Korean parts of speech
Encyclopedia
Korean grammarians have been classifying Korean words to parts of speech for centuries, but the modern standard is the one taught in public schools, chosen by South Korea
's 1963 Committee on Education. This is the 9 품사 pumsa system, which divides words into nine categories called pumsa.
The pumsa are themselves grouped together according to the following chart.
Both cardinal
and ordinal
numbers are grouped into their own part of speech. Descriptive verbs and action verbs are classified separately despite sharing essentially the same conjugation
. Verb endings constitute a large and rich class of morphemes, indicating such things in a sentence as tense
, mood
, aspect
, speech level (of which there are 7 in Korean), and honorifics. Prefixes and suffixes are numerous, partly because Korean is an agglutinative language
.
There are also various other important classes of words and morpheme
s that are not generally classified among the pumsa. 5 other major classes of words or morphemes are:
Korean verb conjugation depends upon the tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subject(s), and the listener(s). Different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture; the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper degree of respect or familiarity for the situation.
and though they can be made plural
by adding the suffix 들 deul to the end of the word, in general the suffix is not used when the plurality of the noun is clear from context. For example, while the English sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence 사과가 세 개 있습니다 sagwaga se gae isssumnida "apple three(things) exist" keeps the word 사과 sagwa "apple" in its singular form, as the numeral makes the plural suffix redundant.
The most basic, fundamental Korean vocabulary is native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). However, a large body of Korean noun
s stem from the Korean pronunciation
of Chinese or Japanese characters
, e.g. san, "mountain," yeok, "station," munhwa, "culture", etc. Many Sino-Korean words have native Korean equivalents and vice versa, but not always. The choice of whether to use a Sino-Korean noun or a native Korean word is a delicate one, with the Sino-Korean alternative often sounding more profound or refined.
For a list of Korean nouns, see wikt:Category:Korean nouns.
]
s are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list of Korean pronouns, see wikt:Category:Korean pronouns.
s or numerals constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals
. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriad
s (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
in English
. Examples include kak, "each." For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean determiners.
s include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). Busa, like adverbs in English, modify verbs. For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean adverbs.
s are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean interjections.
are also known in English as "postpositions
" or case markers. Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). Particles come after nouns and are used to indicate the role (subject
, object
, complement
, or topic) of a noun in a sentence
or clause
. For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean particles.
A special particle is ida (이다), a "predicative
particle" (seosulgyeok josa; 서술격 조사) that behaves much like the English
copula "be" (in joining subjects to their complements) and is therefore called a verb in English sources, though it is not regarded as a dongsa in Korean. 이다 cannot be negated by adding the prefix 안; instead it has a special negative form 아니다.
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
's 1963 Committee on Education. This is the 9 품사 pumsa system, which divides words into nine categories called pumsa.
The pumsa are themselves grouped together according to the following chart.
- Content words
- VerbVerbA verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s (broadly speaking)- 동사 dongsa (action verbs)
- 형용사 hyeongyongsa (descriptive verbsKorean descriptive verbKorean descriptive verbs, like English adjectives, modify nouns. They may either be followed by nouns or be part of a subject-predicate clause ....
or adjectiveAdjectiveIn grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s)
- Substantives
- 명사 myeongsa (nounNounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s) - 대명사 daemyeongsa (pronounsKorean pronounsKorean pronouns pose some difficulty to speakers of English due to their complexity. The Korean language makes extensive use of speech levels and honorifics in its grammar, and Korean pronouns also change depending on the social distinction between the speaker and the person or persons spoken...
) - 수사 susa (number wordKorean numeralsThe Korean language has two regularly used sets of numerals, a native Korean system and Sino-Korean system.-Construction:For both native and Sino- Korean numerals, the teens are represented by a combination of tens and the ones places...
s)
- 명사 myeongsa (noun
- ModifierModifierModifier may refer to:* Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning* Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an ambiguous manner...
s- 관형사 gwanhyeongsa (determiners, prenouns, or indeclinable adjectives)
- 부사 busa (adverbAdverbAn adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s)
- Other content words
- 감탄사 gamtansa (interjectionInterjectionIn grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s or exclamations)
- 감탄사 gamtansa (interjection
- Verb
- Function wordFunction wordFunction words are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker...
s- 조사 josa (particleKorean particlesKorean particles are suffixes or short words in Korean grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence.-Particles:-References:...
s or postpositions)
- 조사 josa (particle
Both cardinal
Cardinal number (linguistics)
In linguistics, cardinal numbers are number words representing a quantity . They are related to ordinal numbers - See also :...
and ordinal
Ordinal number (linguistics)
In linguistics, ordinal numbers are the words representing the rank of a number with respect to some order, in particular order or position . Its use may refer to size, importance, chronology, etc...
numbers are grouped into their own part of speech. Descriptive verbs and action verbs are classified separately despite sharing essentially the same conjugation
Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
. Verb endings constitute a large and rich class of morphemes, indicating such things in a sentence as 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:...
, 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...
, 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...
, speech level (of which there are 7 in Korean), and honorifics. Prefixes and suffixes are numerous, partly because Korean is an agglutinative language
Agglutinative 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...
.
