Korean grammar


This article is a description of the morphology, syntax, and semantics of Korean. For phonetics and phonology, see Korean phonology. See also Korean honorifics, which play a large role in the grammar.

Note on romanization

This article uses a form of Yale romanization to illustrate the morphology of Korean words. The Yale system is different from the Revised Romanization of Korean seen with place names.
Under the version of Yale used here, morphemes are written according to their underlying form rather than their spelling in the Korean writing system or pronunciation. Under this system, for example, the syllable which is written in Korean as 었 is analyzed as ess even though the ss would be pronounced t before another consonant, and the vowel e ㅓ is pronounced low and somewhat rounded, closer to o. To avoid confusion, bold type will represent the morphology, and italics will represent Revised Romanization.

Classification of words

Korean grammarians have been classifying Korean words into 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 pumsa system, which divides words into nine categories called pumsa. Each of them can be called in two different terms - Sino-Korean and native Korean, respectively. The existing Sino-Korean Hanja terms are hard to understand the meaning of without the visual aid of Hanja, so the native Korean terms help the Koreans to understand the meaning. The existing Hanja terms will be gradually replaced with the native Korean ones, so foreign learners are advised to get used to both sets of terms.
The 품사 pumsa, also called 씨 ssi, are themselves grouped together according to the following outline.
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, and honorifics. Prefixes and suffixes are numerous, partly because Korean is an agglutinative language.
There are also various other important classes of words and morphemes that are not generally classified among the pumsa. 5 other major classes of words or morphemes are:

Postpositions

Nouns

Korean nouns, 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 exist" keeps the word 사과 sagwa "apple" in its unmarked form, as the numeral makes the plural marker redundant.
The most basic, fundamental Korean vocabulary is native to the Korean language, e.g. s stem from the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters e.g. wikt:산 san, "mountain," wikt:역 yeok, "station," wikt:문화 munhwa, "culture", etc. Many Sino-Korean words have native Korean equivalents and vice versa, but not all. 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. It is in much the same way that Latin- or French-derived words in English are used in higher-level vocabulary sets, thus sounding more refined – for example, the native Germanic "ask" versus Romance "inquire".

Pronouns

Korean pronouns.

Numerals

Korean 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 follows the Chinese tradition of myriads rather than thousands as is common in Europe and North America.

Verbs (broadly speaking)

Processual verbs

Korean wikt:동사, dongsa which include wikt:쓰다 and wikt:가다, 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 wikt:형용사 hyeongyongsa.
Korean verb conjugation depends upon the tense, aspect, mood, and the social relation between the speaker, the subject, and the listener. Different endings are used depending on the speaker's relation with their subject or audience. Politeness is a critical part of the Korean language and Korean culture; the correct verb ending must be chosen to indicate the proper degree of respect or familiarity for the situation.

Descriptive verbs

Copulative and existential verbs

The predicate marker 이다 serves as the copula, which links the subject with its complement, that is, the role 'to be' plays in English. For example, 대나무는 풀이다 When the complement, which is suffixed by i-ta, ends in a vowel, i-ta contracts into -ta quite often as in following example, 우리는 친구다 The past tense of 이다 is 이었다. However, if it is attached after a vowel, it is always contracted into 였다. If not, it cannot be contracted.
To negate, a special adjective 아니다 is used, being one of the two cases that take complement, the other being 되다. Two nouns take the nominative clitic 이/가 before the negative copula; one is the subject, and the other is the complement. For instance, in 대나무는 나무가 아니다, 대나무는 is the subject and 나무가 is the complement. The derived form 아니요 is the word for "no" when answering a positive question.
이다 and 아니다 become 이야, often 야 after a vowel and 아니야/아냐 at the end of the sentence in 해체 form. In 해요체 form, they become 이에요, often 예요 after a vowel and 아니에요/아녜요 as well as the less common forms 이어요/여요 and 아니어요/아녀요.
The copula is only for "to be" in the sense of "A is B". For existence, Korean uses the existential verbs 있다 and 없다. The honorific existential verb for 있다 is 계시다.

Modifiers

Determinatives

Korean s or articles in English. Examples include.

Adverbs

Korean adverbs.

Other content words

Exclamations

Korean interjections.

Syntax

Korean is typical of languages with verb-final word order, such as Japanese, in that most affixes are suffixes and clitics are enclitics, modifiers precede the words they modify, and most elements of a phrase or clause are optional.

Complex sentences

Connected sentences

Sometimes, just using an adverb is insufficient to express the exact meaning the speaker has in mind. The composition of a main verb and a supporting verb can be used in this case, alongside some grammatical features. Suffixes including -아/어 -a/eo, -게 -ge, -지 -ji, and -고 -go are taken by the main verb, and the supporting verb follows it and is conjugated.

Examples using ''-eo/a''

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 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 and indicates that the word is attached to expresses new information.
For instance:
In this case, the information that the subject is plural is expressed.
To add a distributive meaning on a numeral, 씩 ssig is used.
Now "balloon" is specified as a distributive plural.

Subject–verb agreement

While it is usually stated that Korean does not have subject–verb agreement, the conjugated verbs do, in fact, show agreement with the logical subject in several ways. However, agreement in Korean usually only narrows down the range of subjects. Personal agreement is shown partly on the verb stem before the tense-aspect-mood suffixes, and partly on the sentence-final endings.
Korean distinguishes:
Korean does not distinguish:
The following table is meant to indicate how the verb stem and/or the sentence ending can vary depending on the subject. The column labeled "jussive ending" contains the various jussive sentences endings in the plain style.
PersonPerson agreement on final ending
Jussive ending
1st sg -gessda -겠다
-lida -리다
-lyeonda -련다
-ma -마
1st pl -ja -자
2nd, 3rd -eola/ala -아라/어라

Valency

Valency in Korean

Verbs can take conjunctive suffixes. These suffixes make subordinate clauses.
One very common suffix, -ko -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, mek.ko 먹고 meokgo means approximately "eating," koki lul mek.ko 고기를 먹고 gogireul meokgo means "eating meat," and nay ka koki lul mek.ko 내가 고기를 먹고 nae-ga gogi-reul meog-go means "I eat meat and..." or "My eating meat."
Another suffix, somewhat similar in meaning, is se 서 -seo which is, however, attached to long stem of a verb. The long stem of a verb is the one that is formed by attaching - 어/아 -eo/-a after a consonant.
Both sometimes called gerunds, the verb form that ends in se and the one that ends in -ko juxtapose two actions, the action in the subclause and the action in the main clause. The difference between them is that with se the action in the subclause necessarily came first, while -ko conveys more of an unordered juxtaposition. se is frequently used to imply causation, and is used in many common expressions like manna se pan.kapsupnita 만나서 반갑습니다 Manna-seo bangapseumnida. If -ko 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 cannot derive complete sentences of their own without the addition of a main verb, by default the verb iss 있. 내가 고기를 먹고 있다 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 -se 서 form is used with the existential verb iss 있 for the perfect. 문이 열려 있다 can be the example, although it would convey different meaning if the very syllable se were visible, 문이 열려서 있다 'because the door is opened, it exist', meaning of which is not clear, though.