Korean tense and aspect

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Stouffer 1 Laura Stouffer LIN 431: Term Paper Draft Korean Tense and Aspect Introduction Tense and aspect are two properties of a given language which appear on the verb in any given sentence, or structure as many would call it. Tense and aspect are often confused as being the same thing, so their chief differences will be briefly explained here. Tense refers to the precise location in time at which an event occurs. Take this English sentence for example: John fell into the lake yesterday. The form of the verb ―to fall‖ indicates a simple past tense and the time word ―yesterday‖ indicates when the event took place. Aspect, on the other hand refers to how said event is viewed with respect to time. Take this English sentence for example: John has fallen into the lake. The form of the verb ―to fall‖ indicates that John fell quite recently, but it is not specified when exactly he fell (The Survey of English Usage, 1996-1998). This paper’s goal is to provide the reader with a concise overview the tense and aspect marking system of the Korean language and it will be explained and demonstrated through multiple examples and discourse. The main source for this paper is Jaehoon Yeon and Lucien Brown’s collective work Korean: a Comprehensive Grammar, which was published by Routledge during the year 2011 in New York, NY. It is a part of a series of grammars that have been published by the same publisher. This paper will be organized in the following way: first, morphological and phonological features of the tense and aspect marking system will be explored. Questions relating to the location of tense marking and the forms verbs take for various tenses such as simple past, what is called past-past, observed past, progressive (or continuous) aspect, simple present, and one of the future aspects will be answered. Second, syntactic features of this system will be discussed. Does tense and aspect marking affect parts of the sentence other than the verb? Third, the semantic features of these tense and aspect markings will be explained. Differences between tenses like simple past and past-past will be explained in more detail. Lastly, concluding remarks will be made in order to sum up what has been covered in this paper. Data will be shown both in Hangul,

Transcript of Korean tense and aspect

Page 1: Korean tense and aspect

Stouffer 1

Laura Stouffer

LIN 431: Term Paper Draft

Korean Tense and Aspect

Introduction

Tense and aspect are two properties of a given language which appear on the verb in any

given sentence, or structure as many would call it. Tense and aspect are often confused as being

the same thing, so their chief differences will be briefly explained here. Tense refers to the

precise location in time at which an event occurs. Take this English sentence for example: John

fell into the lake yesterday. The form of the verb ―to fall‖ indicates a simple past tense and the

time word ―yesterday‖ indicates when the event took place. Aspect, on the other hand refers to

how said event is viewed with respect to time. Take this English sentence for example: John has

fallen into the lake. The form of the verb ―to fall‖ indicates that John fell quite recently, but it is

not specified when exactly he fell (The Survey of English Usage, 1996-1998).

This paper’s goal is to provide the reader with a concise overview the tense and aspect

marking system of the Korean language and it will be explained and demonstrated through

multiple examples and discourse. The main source for this paper is Jaehoon Yeon and Lucien

Brown’s collective work Korean: a Comprehensive Grammar, which was published by

Routledge during the year 2011 in New York, NY. It is a part of a series of grammars that have

been published by the same publisher.

This paper will be organized in the following way: first, morphological and phonological

features of the tense and aspect marking system will be explored. Questions relating to the

location of tense marking and the forms verbs take for various tenses such as simple past, what is

called past-past, observed past, progressive (or continuous) aspect, simple present, and one of the

future aspects will be answered. Second, syntactic features of this system will be discussed. Does

tense and aspect marking affect parts of the sentence other than the verb? Third, the semantic

features of these tense and aspect markings will be explained. Differences between tenses like

simple past and past-past will be explained in more detail. Lastly, concluding remarks will be

made in order to sum up what has been covered in this paper. Data will be shown both in Hangul,

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the Korean alphabet, and Latin romanization. Example sentences will be followed by a gloss and

an English translation. Some example sentences come from Jaehoon Yeon and Lucien Brown’s

book on Korean grammar while some examples were created for this paper or pulled from an

online source.