There are also various other important classes of words and morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s that are not generally classified among the pumsa. 5 other major classes of words or morphemes are:
- 어미 eomi (verb endings)
- 지시어 jisieo (demonstrativeDemonstrativeIn linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s) - 접속어 jeopsogeo (conjunctionGrammatical conjunctionIn grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
s) - 접두어 jeopdueo (prefixes)
- 접미어 jeommieo (suffixesAffixAn affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
)
Dongsa
Korean dongsa, which include (sseuda, "to use") and (kada, "to go"), are usually called, simply, "verbs." However, they can also be called "action verbs" or "dynamic verbs," because they describe an action, process, or movement. This distinguishes them from hyeongyongsa.Korean verb conjugation depends upon the tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subject(s), and the listener(s). Different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of Korean language and Korean culture; the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper degree of respect or familiarity for the situation.
Hyeongyongsa
Hyeongyongsa, sometimes translated as "adjectives" but also known as "descriptive verbs" or "stative verbs," are verbs such as yeppeuda, "to be pretty" or bukda, "to be red." English does not have an identical grammatical category, and the English translation of a Korean hyeongyongsa is usually a linking verb + an English adjective. However, some Korean words which do not match that formula, such as aswipda, a transitive verb which means to "to lack" or "to want for", are still considered hyeongyongsa in Korean because they don't involve an action. For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean adjectives.Myeongsa
Myeongsa, "nouns," do not have grammatical genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
and though they can be made 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...
by adding the suffix 들 deul to the end of the word, in general the suffix is not used when the plurality of the noun is clear from context. For example, while the English sentence "there are three apples" would use the plural "apples" instead of the singular "apple", the Korean sentence 사과가 세 개 있습니다 sagwaga se gae isssumnida "apple three(things) exist" keeps the word 사과 sagwa "apple" in its singular form, as the numeral makes the plural suffix redundant.
The most basic, fundamental Korean vocabulary is native to the Korean language, e.g. (nara, country), (nal, day). However, a large body of Korean noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s stem from the Korean pronunciation
Hanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
of Chinese or Japanese characters
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
, e.g. san, "mountain," yeok, "station," munhwa, "culture", etc. Many Sino-Korean words have native Korean equivalents and vice versa, but not always. The choice of whether to use a Sino-Korean noun or a native Korean word is a delicate one, with the Sino-Korean alternative often sounding more profound or refined.
For a list of Korean nouns, see wikt:Category:Korean nouns.
]
Daemyeongsa
Korean pronounPronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s are highly influenced by the honorifics in the language. Pronouns change forms depending on the social status of the person or persons spoken to, e.g. the pronoun for "I" there is both the informal (na) and the honorific/humble (jeo). In general second person singular pronouns are avoided, especially when using honorific forms. For a larger list of Korean pronouns, see wikt:Category:Korean pronouns.
Susa
Korean numberNumber
A number is a mathematical object used to count and measure. In mathematics, the definition of number has been extended over the years to include such numbers as zero, negative numbers, rational numbers, irrational numbers, and complex numbers....
s or numerals constitute two regularly used sets: a native Korean set and a Sino-Korean set. The Sino-Korean system is nearly entirely based on the Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals are characters for writing numbers in Chinese. Today speakers of Chinese use three numeral systems:the ubiquitous Arabic numerals and two indigenous systems....
. The distinction between the two numeral systems is very important. Everything that can be counted will use one of the two systems, but seldom both. The grouping of large numbers in Korean follow the Chinese tradition of myriad
Myriad
Myriad , "numberlesscountless, infinite", is a classical Greek word for the number 10,000. In modern English, the word refers to an unspecified large quantity.-History and usage:...
s (10000) rather than thousands (1000) as is common in Europe and North America.
Gwanhyeongsa
Korean gwanhyeongsa are known in English as "determiners," "determinatives," "pre-nouns," "adnouns," "attributives," "unconjugated adjectives," and "indeclinable adjectives." Gwanhyeongsa come before and modify or specify nouns, much like attributive adjectives or articlesArticle (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Examples include kak, "each." For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean determiners.
Busa
Korean adverbAdverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s include (tto, "also") and (gadeuk, "fully"). Busa, like adverbs in English, modify verbs. For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean adverbs.
Gamtansa
Korean interjectionInterjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...
s are also known in English as "exclamations". Examples include (ani, "no"). For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean interjections.
Josa
Korean particlesGrammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
are also known in English as "postpositions
Adposition
Prepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...
" or case markers. Examples include (neun, topic marker) and (reul, object marker). Particles come after nouns and are used to indicate the role (subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
, object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
, complement
Complement (linguistics)
In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
, or topic) of a noun in a sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
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,...
. For a larger list, see wikt:Category:Korean particles.
A special particle is ida (이다), a "predicative
Predicate (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...
particle" (seosulgyeok josa; 서술격 조사) that behaves much like the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
copula "be" (in joining subjects to their complements) and is therefore called a verb in English sources, though it is not regarded as a dongsa in Korean. 이다 cannot be negated by adding the prefix 안; instead it has a special negative form 아니다.
External links
- dongsa.net A Korean verb conjugation tool that explains the conjugations for learners of Korean