Korean grammar
Encyclopedia
This article is a description of the morphology
and semantics
of Korean
. For phonetics and phonology, see Korean phonology
. See also Korean honorifics
, which play a large role in the grammar.
, as can be seen especially in the section on verbs below. However, nouns and pronouns take case endings which may be considered inflectional.
. Pronouns are somewhat irregular, and are covered above. As with many clitics and suffixes in Korean, for many case clitics different forms are used with nouns ending in consonants and nouns ending in vowels. The most extreme example of this is in the nominative (subject), where the historical clitic 이 i is now restricted to appearing after consonants, and a completely unrelated (suppletive
) form 가 ga appears after vowels.
* "로" -lo also occurs with stems ending in ㄹ l.
* The topic marker and the also marker mark the noun phrase with case markers. They override the nominative and accusative case markers rather than being attached after those case markers.
s for the 1st and 2nd person, with distinctions for honorifics. In the third person, it has demonstrative pronouns, which make a three-way distinction between close, distant, and previously mentioned.
The monosyllabic pronouns 나 na, 너 neo, 저 jeo add -i or -iga rather than the expected -ga to form the nominative case (see below). This produces the forms 내 nae, 네 ne, 제 je. However, because many Koreans have lost the distinction between the vowels ae and e, 네 ne "you" is dissimilating
to 니 ni. The familiar pronoun 당신 dangsin is actually a noun, the Sino-Korean loanword 當身 "the aforementioned body". There are a large number of such pseudo-pronouns in Korean.
In colloquial Korean, the topic forms 나는 naneun "me" and 너는 neoneun "you" are often contracted to 난 nan "me" and 넌 neon "you". Similarly, the accusative forms 나를 naleul and 너를 neoleul may contract to 날 nal and 널 neol. The possessive
s 나의 na-ui "my" and 너의 neo-ui "your" can also contract to 내 nae and 네 ne.
Second person pronouns are relatively rare in Korean. Instead, the person's name (for friends and younger family members) or relationship to the speaker (for older family members and superiors) is generally used. With strangers, the honorific 선생님 seonsaengnim "teacher" is usual.
The word for "who" is 누구 nugu, which in the nominative is 누가 nuga.
The plural suffix -deul is used with pronouns, as in 그들 geudeul "they".
The "given" series is often called "medial", and said to be close to the addressee rather than the speaker. However, they actually refer to referents already established in the conversation
, whether near or far. With new referents, the near or far forms will be used.
In colloquial speech, the object words, composed of the prefix plus the generic noun classifier
것 geos, frequently drop the final s , with proximate 이것 igeos becoming 이거 igeo This occurs before case clitics as well, with the nominative form 이것이 igeosi becoming 이게 ige, topical 이것은 igeoseun becoming 이건 igeon, and accusative 이것을 igeoseul becoming 이걸 igeol "this". In colloquial Korean, interrogative 무엇 mueos contracts to 뭐 mwo "what" (often pronounced meo, as w tends to drop after m), and the accusative 무엇을 mueoseul contracts to 뭘 mwol "what".
The classifier 쪽 jjog "side" is used when referring to people. 이쪽 ijjog "this side" then means "this person, these people" (that is, he, she, or they), but is further extended via "our side" as a polite form for "us" or "me".
"How many" is 몇 myeoch.
Korean has general number. That is, a noun on its own is neither singular
nor plural
. It also has an optional plural marker 들 -deul, which is most likely to be used for definite
and highly animate nouns (primarily first- and second-person pronouns, to a lesser extent nouns and third-person pronouns referring to humans, etc.) This is similar to several other languages with optional number, such as Japanese.
However, Korean -deul may also be found on the predicate, on the verb, object of the verb, or modifier of the object, in which case it forces a distributive plural reading (as opposed to a collective
reading) and indicates that the word it is attached to expresses new information.