Background

Korean is spoken by approximately 78 million people: 48 million in South Korea, 24

million in North Korea, and about 6 million in other countries, mainly China, Japan, and The

United States. The linguistic connection of Korean to other languages is not certain, though

many believe under the Altaic hypothesis that Korean is related to other Altaic languages such as

Mongolian, Turkic, and Manchu-Tungus. So, it is generally considered part of the Altaic family.

Korean is agglutinative and differs from many Indo-European languages in that it does not utilize

definite or indefinite articles such as ―the‖ or ―a‖ and it does not make special distinction of

gender or plurality of nouns. Korean is a Subject-Object-Verb language and most Koreans tend

to avoid personal reference, such as “I”, so it is common that Korean sentences only utilize the

verb and the object, if there is one. (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

This paper in particular will focus on tense and aspect marking on the verb in Korean. At

the same time, this paper will provide examples of aspect and tense conjugation at varying levels

of politeness, as Korean is a hierarchical language and the various levels of politeness, or styles,

are very much intertwined with the tense system of Korean. Verbs are conjugated differently

depending not only on tense and aspect but on the listener or audience the spoken sentence is

directed towards. If one is speaking to a person who is older and of a higher social ranking, then

the formal or honorific forms are used. If a person is speaking to a younger audience such as a

child or to a close friend, then informal speech may be used. Polite form is used with

acquaintances and other people who are familiar but not very close. The plain form which is

represented in the data in the sections below shows the verb without conjugation for hierarchical

forms related to politeness.

It should be noted that North and South Korea are somewhat linguistically divergent and

that this paper represents the Seoul—the capital of South Korea—style of speech and does not

necessarily represent North Korean dialect (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

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Phonological and Morphological Features

Before one can understand how tense and aspect is applied to Korean verbs, a couple

simple facts and conjugation rules should be known. First, there are a few main endings that are

represented in the dictionary form of Korean verbs. The dictionary form of a verb may end in

―hada‖, or simply ―da‖. In the case of verbs whose dictionary forms end in only ―da‖, there are

two main types: those verbs whose final character before ―da‖ ends in a vowel, and those whose

final character before the ―da‖ end in a consonant (Yeon and Brown, 2011). Here is an example

of each type:

(1) 공부하다 (gongbu hada) ―to study‖

가다 (ga da) ―to go, to leave‖ ―ga‖ ends in a vowel

먹다 (meok da) ―to eat‖ ―meok‖ ends in a consonant

When conjugating for tense and aspects, the ―da‖ is dropped and the characteristic of the

new final character is what determines how the verb is conjugated. The exception to this rule is

the plain style, which will be shown in the next section. For verbs which end in ―hada‖, the ―da‖

is dropped and ―ha‖ is conjugated for the desired tense. In the case of the ―hada‖ verbs,

conjugation for the simple present tense is ―hae‖ for many speech styles because all ―hada‖ verbs

are conjugated with ―-eo‖ after the ―da‖ is dropped (Yeon and Brown, 2011). In the next section,

variations of conjugation for the ―hada‖ verbs will be shown.

(2) 공부하다 (gongbu hada) 공부해 (gongbu hae)

For verbs which are like ―ga da‖ above, the ―da‖ is dropped during conjugation and in

most speech styles ―ga‖ remains ―ga‖ and has a simple affix attached to it to express the speech

style being used.

(3) 가다 (ga da) 가 (ga), 가요 (ga yo), 가세요 (ga se yo), 갑니다 (gam ni da)

For verbs which have consonant endings like ―meok da‖, the ―da‖ is also dropped and

―meok‖ undergoes conjugation. If the vowel in the final character such as ―meok‖ is ―i‖, ―eo‖, or

―eu‖, then the verb will be conjugated with the verb ―eo‖ in the following way:

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(4) 먹다 (meok da) 먹+어 (meok + eo) 먹어 (meokeo)

If, however, the vowel in the final character is ―a‖, ―u‖, or ―o‖, then the verb is

conjugated with ―a‖ as in the following example:

(5) 볶다 (bokk da) 볶+아 (bokk + a) 볶아 (bokka)

The honorific and formal styles of speech call for a different conjugation on the verb. It

should also be noted that although a verb may be conjugated for different styles, the verb’s

meaning stays essentially the same. Saying, ―I ate‖ in the formal style means the same basic

thing that, ―I ate‖ does in the informal style. The exception to this note is the honorific style

because that style can only be used when speaking about someone else who is higher in social

standing than the speaker.

