Korean Language

Morphology
Korean grammar depends on what kind of sentence you are
forming:

1. Statements with action verbs

2. statements with descriptive verbs
3. statements with nouns
4. commands
5. questions
6. suggestions

For the Korean language, the suffix of a word and a

sentence often determines what you are trying to say. And
for each of these there are several different ways that a
sentence or word can be ended. (vowels vs. consonants)

When Korean word category is changed, the word form is also changed.
Korean is highly considered an agglutinative language

“An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that

primarily uses agglutination:

Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meaning, but each
of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) remains in every aspect
unchanged after their union, thus resulting in generally easier deducible word
meanings if compared to fusional languages, which allow modifications in either
or both the phonetics or spelling of one or more morphemes within a word,
generally for shortening the word on behalf of an easier pronunciation.”
Although Korean restricts the order of words
in the way English does, its grammar
imposes other types of requirements.
Korean speakers should place the case
markers at the end of nouns and pronouns
to indicate the role of a noun in a sentence
or a clause.
In English, by contrast, this information is
conveyed by the order of the words such as
placing the subject in front of the
verb(S+V+O):
► Danny ate a potato.
Cf. A potato ate Danny. - In English the word
order is important because it changes the
meaning but in Korean it is the word ending
that changes the meaning of the sentence.
Korean: Dænika kam alɨl mΛkΛtta.(= Danny
ate a potato.)
Morpheme(analyzed on the basis of
morpheme) → Dæni, ka, kam a, lɨl, mΛk, Λt,
ta.
Korean case markers (postpositions) are suffixes or short words in Korean grammar that immediately follow a
noun or pronoun that determines the meaning, context, tense, of the word which then determines what type of
sentence it is.
Here are some case marker examples:

Original Word jeo na uri jeohui neo igeoseun

+neun jeoneun naneun urineun jeohuineun neoneu igeoson

n

contraction jeon nan urin jeohuin neon igeon

+i/ga jega naega uriga jeohuiga nega igeosi

contraction ige

+eul/reul jeoreul urireul jeohuireul neoreul neoreul igeoseul

contraction jeol nal uril jeohuil neol igeol

+ui jeoui naui uriui jeohuiui neoui igeosui

contraction je nae ne
☞ English word form is more changeable than Korean.

► affix showing the past: Λt/at

e.g. drink – drank – drunk, cf. masita(=drink) (basic form) – masiΛtta(=drank)
나는 물 을 마셨다
naneun mul eul masyeossda (I drank water)

► affix showing plural: tɨl

e.g. man-men, goose-geese,
cf. saram(a person) - saramtɨl(people), koyaŋi(cat)-koyaŋi tɨl(cats)
사람 사람들
salam salamdeul

► pronoun + case marker

e.g. I-my-me-mine
cf. na(I)-naɨj(my)-naeke(me)- naɨjkΛt(mine)
Korean verbs are more complicated than English
verbs.

The sentence ender is very important for passing

on required information about the sentence so that
it can be understood.

Each sentence ender must include several suffixes

in a fixed order: tense, addressee honorific, mood,
and sentence-type.

The sentence ender tells the receiver who is being

spoken to, the mood of the sentence, and the type example: May/might your father have caught it?
of sentence that is given. = taŋsinɨj apΛ ika kɨkΛtɨl ap-ɨsi-Λt-ket-sɨp-nika?

☞ The verb is analyzed on the basis of morpheme like the

following:
ap(=catch) = root
ɨsi = polite expression to your father(the subject honor)
Λt = the affix showing the past
ket = the affix showing presumption / conjecture
sɨp = polite expression to the listener/the partner(addressee
honor)
nika = the question(interrogative) affix
Culture shapes Korean morphology
There are 7 levels of speech in Korean. example:
Let’s go. = Ka/ka a(to those who are
The lowest level being banmal, used toward younger than the speaker)
→ kapsita/kajo(to those who are around the
children or people very close to you. It same age)
covers 5 of the 7 levels. → kasi jo/kasilk’ajo(to those who are older
than the speaker or have higher social
status)
The 2 most important ones are both called
jondaenmal sunbaenim - hoobae

one being “informal polite” which is most

common and useful level.

the other is “super polite” and is used when

speaking to people higher in rank or status
or when addressing crowds
Basic Korean sentence structure: Subject – Object – Verb

As sentences become more complex, a basic rule of thumb for Korean sentence structure is
“after the subject, the word order is opposite to that of English.”
In Korean, particles function very similarly to English
except that there are words that do not exist in
English

These words serve to show the grammatical case

(subject, object, possessive) of the word that it’s
connected to

While prepositions are separate words that come

before the word they modify, particles attach to the
end of the word they modify.