For instance, in
plural -deul could also occur at any of the 0's. If it did, it would not be redundant with the plural marking on the subject. For example, in,
it's not clear if they bought one balloon together, or one each. However, without the ACC on "one",
and, with ssik ("each") on "one"
"balloon" is specified as a distributive plural.
of a clause is prefix + root + up to seven suffixes, and can be illustrated with a template:
* The negative prefix is 안 an- "not"; the word 못 mos "can't" also occurs in this position.
I Valency may be passive or causative
. These often involve a stem change, followed by the suffix 이 -i (the spelling of this suffix may change, depending on the stem change of the verb)
II The honorific suffix is 으시 -eusi- after a consonant, 시 -si- after a vowel. The i is reduced to a glide before another vowel. For example, with a following past tense, -si-eoss- reduces to 셨 -syeoss-.
III If there is no suffix in this slot, the verb is in present or gnomic tense. Future tense & prospective aspect is 겠 -gess-, past perfective
is 었 -eoss-, but with vowel harmony
. If there is no intervening consonant, this reduces, both in pronunciation and in writing: a-ass- to 았 ass-, and o-ass- to 왔 wass-. The verb 오 o- "to come" is therefore 왔 wass- in the perfective. The verb 하 ha "to do" is an irregular 해 hae- in the perfective.
IV The formal suffix is ᄇ -b after a vowel (it is normally written in the same block as that vowel), 습 -seub after a consonant in a declarative or interrogative verb, 읍 -eub after a consonant in a proposition. (After a consonant s or ss, the s of the suffix drops.)
V The syntactic moods, for want of a better term, are the indicative 는 -neun, 니 -ni, or ㄴ -n-; the retrospective (imperfective
) 던 -deon, 디 -di, or ㄷ -d-; and the subjunctive
시 -si or ㅅ -s-. None of these are used in the casual or intimate styles, and the formal plain indicative declarative can only occur in the gnomic tense.
VI The pragmatic moods, for want of a better term, are the declarative 다 -da (formal polite), 라 -la (formal plain), and 에 -e (familiar); interrogative
까 -kka, 야 -ya (formal) and 가 -ga (familiar); propositive 다 -da (formal polite), 자 -ja (formal plain), and 에 -e (familiar); and the imperative
오 -o (formal polite), 어라 -eola (formal plain; harmonizes to 아라 -ala after an a or o in the previous syllable), and 게 -ge (familiar).
VII The polite suffix 요 -yo (이요 -iyo after a consonant) appears in the informal styles. It expresses one's relationship to the audience.
[to add: quotative -eula/-la; -ke-na]
* This indicative 는 -neun is not found after the past or future suffixes, or at all in the case of descriptive verbs (predicate adjectives).
**The formal-polite imperative almost always takes the formal suffix 시 -si.
The copula takes the negative prefix 안 an, but the result is written as if it were a single morpheme: 아니 ani. Nouns do take the nominative clitic 이 -i / 가 -ga before the negative copula. The derived form 아니요 aniyo is the word for "no" when answering a question. (In the case of a negative question, 아니요 aniyo is equivalent to "yes" in English.)
The copula is only for "to be" in the sense of "A is B". For existence, Korean uses the verbs 있 iss- "there is" and 없 eobs- "there isn't."
The honorific existential verb for 있 iss- is 계시 gyesi-.
s. Instead, attributive verb
s modify nouns, as adjectives do in English. Where in English one would say "I saw the man who walks the dog", the structure of Korean is more like "The dog-walking man I saw".
The structure is ROOT + valence + attributive
suffix, with little of the complexity of finite verbs above.
Active verbs use the attributive suffix 은 -eun after a consonant, or ㄴ -n after a vowel, for the past tense. For descriptive or stative verbs, often equivalent to adjectives in English, this form is used for generic (gnomic) descriptions; effectively, "eaten food" is food which once was eaten (past), whereas "a pretty flower" is a flower which has become pretty, and still is (present/timeless). To specify the on-going action for an active verb, the invariable suffix 는 -neun is used instead. This is not found on descriptive verbs, as it makes no sense to say that *"a flower is being pretty". For the future, the suffix 을 -eul, ㄹ -l is used, and in the imperfective/retrospective (recalling what once was) it is -deon.