If one uses honorifics, there are honorific markers that must appear on the subject or

object in the sentence in order for it to agree with the verb’s conjugation for style. If the person

that is being honored in the sentence is the agent of the verb, then they are the subject and appear

with the honorific subject marker (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Take the following data as an example of this phenomenon:

(6) 어머니께서 저에게 선물을 드리셨어요.

Eomeoni ggeseo cheo ege seonmul eul deurisheosseoyo.

Mother HON me TO gift OBJ gave HON

My mother gave me a present.

Simple Present

The simple present will be explained first. An overview of how the simple present is

expressed in Korean is demonstrated by table one below. The conjugations for the different

styles or politeness levels are included in the table. Table two will provide two examples of verbs

conjugated for the different styles. There are certain variations and conjugation rules which will

be explained immediately following the tables. The simple present in Korean carries the meaning

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that someone is currently doing an action as in ―I am stir-frying‖ or that someone does an action

regularly as in ―I stir fry (on a regular basis)‖ (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Plain Form Informal Polite Formal Honorific

For a verb

which ends in

a vowel

–다

- da

–어/아

-eo/a

–어/아요.

- eo/a yo

–ㅂ니다.

- mnida

–세요

- seyo

For a verb

which ends in

a consonant

–다

-da

–어/아

- eo/a

–어/아요.

- eo/a yo

–습니다

-seumnida

–으세요

-useyo

Table 1

Plain Form Informal Polite Formal Honorific

For a verb

which ends in

a vowel

–일하다

- il hada

―To work‖

–일해

-il hae

―I work‖

–일해요

- il haeyo

―I work‖

일합니다

- il hamnida

―I work‖

일하세요

- il haseyo

―You work‖

For a verb

which ends in

a consonant

–볶다

-bokkda

―To stir-fry‖

–볶아

- bokka

―I stir fry‖

–볶아요

- bokka yo

―I stir-fry‖

–볶습니다

-bokk

seumnida

―I stir-fry‖

–볶으세요

-bokk useyo

―You stir-fry‖

Table 2 Dictionary and plain forms do not differ when the verb is conjugated for the present tense.

Again, the verb is conjugated either with 어(eo) or 아(a) depending on a verb’s dictionary or

plain form’s last vowel. To go from the plain style of ―to work‖ to the informal style which is

conjugated for the present, the following process takes place:

(7) 일하다 + -어/아 = 일해

il hada + -eo/a = il hae

Because the verb’s dictionary form ends in ―hada‖ it automatically conjugates with ―-eo‖.

Both conjugations of the verb have the basic meaning, ―I work‖ when spoken without any further

allusion to a subject (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Progressive/Continuous tense/aspect

Next, the progressive, or continuous tense/aspect, will be explained. This form is very

simple and the different forms are shown below in table three. Table four below provides

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examples. These conjugations all have the basic meaning, ―I am…‖ or ―You are…‖ and the

conjugation is very simple for any verb type. The ―da‖ from the dictionary form of any verb is

dropped and one of five options is directly affixed to the end of the verb (Yeon and Brown,

2011).

Plain Form Informal Polite Formal Honorific

For any verb –고 있다

-go itt da

–고 있어

-go isseo

–고 있어요.

