods for its Korean Education

The purpose of the present study is to propose content for Korean language education by analyzing the polysemous usage of ‘알다[alda]’. The study viewed ‘알다’ as expanding in meaning through the objects and processes of the behavior. Most fundamentally, ‘알다’ exhibits the composition ‘N을/를 알 다’, and the objects corresponding to N includes information, factors, people, emotions, and senses. Furthermore, as cognitive behavior, ‘알다’ acquires and determines information through outside stimuli, and goes through a process of accepting information through doubt and prediction. Through these series of cognitive behavior processes, the polysemies of ‘알다’ expand with flexibility to each other. The nature of ‘알다’ serves as an important method of explanation for learners of Korean language. Learners are able to systematically learn by explaining the expression items ‘-는지 알다’, ‘-(으)ㄹ 줄 알다’, and ‘-는 줄 알다’, presented with a focus on grammatical elements such as ‘-는지’ and ‘줄’, through polysemous usage. Moreover, ‘알다’ is frequently used in idiomatic expressions such as ‘알겠다’, ‘알아서’, and ‘알 바 아니다’, and thus, if teaching and learning is conducted on the basis of the polysemous usage of ‘알다’, its cognitive probability and semantic flexibility is capable of increasing the effects of learning.