This study investigated the semantic expansion patterns of Korean and Chinese spatial adjectives, “넓은/宽 (meaning “wide” in Korean/Chinese, respectively) and 좁은/窄 (narrow),” and analyzed the mechanism based on the theory of cognitive linguistics. To this end, this study established the concept of basic and expanded meaning by examining semantic descriptions in dictionaries, presented various examples used in real life by analyzing corpora, and categorized the usage. The results are as follows: First, the basic meaning of both “넓은/宽 and 좁은/窄” represents “width” in three aspects of wideness, area, and hole and gap, depending on the spatial characteristics. Second, “넓은/宽 and 좁은/窄” have semantic expansion in a range of areas; in particular, semantic expansion representing the categories of abstract areas was most active. In addition, more diverse patterns of semantic expansion appeared in Chinese since 宽/窄 cause semantic expansion in the form of compound words with component morphemes. In terms of parts of speech, the words are used only as adjectives in Korean, while they act as adjectives, verbs, and nouns as well in Chinese. Third, conceptual metaphors and image schemas serve as the main mechanisms for semantic expansion, which are closely related to repeated physical experiences. Fourth, both Korean and Chinese showed a difference in the semantic opposition of “넓은/좁은and 宽/窄,” which is because the first components of the opposite words, 넓은 and 宽, are selected as positive factors.

본 연구는 한중 공간형용사 중 “宽/넓다, 窄/좁다”를 대상으로 의미 확장 양상을 살펴보고 인지언어학의 영상도식과 개념적 은유 이론을 바탕으로 그 기제에 대해 분석하였다. 이를 위해 먼저 사전 기술 양상을 살펴 기본의미 및 확장의미에 대한 개념을 확립하고, 다음으로 말뭉치 분석을 통해 실제 언어 생활에서 나타나는 다양한 용례를 제시하여 어떻게 활용되고 있는지 범주에 따라 체계화하였다. 이를 통해 한중 언어 화자의 공간인지에 대한 보편성을 찾을 수 있으며, 동시에 의미 확장의 기반을 살펴봄으로써 개별 언어의 특성을 밝혔다.