For example, from the verb 먹 meog "to eat", the adjective 예쁘 yeppeu "pretty", and the nouns 밥 bab "food" and 꽃 kkoch "flower", we get:
The perfective suffix 었 -eoss- is sometimes used as well, on active verbs. It precedes the attributive suffix:
For action verbs, -었 is used for completed actions or processes that result in a present state. The individual verb’s meaning can help determine which interpretation is appropriate. Hence 결혼했다 gyeolhon haessda can mean ‘got married,’ focusing on the past event, or ‘is married,’ focusing on the present state resulting from the past event. But 공을 찼다 gong-eul chassda ‘kicked the ball’ can only denote a past action and 잘 생겼다 jal saenggyeossda ‘is handsome’ can only denote the present state. (생기다 saenggida is an action verb, meaning ‘get formed/ created.’)
One very common suffix 고 -go, can be interpreted as a gerund
if used by itself, or, with a subject of its own, as a subordinating conjunction. That is, 먹고 meog-go means approximately "eating," 고기를 먹고 gogi-rul meog-go means "eating meat," and 내가 고기를 먹고 nae-ga gogi-rul meog-go means "I eat meat and..." or "My eating meat."
Another suffix, somewhat similar in meaning, is 서 -seo which is, however, attached to the past stem of a verb. The past stem of a verb is the one that is formed by attaching 어/아 -eo/-a after a consonant. The allomorph which is used is a result of vowel harmony, and depends on the vowel in the previous syllable. These vowels are also attached to verbs that don't end in consonants, with the added complicated that the two vowels may merge or contract. (가 ga "having gone", 봐 bwa "having seen").
Both sometimes called gerund
s, the verb form that ends in-seo and the one that ends in -go juxtapose two actions, the action in the subclause and the action in the main clause. The difference between them is that with -seo the action in the subclause necessarily came first, while -go conveys more of an unordered juxtaposition. -Seo is frequently used to imply causation, and in many common expressions like 만나서 반갑습니다 Manna-seo bangapseubnida (literally, "Since I met you, I'm happy" -or- "Having met you, I'm happy"). If -go was used instead, the meaning would be closer to "I meet you and I'm happy," that is, without any implied logical connection.
These are both subordinating conjunctive suffixes and can't (in the more formal registers, at least) derive complete sentences of their own without the addition of a main verb, by default the verb 있 iss. 내가 고기를 먹고 있다 nae-ga gogi-rul meog-go iss-da therefore means "I am eating meat." The difference between this and the simple sentence 내가 고기를 먹는다 is similar to the difference in Spanish between "Estoy almorzando" and "almuerzo," in that the compound form emphasizes the continuity of the action. The -seo form is used with the existential verb 있 iss- for the perfect.
and Turkish
, in that most affixes are suffix
es and clitics are enclitics, modifiers
precede the words they modify, and most elements of a phrase
or clause
are optional.
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
of Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
. For phonetics and phonology, see Korean phonology
Korean phonology
This article is a technical description of the phonetics and phonology of Korean.Korean has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish morphophonemics from corresponding phonemes and allophones .-Consonants:The following are phonemic transcriptions of Korean consonants.# are voiced ...
. See also Korean honorifics
Korean honorifics
The Korean language reflects the important observance of a speaker or writer's relationships with both the subject of the sentence and the audience. Korean grammar uses an extensive system of honorifics to reflect the speaker's relationship to the subject of the sentence and speech levels to...
, which play a large role in the grammar.
Nominal Morphology
Korean is primarily an agglutinative languageAgglutinative language
An agglutinative language is a language that uses agglutination extensively: most words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view...
, as can be seen especially in the section on verbs below. However, nouns and pronouns take case endings which may be considered inflectional.
Nouns
Both nouns and pronouns take case cliticsKorean particles
Korean particles are suffixes or short words in Korean grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence.-Particles:-References:...
