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THE KOREAN LANGUAGE The Korean language is ranked eleventh amongst the languages of the world in terms of numbers of speakers. Korean is now studied as an important foreign language in an increasing number of countries. This book provides a good overview of the language, written in a readable way without neglecting any major structural aspects of the language. Furthermore, the book explains the geographical, historical, social and cultural context of the language. The Korean Language is designed to be accessible to English-speaking learners of Korean and scholars working in disciplines other than linguistics, as well as serving as a useful introduction for general linguists. The book complements Korean language textbooks used in the classroom and will be welcomed not only by readers with a wider interest in Korean studies, but also by Asian specialists in general. Jae Jung Song teaches linguistics at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He has contributed to international journals including, Lingua, Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics and Oceanic Linguistics. He is the author of Causatives and Causation (1996) and Linguistic Typology: Morphology and Syntax (2001). He is also co-editor, with Anna Siewierska, of Case, Typology and Grammar (1998). i ii THE KOREAN LANGUAGE Structure, use and context Jae Jung Song iii First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Jae Jung Song All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Song, Jae Jung, 1958– The Korean language : structure, use and context / Jae Jung Song. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-32802-0 (alk. paper) 1. Korean language—Grammar. I. Title. PL911.S655 2005 495.7—dc22 2005001117 ISBN 0-415-32802-0 iv For Kee-Ho, Peter, Taeyeon, James, Julia, Rochelle and Michelle, who unwittingly motivated me to write this book v vi CONTENTS Preface ix Abbreviations xii A note on romanization and Korean personal names xiii Map 1: North and South Korea xiv Map 2: Korea and the region xv 1 Korea: history, culture and language 1 Geography: land and population 1 History 3 Culture and society: age, gender and chwulsin 10 Korean: the language and its wider relations 13 2 Sounds and their patterns: phonology 22 Standard South Korean: Phyocwune 24 Sounds in Korean: consonants, vowels and semivowels 24 Sounds in combination: syllables and sound adjustment 32 Beyond sounds: stress, intonation and connected speech 39 Pronunciation of loanwords 42 3 Writing systems: Hankul and Hanca 45 Hankul: historical and conceptual background 47 Origins of Hankul: a controversy? 53 Writing conventions: the Original Form Principle 54 Other conventions: spacing, punctuation and direction 58 Chinese characters in present day Korea: Hanca 60 How to find words in Hankul and Hanca dictionaries 61 Romanization systems: which system to use 63 vii CONTENTS 4 Words and fixed expressions: vocabulary 67 Word classes: parts of speech 70 Origins: native words, Sino-Korean words and loanwords 83 Word formation: how words are created in Korean 90 Networks of meaning: semantics 92 Deference in Korean: respect and self-deprecation 93 Fixed expressions: idioms 95 5 Sentences and their structure: grammar 98 Word order: sentences and phrases 101 Noun phrases: role-marking particles 109 Verbs: grammatical and speech-level endings 117 Compound verbs: multiple-verb constructions 129 Complex sentences: sentences within sentences 135 6 Beyond sentences: discourse 143 Delimiting particles: topic/contrast particle: -(n)un 145 Formal versus informal style: omission and contraction 150 Lubricators: fillers, responders and connectors 155 Social formulaic expressions: nature and use 157 7 North and South Korea: language policy and planning 163 Language policy and planning: historical background 164 Differences between Phyocwune and Munhwae 171 Looking forward: unified nation and unified language? 175 References and further reading 177 Index 182 viii PREFACE Books like this one are notoriously difficult to write because the target readership cannot be expected to be au fait with the author’s own discipline. Fortunately, this difficulty is compensated for by the prospect of capturing readers whom one normally would not dream of reaching. This book, while providing a largely linguistic introduction to the Korean language, has been written primarily for readers with no background in linguistics. Every effort has thus been made to avoid technical linguistic terms, and, where their use is unavoidable, such terms have been explained in a readable, non-technical manner. Moreover, throughout the book emphasis has been placed on providing a descriptive overview of the salient features, rather than a detailed theoretical or esoteric exposition, of the Korean language. In these respects, it differs from other books on the Korean language, written with linguists and students of (Korean) linguistics in mind. Readers for whom this book is designed fall into four main groups. First, Korean scholars specializing in areas other than (Korean) linguistics may wish to learn about the Korean language and its historical and socio-cultural contexts – whether in connection with their own research or out of curiosity – but find it rather daunting, if not impossible, to sift through an enormous amount of technical details in grammatical descriptions in order to arrive at a general understanding of the Korean language. (To the surprise of some readers, there are Korean specialists who may not be able to understand Korean (well)!) This book is thus written in a way in which specialists in one discipline would talk about their work to specialists in another discipline. Second, English-speaking learners of Korean with little or no prior exposure to (Korean) linguistics will benefit from the book. Such learners may wish to read it initially for a general orientation to the Korean language and later go back to specific sections or chapters as their learning progresses. For the benefit of this particular group of readers, special attention has been paid to potential areas of difficulty from the perspective of English-speaking learners. Thus the book complements language textbooks used for self-study or in the classroom. In this sense, it will also be of much interest to teachers of ix