Topics in History and Structure

of the Korean Language

Dr. Jaehoon Yeon (jy1@soas.ac.uk)
Department of Japan and Korea
School of Oriental and African Studies

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. The structural characteristics of Korean

Reading
Lee & Ramsey: Chapter 1.4 (pp7-12)

Yeon (2003) Chapter 1.2

Cho, Sungdai (2006): Linguistic Structures of

Korean, In: Sohn (2006), Ch. 20.

Yeon & Brown (2011) Chapter 1.
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Characteristic features of Korean

Yeon & Brown (2011) Ch. 1

1. Korean is a language with approximately 78

million speakers.
48 million in South Korea

24 million in North Korea

Nearly 6 million outside of Korea

2. Korean is relatively homogeneous, with minor

geographically based dialectal differences.
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3. Korean has a number of characteristic features

that distinguish it from other languages,

particularly English and European languages.
Korean has neither the definite nor indefinite article
(such as the and a/an in English).

There is no sharp distinction of gender and plurality

of a noun.
There is no special distinction for the third person
present singular in a verb.
There is no conspicuous accent for a word.
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4. The linguistic affinity of Korean to other

languages is still disputable.

The most convincing hypothesis about its origin is
the Altaic hypothesis: Korean is one of the Altaic

languages along with Mongolian, Turkic, and

Manchu-Tungus.
The difficulty of reconstructing genetic ties to other
languages is mainly due to the lack of evidence of
written data.
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Characteristic features of Korean

Lee & Ramsey: Chapter 1.4

1. Word order: SOV cf. Greenbergian Universals

2. An agglutinative language (cf. isolated,
inflectional, fusional language)
3. Postpositions
4. Verbs are formed through agglutination by
attaching various endings to the stem.
5. Adjectives are a subcategory of verbs.
* descriptive verbs
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6. Modifiers always precede what they modify.

*implicational universals
cf. prepositional language vs. postpositional language
right branching language vs. left branching language
7. Honorific system (speech protocol): subject
honorific and speech level (cf. Japanese honorific)
* Tendency to avoid second person pronouns to
address one father or teacher
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8. Phonological characteristics:
a. No labio-dentals like [f] or [v]
b. No interdentals like th in thanks this
c. No voicing distinctions in the Korean consonants
d. Instead of voicing, Korean has a more unusual
three-way contrast among lax (plain), fortis
(reinforced), and aspirated. ::
e. The consonants of Korean are never released in
final position. (cf. , , , ,
loan words: , , English: hat, help, church)
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Characteristic features of Korean

Cho, Sungdai (2006)

1. Introduction:
Korean: genetically Altaic language and typologically
agglutinative language. (*grammatical relatedness is
not crucial for genetic relationship)
The seven dialect zones (cf. six zones)
The development of Korean (periodization): five
major periods (cf. four periods)
Divergence between languages of North Korea and
South Korea
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2. Sound patterns
2.1. Speech sounds
Korean speech sounds consists of 21 vowels and 19
consonants.
2.2. Syllable structure and pronunciation rules
(5) a. written syllable structure: (C) V (C) (C)
b. spoken syllable structure: (C) V (C)
*strike
Five major rules in consonant pronunciation
: Resyllabification, Neutralization, Nasal
assimilation, Tensification, Consonant-cluster
simplification (cf. Cho 2006: 240-242)
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10

Resyllabification ()

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11

Neutralization ()
a. becomes in syllable-final position

b. and become in syllable-final
position
,
c. , , , , become in syllable-final
position
, , , ,

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12

Nasal Assimilation ()
Before nasal sounds( or ),
1) , become ;
2) ,, , , , , become ;
3) , , become
,

,

,

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13

Tensification ()

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14

Consonant-cluster simplification
( )

(cf. )
(cf. ())


(cf. )

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3. Lexicon
Sino-Korean words

Loan words (English)

4. Word structure
Verb: .
Noun-particles: /

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5. Sentence structure
Word order:
a. S-O-V (head-final)
b. N + particle(s)
c. V + inflectional suffixes
d. Modifier (pre-noun, adjective, relative
clauses, genitive, adverbial, etc) + Head

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6. Honorifics

Distinction between honorifics and politeness (speech level)

a.

Humble forms
Noun: //
Pronouns: ,
Verb (object honorific): . ,

b. Honorific forms
Noun: , , ,
Verb: , , , ,
Particle: ,
Nominal suffix: -

verbal suffixes: 1. subject honorific: -()

2. addressee honorific: -()
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Speech styles
Declarative Interrogative
Deferential
Polite
Blunt
Familiar
Intimate
Plain

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-
-/
-/
-
-/
-()

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Imperative

Propositive

-
-()
-/
-/
-/
-
-
-
-/
-/
-/()
-()

-()
-/

Jaehoon Yeon

-
-/
-

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7. Macro-micro structure and discourseorientedness

e.g.
(1) address: country-city-street-house
number
(2) Year-month-day-hour-minute

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