. Pronouns are somewhat irregular, and are covered above. As with many clitics and suffixes in Korean, for many case clitics different forms are used with nouns ending in consonants and nouns ending in vowels. The most extreme example of this is in the nominative (subject), where the historical clitic 이 i is now restricted to appearing after consonants, and a completely unrelated (suppletive
Suppletion
In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even "highly irregular". The term "suppletion" implies...
) form 가 ga appears after vowels.
| Case | After V | After C |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments... |
가 -ga | 이 -i |
| Accusative Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
를 -leul | 을 -eul |
| Genitive Genitive case In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun... |
의 -ui | |
| Dative Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... (also destination) |
에 -e (inanimate) 에게 -ege (animate) |
|
| Locative Locative case Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"... (place of event, also source) |
에서 -eseo (inanimate) 에게서 -egeseo (animate) |
|
| Instrumental Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action... |
로 -lo* | 으로 -eulo |
| Comitative Comitative case The comitative case , also known as the associative case , is a grammatical case that denotes companionship, and is used where English would use "in company with" or "together with"... (also and) |
하고 -hago | |
| 와 -wa | 과 -gwa | |
| 랑 -rang | 이랑 -irang | |
| Type | After V | After C |
|---|---|---|
| Topic Topic marker A topic marker is a grammatical particle found in the Japanese, Korean, and, to a limited extent, Classic Chinese languages used to mark the topic of a sentence. This often overlaps with the subject of the sentence, causing confusion with learners, as most other languages lack it... * |
는 neun | 은 -eun |
| Also* | 도 -do | |
| And (and so on) | 나 -na | 이나 -ina |
Pronouns
Korean has personal pronounPersonal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s for the 1st and 2nd person, with distinctions for honorifics. In the third person, it has demonstrative pronouns, which make a three-way distinction between close, distant, and previously mentioned.
| |single | |plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| familiar | honorific | humble | pejorative | familiar | honorific | humble | |
| 1st | 나 na | 저 jeo | 우리 uli | 저희 jeohui | |||
| 2nd | 너 neo | 당신 dangsin 선생님 seonsaengnim |
자네 jane | 너희 neohui 너희들 neohuideul |
당신들 dangsindeul |
The monosyllabic pronouns 나 na, 너 neo, 저 jeo add -i or -iga rather than the expected -ga to form the nominative case (see below). This produces the forms 내 nae, 네 ne, 제 je. However, because many Koreans have lost the distinction between the vowels ae and e, 네 ne "you" is dissimilating
Dissimilation
In phonology, particularly within historical linguistics, dissimilation is a phenomenon whereby similar consonant or vowel sounds in a word become less similar...
to 니 ni. The familiar pronoun 당신 dangsin is actually a noun, the Sino-Korean loanword 當身 "the aforementioned body". There are a large number of such pseudo-pronouns in Korean.
In colloquial Korean, the topic forms 나는 naneun "me" and 너는 neoneun "you" are often contracted to 난 nan "me" and 넌 neon "you". Similarly, the accusative forms 나를 naleul and 너를 neoleul may contract to 날 nal and 널 neol. The possessive
Possessive
Possessive may be:* Possessive case* Possessive adjective* Possessive pronoun* Possessive suffix* Possessive construction, pattern among words indicating possession * For possessive behavior in a relationship, see Attachment in adults...
s 나의 na-ui "my" and 너의 neo-ui "your" can also contract to 내 nae and 네 ne.
Second person pronouns are relatively rare in Korean. Instead, the person's name (for friends and younger family members) or relationship to the speaker (for older family members and superiors) is generally used. With strangers, the honorific 선생님 seonsaengnim "teacher" is usual.
The word for "who" is 누구 nugu, which in the nominative is 누가 nuga.
| Prefix | Object | Place | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Near | 이 i- | 이것 igeos "this" | 이곳 igos, 여기 yeogi "here" |
| Given | 그 geu- | 그것 geugeos "that" | 거기 geogi "there" |
| Far | 저 jeo- | 저것 jeogeos "that" | 저기 jeogi "there" |
| Which? | 어느 eoneu- | 무엇 mueos "what?" | 어디 eodi "where?" |
The plural suffix -deul is used with pronouns, as in 그들 geudeul "they".