Some particles change pronunciation slightly when

following a word that ends in a consonant or a vowel,
much like “a/an” in English.
 Korean Phonemes
vowels: a ɛ ʌ e o ø u y i

glides: j w

consonants: m b p pʰ n d t tʰ l z̥ʰ s ʣʲ ʲ ʲʰ ŋ ɡ k kʰ h

a/ ɛ/ ja / jɛ / ʌ/ e/ jʌ / je / o/ wa / wɛ / ø/ jo / u/ wʌ /
we / y / ju / / i/ i

ɡ/ k/ㄴn/ d/ t/ l/ m/ b/ p/ z̥ʰ / s/ ŋ/ ʲ/ ʲ/ ʲʰ / kʰ /
tʰ / pʰ / h
Vowels
● Vary across dialects
● Long vowels exist only in first syllables
and lose the long sound in following
syllables
Consonants
Consonants
● Occlusives
○ Lenis
○ Fortis
○ Aspirated
● Consonant Position
○ Initial
○ Middle
○ Final
● Approximant between l-r
○ tap [ɾ]
● English phonemes NOT found in Korean
○ /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, / /, / /, /ɹ/
Hangul
● Phonemic alphabet
● 24 basic letters
○ 14 Consonants
○ 10 Vowels
● 16 Complex letters
○ 5 Complex consonants
○ 11 Complex vowels
● Written in syllables
○ Put together as one orthographic unit
Phonological Rules
● Only one consonant may appear in initial and final positions of a syllable
○ Clusters only appear in middle position of a word
● All consonants (except /r/ and /ŋ/) can come in the beginning of a word
● Only seven consonants can come at the ending of words ( /k/ /t/ /p/ /r/ /n/ /m/
/ŋ/)
● Fricatives and Affricates do not appear in word final position
Phonological Rule
● Neutralization
○ All released sounds replaced with unreleased sounds pronounced in a similar place of
articulation
■ Syllable final fricative/affricates are neutralized and pronounced as /t/
● Syllabification of a particle starting with a vowel
○ Consonants in the coda position are moved to the onset position of the following syllable
before the application of neutralization
■ Adding of a normative particle
 Syntax

For sentence order, there are four basic types:

S+N
S+V
S + A (descriptive verb)
S+O+V

the tense of the sentence being determined by the last part of the sentence: noun,
verb, or adjective (descriptive verb)
 Particles
● Most Korean sentences have words that have a particle attached to them
● These show what the word’s role is in the sentence (subject or object)

Subject

● If the subject’s last syllable ends in a vowel, use 는 [neun]

● If the subject’s last syllable ends in a consonant, use 은 [eun]
Object
● If the object’s last syllable ends in a vowel, use 를 [leul]
● If the object’s last syllable ends in a consonant, use 을 [eul]
 Word Order
● Subject- Object- Verb
○ “John apple eats.”

● Every Korean sentence MUST end in a verb (like eat, read, etc.) or an
adjective (like pretty, yummy, hungry, etc.) otherwise you’d be grammatically
incorrect.
 Basic Statements
● Subject- Verb
○ “I eat.”

● Subject- Object- Verb

○ “John apple eats.”
 Descriptive Statements
The Korean word for “to be” is 이다 [ida].

● English uses “to be + adjective”.

● Korean uses a “descriptive verb” instead
○ Descriptive verbs are like adjectives and verbs in one.
○ Simply conjugate the descriptive verb.
○ Example:
■ Literal English: Bad Person-ieyo

■ Romanization: [na-ppeun sa-lam-ieyo]

■ Translation: I am a bad person.

 Verb Conjugation
The Korean word for “to be” is 이다 [ida] and “not to be” is 아니다 [anida]

● “To be” = 이다 [ida]

○ When the word you’re conjugating closes with a consonant, attach
이에요 [ieyo] to the end.
○ If the word has a vowel at the end, you’ll use “예요 ye-yo.”

● “Not to be” = 아니다 [anida]

○ (Noun) + 이/가 아니에요 [-i an-ieyo]

 Tree Diagram Details
● Note the absence of a determiner for the noun

● The addition of particles – the nominative particle ‘neun’(는) to designate the

personal pronoun ‘na’(나) as a subject

● The particle ‘reul’(를) marking ‘sagwa’(사과) as the direct object of the verb