User talk:KYPark/있다

Part of speech for 있다

Hi, KYPark. In this edit, you changed the 있다 entry to say it's an adjective instead of a verb. Since 있다 conjugates as a verb, appears at the end of sentences as a verb, and has an English definition that's a verb, I'm not sure why you changed it. Does it have something to do with the recent linguistic literature that posits that Korean adjectives and stative verbs are the same class of word? Rod (A. Smith) 03:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Das taugt nicht. (That is of no use.) In this case, the German verb taugen "to be fit, useful" is not a real but so to speak adjectival verb. Latin also has the like, but the Modern English has not, corruptedly or not. Most if not all Korean adjectives are such verbs but rather called adjectives instead. They conjugate almost like verbs, but not exactly. Remarkably, they use the infinitive as the present tense, while verbs don't. (The present tense of the infinitive verb 가다 "to go" is 간다.) So do the verbial 이다 "to be," and 있다 "to be, exist," so that these also would better be regarded as adjectives. Cheers. --KYPark 10:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

That's a good analysis, but if 있다 were in the same class as other Korean words commonly called adjectives, it would be ok to modify a noun by preceding it with *있은. Since that's non-grammatical, though, it seems there are four relevant Korean parts of speech to consider in order to determine how best to map Korean words to verbs and adjectives:

1. standard verbs (an open class that includes 가다 and the words we use to translate most English verbs)
2. the copula 이다 and its antonym 아니다
3. the existence verb 있다 and its antonym 없다
4. adjectives, a.k.a. adjectival/descriptive/stative verbs (an open class that includes the words we use to translate most English adjectives)

So, unless there's anything else to consider, I'll just add the relevant usage notes to 있다 and call it a day. :-) Rod (A. Smith) 15:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Though your initial question was the existential verb 있다, may I ask you to forget it for a moment as it is so special as English be? What we have to focus on at the moment would be whether verb or adjective, English or Korean. Korean verbs and adjectives are morphologically similar but soemwhat different. --KYPark 16:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It's much more important to determine the POS to apply to #4 above (the open class that includes the words we use to translate most English adjectives. I believe we both agree that "adjective" is a better POS to apply. They seem very much like "い adjectives" in Japanese. Last year, I think we decided that the best way to classify them is as adjectives, with a category to differentiate them from "な adjectives". In Korean, that differentiation doesn't seem necessary, so we should probably just call them "adjectives". Right? Rod (A. Smith) 17:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Right. Now let me show you some more types, perhaps making your life a little harder. ;-) Japanese い-adjectives are both attributive and predicative, while な-adjectives are only attributive. Either is morphologically and grammatically quite simple. In contrast, Korean adjectives are much more diverse and complex, as partly suggested in the following. Except for the last category "Past or perfect tense," the present tense is the same as the infinitive, which is the sure sign of adjectives in contrast to verbs.

1. Typical adjectives
   • 같다 / 다르다 to be identical / different
   • 검다 / 까맣다 to be black
   • 길다 / 짧다 to be long / short
   • 높다 / 낮다 to be high / low
   • 달다 / 쓰다 to be sweet / bitter
   • 맑다 / 흐리다 to be clear / cloudy
   • 밝다 / 어둡다 to be bright / dark
   • 붉다 / 빨갛다 to be red
   • 푸르다 / 파랗다 to be blue
   • 희다 / 하얗다 to be white
2. -하다
   • 나른하다 to be tired
   • 느긋하다 to be leisurely
   • 편리하다 to be convenient
   • 불편하다 to be inconvenient
   • 유리하다 to be advantageous
   • 유익하다 to be useful
   • 행복하다 to be happy
   • 불행하다 to be unhappy
   • 다행하다 to be lucky
3. -있다, -없다
   • 맛있다 / -없다 to taste good / bad
   • 쓸모있다 / -없다 to be useful / useless
   • 다름없다 there to be no difference
   • 잘있다 to be well, in a good condition
4. -이다
   • 행운이다 to be fortunate
   • 다행이다 to be fortunate
   • 잘못이다 to be wrong
5. -이다 (analogy)
   • 개다 to be (as brutal as) a dog
   • 여우다 to be (as sly as) a fox
6. -같다 (simile)
   • 개같다 to be like a dog
   • 여우같다 to be like a fox
7. -롭다, -스럽다
   • 자유롭다 to be free
   • 자연스럽다 to be natural
8. Past or perfect tense
   • 말랐다 to be (get) thin
   • 미쳤다 to be (go) mad

--KYPark 09:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for those examples. Can you recommend a text describing Korean grammar from a Korean standpoint? I'd like to list the parts of speech in WT:AK, create templates for each, and perhaps describe them in an appendex. Unfortunately, my little Korean-English dictionary does not include Korean parts of speech. Rod (A. Smith) 19:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The best text would be 교육인적자원부, 고등학교 문법, 대한교과서주식회사 (Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development, High School Grammar, state-run textbook publisher). But the trouble is you could not buy it from Interpark or the like shopping mall. I have no idea how you could at the moment. A second-hand copy may be available somewhere.

I have also found no Korean-English dictionary including POS, perhaps to avoid disparity between Korean and English. So you have to consult the Korean-Korean dictionary like 표준국어대사전, word after word. Or, from this site you can download the Excel file of the basic Korean vocabulary listing of 6000- words in Hangul (plus Chinese characters for Sino-Korean) and POS!

In addition to WT:AK or whatever, I do wish that using this file you could let a bot make 6000- basic entries without definition for the moment (as Chinese characters did for CJK languages). Romanization is automated as you would know. I have seen such almost blank entries (in German or French), which may make editors' lives easier though perhaps some frustration to readers. If you agree with my proposal, we may better talk a little more later. Cheers! --KYPark 01:54, 20 May 2007 (UTC)