The "given" series is often called "medial", and said to be close to the addressee rather than the speaker. However, they actually refer to referents already established in the conversation
Information flow
In discourse-based grammatical theory, information flow is any tracking of referential information by speakers. Information may be new, just introduced into the conversation; given, already active in the speakers' consciousness; or old, no longer active...
, whether near or far. With new referents, the near or far forms will be used.
In colloquial speech, the object words, composed of the prefix plus the generic noun classifier
Classifier (linguistics)
A classifier, in linguistics, sometimes called a measure word, is a word or morpheme used in some languages to classify the referent of a countable noun according to its meaning. In languages that have classifiers, they are often used when the noun is being counted or specified...
것 geos, frequently drop the final s , with proximate 이것 igeos becoming 이거 igeo This occurs before case clitics as well, with the nominative form 이것이 igeosi becoming 이게 ige, topical 이것은 igeoseun becoming 이건 igeon, and accusative 이것을 igeoseul becoming 이걸 igeol "this". In colloquial Korean, interrogative 무엇 mueos contracts to 뭐 mwo "what" (often pronounced meo, as w tends to drop after m), and the accusative 무엇을 mueoseul contracts to 뭘 mwol "what".
The classifier 쪽 jjog "side" is used when referring to people. 이쪽 ijjog "this side" then means "this person, these people" (that is, he, she, or they), but is further extended via "our side" as a polite form for "us" or "me".
"How many" is 몇 myeoch.
Number
(It is against grammatical rules for the plural marker '-deul' to occur at some of the alternative positions given in the following examples, and it is highly uncommon or at least somewhat unnatural for the most of them. Please review the grammatical consistency of this subsection.)Korean has general number. That is, a noun on its own is neither singular
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
nor plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
. It also has an optional plural marker 들 -deul, which is most likely to be used for definite
Definiteness
In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
and highly animate nouns (primarily first- and second-person pronouns, to a lesser extent nouns and third-person pronouns referring to humans, etc.) This is similar to several other languages with optional number, such as Japanese.
However, Korean -deul may also be found on the predicate, on the verb, object of the verb, or modifier of the object, in which case it forces a distributive plural reading (as opposed to a collective
Collective number
In linguistics, singulative number and collective number are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the unmarked form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item...
reading) and indicates that the word it is attached to expresses new information.
For instance, in
| 아이들이 | 김에게 | 빵을 | 많이 | 주었어요 |
| ai-deul-i | gim-ege-0 | bbang-eul-0 | manhi-0 | ju-eoss-eo-0 |
| child-pl- | Kim-to | bread- | a_lot | give--, |
plural -deul could also occur at any of the 0's. If it did, it would not be redundant with the plural marking on the subject. For example, in,
| 학생들이 | 풍선 | 하나를 | 샀어요 |
| hagsaeng-deul-i | pungseon | hana-leul | sa-ss-eo-yo |
| student-pl- | balloon | one- | buy--- |
- "The students bought a balloon",
it's not clear if they bought one balloon together, or one each. However, without the ACC on "one",
| 학생들이 | 풍선을 | 하나 | 샀어요 |
| hagsaeng-deul-i | pungseon-eul | hana | sa-ss-eo-yo |
| student-pl- | balloon- | one | buy--- |
- "The students bought a ballon together"
and, with ssik ("each") on "one"
| 학생들이 | 풍선을 | 하나씩 | 샀어요 |
| hagsaeng-deul-i | pungseon-eul | hana-ssig | sa-ss-eo-yo |
| student-pl- | balloon- | one-each | buy--- |
- "The students bought a balloon each",
"balloon" is specified as a distributive plural.
Finite verbs
Verbs are the most complex part of speech in Korean. Their structure when used as the predicatePredicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
of a clause is prefix + root + up to seven suffixes, and can be illustrated with a template:
| Prefix | 0 | I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| negative* | ROOT Root (linguistics) The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents.... |
valency Valency (linguistics) In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate... |
honorific Korean honorifics The Korean language reflects the important observance of a speaker or writer's relationships with both the subject of the sentence and the audience. Korean grammar uses an extensive system of honorifics to reflect the speaker's relationship to the subject of the sentence and speech levels to... |
tense Grammatical tense A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:... -aspect Grammatical aspect In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker... |
formality Formality A formality is an established procedure or set of specific behaviors and utterances, conceptually similar to a ritual although typically secular and less involved... |
syntactic mood Grammatical mood In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying... |
pragmatic mood Pragmatics Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the... |
polite Politeness Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette. It is a culturally-defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in another cultural context.... |
I Valency may be passive or causative
Causative
In linguistics, a causative is a form that indicates that a subject causes someone or something else to do or be something, or causes a change in state of a non-volitional event....
. These often involve a stem change, followed by the suffix 이 -i (the spelling of this suffix may change, depending on the stem change of the verb)
II The honorific suffix is 으시 -eusi- after a consonant, 시 -si- after a vowel. The i is reduced to a glide before another vowel. For example, with a following past tense, -si-eoss- reduces to 셨 -syeoss-.
- This shows deference towards the topic of the conversation, for example when speaking of one's elders.
III If there is no suffix in this slot, the verb is in present or gnomic tense. Future tense & prospective aspect is 겠 -gess-, past perfective
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
is 었 -eoss-, but with vowel harmony
Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
. If there is no intervening consonant, this reduces, both in pronunciation and in writing: a-ass- to 았 ass-, and o-ass- to 왔 wass-. The verb 오 o- "to come" is therefore 왔 wass- in the perfective. The verb 하 ha "to do" is an irregular 해 hae- in the perfective.
- There are also compound tenses: remote past 었었 -eoss-eoss- (or yang inflection 았었 -ass-eoss-), past-future 었겠 -eoss-gess- (or 았겠 -ass-gess-), remote past-future 었었겠 -eoss-eoss-gess- (or 았었겠 -ass-eoss-gess-).
IV The formal suffix is ᄇ -b after a vowel (it is normally written in the same block as that vowel), 습 -seub after a consonant in a declarative or interrogative verb, 읍 -eub after a consonant in a proposition. (After a consonant s or ss, the s of the suffix drops.)
- This shows deference towards the audience of the conversation, for example when speaking to one's elders. If speaking both to and of one's elders, one would use both the formal and the honorific suffixes.
V The syntactic moods, for want of a better term, are the indicative 는 -neun, 니 -ni, or ㄴ -n-; the retrospective (imperfective
Imperfective aspect
The imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure, such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future...
) 던 -deon, 디 -di, or ㄷ -d-; and the subjunctive
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
시 -si or ㅅ -s-. None of these are used in the casual or intimate styles, and the formal plain indicative declarative can only occur in the gnomic tense.
- 는 -neun and 던 -deon are used in the formal plain and familiar interrogative styles. After a vowel, 는 -neun reduces to ㄴ -n. Before declarative 라 -la, 던 -deon reduces to 더 -deo.
- 니 -ni, 디 -di, and 시 -si are used in the formal polite style.
- ㄴ -n-, ㄷ -d-, and ㅅ -s- are used in the familiar declarative and subjunctive styles.
VI The pragmatic moods, for want of a better term, are the declarative 다 -da (formal polite), 라 -la (formal plain), and 에 -e (familiar); interrogative
Interrogative mood
In linguistics and grammar, the interrogative mood is an epistemic grammatical mood used for asking questions by inflecting the main verb...
까 -kka, 야 -ya (formal) and 가 -ga (familiar); propositive 다 -da (formal polite), 자 -ja (formal plain), and 에 -e (familiar); and the imperative
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
오 -o (formal polite), 어라 -eola (formal plain; harmonizes to 아라 -ala after an a or o in the previous syllable), and 게 -ge (familiar).
- Style: These distinctions are not made in the intimate and casual styles. Instead, this slot is taken by the intimate suffix 어 -eo (아 -a after an a or o) or the casual suffix 지 -ji.
VII The polite suffix 요 -yo (이요 -iyo after a consonant) appears in the informal styles. It expresses one's relationship to the audience.
[to add: quotative -eula/-la; -ke-na]
Speech styles
Not all combinations of the suffixes in the template above are possible. The most common sequences after the tense suffix (that is, after the root or honorific 시 -si- in the present tense, after the 었 -eoss- or 겠 -gess- in the past and future) are,| Formal polite | Formal (book style) | Familiar | Familiar polite | Intimate | Casual | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indicative | declarative | (스)ㅂ니다 -(seu)bnida |
(는)다 -(neun)da* |
네 -ne |
네요 -neyo |
어 -eo Polite: 어요 -eoyo |
지 -ji Polite: 지요 -jiyo |
| interrogative | (스)ㅂ니까 -(seu)bnikka |
느냐 -neunya |
는가 -neun'ga |
는가요 -neun'gayo |
|||
| Retrospective | declarative | (스)ㅂ디다 -(seu)bdida |
더라 -deola |
데 -de |
데요 -deyo |
||
| interrogative | (스)ㅂ디까 -(seu)bdikka |
더냐 -deonya |
던가 -deon'ga |
던가요 -deon'gayo |
|||
| Subjunctive | propositive | (으)ㅂ시다 -(eu)bsida |
자 -ja |
세 -se |
세요 -seyo |
||
| imperative | (으)ㅂ시오 -(eu)bsio** |
어라 -eola |
게 -ge |
게요 -geyo |
**The formal-polite imperative almost always takes the formal suffix 시 -si.
Copula
The copula clitic 이 -i may be historically related to the nominative case clitic 이 -i. Regardless, nouns do not take the case clitic 이 -i / 가 -ga when followed by the copula. The copula inflects like any verb, except that it has a special honorific form.The copula takes the negative prefix 안 an, but the result is written as if it were a single morpheme: 아니 ani. Nouns do take the nominative clitic 이 -i / 가 -ga before the negative copula. The derived form 아니요 aniyo is the word for "no" when answering a question. (In the case of a negative question, 아니요 aniyo is equivalent to "yes" in English.)
The copula is only for "to be" in the sense of "A is B". For existence, Korean uses the verbs 있 iss- "there is" and 없 eobs- "there isn't."
The honorific existential verb for 있 iss- is 계시 gyesi-.
Attributive verbs
Korean does not have relative pronounRelative pronoun
A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates the relative clause to the noun that it modifies. In English, the relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, whosever, whosesoever, which, and, in some...
s. Instead, attributive verb
Attributive verb
In grammar, an attributive verb is a verb which modifies a noun as an attributive, rather than expressing an independent idea as a predicate....
s modify nouns, as adjectives do in English. Where in English one would say "I saw the man who walks the dog", the structure of Korean is more like "The dog-walking man I saw".
The structure is ROOT + valence + attributive
Attributive
In grammar, an attributive is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:* attributive adjective* attributive noun* attributive verbor other part of speech....
suffix, with little of the complexity of finite verbs above.
| Prefix | 0 | I | II | III |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| negative | ROOT Root (linguistics) The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents.... |
valency Valency (linguistics) In linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. It is related, though not identical, to verb transitivity, which counts only object arguments of the verbal predicate... |
tense Grammatical tense A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:... |
attributive Attributive In grammar, an attributive is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:* attributive adjective* attributive noun* attributive verbor other part of speech.... (tense) |
Active verbs use the attributive suffix 은 -eun after a consonant, or ㄴ -n after a vowel, for the past tense. For descriptive or stative verbs, often equivalent to adjectives in English, this form is used for generic (gnomic) descriptions; effectively, "eaten food" is food which once was eaten (past), whereas "a pretty flower" is a flower which has become pretty, and still is (present/timeless). To specify the on-going action for an active verb, the invariable suffix 는 -neun is used instead. This is not found on descriptive verbs, as it makes no sense to say that *"a flower is being pretty". For the future, the suffix 을 -eul, ㄹ -l is used, and in the imperfective/retrospective (recalling what once was) it is -deon.
For example, from the verb 먹 meog "to eat", the adjective 예쁘 yeppeu "pretty", and the nouns 밥 bab "food" and 꽃 kkoch "flower", we get:
| Active verb | |Descriptive verb | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present progressive | 먹는 밥 | meogneun bab | "food which is being eaten" | |||
| Perfective | 먹은 밥 | meogeun bab | "eaten food (food which was eaten)" | 예쁜 꽃 | yeppeun kkoch | "a pretty flower" |
| Imperfective | 먹던 밥 | meogdeon bab | "food which one used to eat" | 예쁘던 꽃 | yeppeudeon kkoch | "a flower which was once pretty" |
| Future | 먹을 밥 | meogeul bab | "food to be eaten" | 예쁠 꽃 | yeppeul kkoch | "a flower which will be pretty" |
The perfective suffix 었 -eoss- is sometimes used as well, on active verbs. It precedes the attributive suffix:
- 먹었던 밥 meogeossdeon bab "food which had been eaten"
For action verbs, -었 is used for completed actions or processes that result in a present state. The individual verb’s meaning can help determine which interpretation is appropriate. Hence 결혼했다 gyeolhon haessda can mean ‘got married,’ focusing on the past event, or ‘is married,’ focusing on the present state resulting from the past event. But 공을 찼다 gong-eul chassda ‘kicked the ball’ can only denote a past action and 잘 생겼다 jal saenggyeossda ‘is handsome’ can only denote the present state. (생기다 saenggida is an action verb, meaning ‘get formed/ created.’)
Subordinate Clauses
Verbs can take conjunctive suffixes. These suffixes make subordinate clauses.One very common suffix 고 -go, can be interpreted as a gerund
Gerund
In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
if used by itself, or, with a subject of its own, as a subordinating conjunction. That is, 먹고 meog-go means approximately "eating," 고기를 먹고 gogi-rul meog-go means "eating meat," and 내가 고기를 먹고 nae-ga gogi-rul meog-go means "I eat meat and..." or "My eating meat."
Another suffix, somewhat similar in meaning, is 서 -seo which is, however, attached to the past stem of a verb. The past stem of a verb is the one that is formed by attaching 어/아 -eo/-a after a consonant. The allomorph which is used is a result of vowel harmony, and depends on the vowel in the previous syllable. These vowels are also attached to verbs that don't end in consonants, with the added complicated that the two vowels may merge or contract. (가 ga "having gone", 봐 bwa "having seen").
Both sometimes called gerund
Gerund
In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
s, the verb form that ends in-seo and the one that ends in -go juxtapose two actions, the action in the subclause and the action in the main clause. The difference between them is that with -seo the action in the subclause necessarily came first, while -go conveys more of an unordered juxtaposition. -Seo is frequently used to imply causation, and in many common expressions like 만나서 반갑습니다 Manna-seo bangapseubnida (literally, "Since I met you, I'm happy" -or- "Having met you, I'm happy"). If -go was used instead, the meaning would be closer to "I meet you and I'm happy," that is, without any implied logical connection.
These are both subordinating conjunctive suffixes and can't (in the more formal registers, at least) derive complete sentences of their own without the addition of a main verb, by default the verb 있 iss. 내가 고기를 먹고 있다 nae-ga gogi-rul meog-go iss-da therefore means "I am eating meat." The difference between this and the simple sentence 내가 고기를 먹는다 is similar to the difference in Spanish between "Estoy almorzando" and "almuerzo," in that the compound form emphasizes the continuity of the action. The -seo form is used with the existential verb 있 iss- for the perfect.
Syntax
Korean is typical of languages with a verb-final word order, such as JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, in that most affixes are suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es and clitics are enclitics, modifiers
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
precede the words they modify, and most elements of a phrase
Phrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
or clause
Clause
In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...
are optional.