- go isseoyo

–고 있습니다

- go

isseumnida

–고 있으세요

- go issuseyo

Table 3

Dictionary

Form

Plain Form Informal Polite Formal Honorific

일하다

il hada

―To work‖

먹다

meok da

―To eat‖

일하고 있다

il hago

ittda**

―I am

working‖

먹고 있다

Meokgo

ittda*

―I am eating‖

일하고 있어

il hago isseo

먹고 있어

Meokgo

isseo

일하고

있어요

il hago

isseoyo

먹고 있어요

Meokgo

isseo yo

일하고있습니다

il hago

issemnida

\

먹고 있습니다

Meokgo

isseumnida

일하고

있으세요

il ha hago

isseuseyo

―You are

working‖

드시고

있으세요.*

Deushigo

issue se yo

―You are

eating‖

Table 4 *In the honorific style, certain words are changed to fit the style. ―To eat‖ is always changed

from ―meok da‖ to ―deu shi da‖ when speaking about or to an honored person.

**In the plain form, the ―s‖ (ㅆ) is pronounced like a ―t‖ (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Simple Past

What forms does the simple past take in Korean? Table five below provides an overview

of the conjugation for simple past tense in regards to whether the original verb ends in a vowel or

in a consonant. Table five also illustrates the conjugation for various politeness levels as the

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other tables have done. Table six offers a couple examples. All have the same basic meaning, ―I

___ed‖ or ―You __ed‖. For example, ―I worked‖/―You worked‖ (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Plain Tensed

Form

Informal Polite Formal Honorific

For a verb

which ends in

a vowel

–ㅆ다

-tda**

–어/아 ㅆ어

-eo/a sseo

–어/아 ㅆ

어요.

- eo/a sseoyo

–어/아

ㅆ습니다.

- eo/a

sseumnida

–셨어요

- sheosseoyo

For a verb

which ends in

a consonant

–었다

-eotda**

–었어

-eosseo

–었어요

-eosseoyo

–었습니다

-eosseumnida

–으셨어요

-usheosseoyo

Table 5

Dictionary

Form

Plain

Tensed

Form

Informal Polite Formal Honorific

For a

verb

which

ends in a

vowel

먹다

Meok da

―To eat‖

먹었다

Meok

eotda

―I ate‖

먹었어

Meok

eosseo

―I ate‖

먹었어요

Meok

eosseoyo

―I ate‖

먹었습니다

Meok

eosseumnida

―I ate‖

*드셨어요

Deusheosseoyo

―You ate‖

For a

verb

which

ends in a

consonant

공부하다

Gongbu

hada

―To

study‖

공부했다

Gongbu

haetda

―I

studied‖

공부했어

Gongbu

haesseo

―I

studied‖

공부했어요

Gongbu

haesseoyo

―I studied‖

공부했습니다

Gongbu

haesseumnida

―I studied‖

공부하셨어요

Gongbu

hasheosseoyo

―You studied‖

Table 6

Past-Past

Past-past is very much like the simple past in terms of conjugation with one small

difference. An extra morph, 었 ―eoss‖, is added to the simple past (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Refer to table seven below.

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Dictionary

Form

Plain

Tensed

Form

Informal Polite Formal Honorific

공부하다

Gongbu

hada

―To

study‖

공부했었다

Gongbu

haetda

―I studied (a

long time

ago)‖

공부했었어

Gongbu

haesseo

―I studied (a

long time

ago)‖

공부했었어요

Gongbu

haesseoyo

―I studied (a

long time

ago)‖

공부했었습니다

Gongbu

haesseumnida

―I studied (a long

time ago)‖

공부하셨었어요

Gongbu

hasheosseoyo

―You studied (a

long time ago)‖

Table 7 Observed or Perceived Past

When a speaker wants to express that they witnessed an event taking place, the observed

past tense is used. This tense can also be used to express an opinion which is based on past

events. For example, ―I found that movie to be scary‖. The basic form of the observed tense is -

더- (-deo-) and it mainly occurs in the plain speech style and is followed by the ending -라 (-ra)

(Yeon and Brown, 2011). Refer to Table 8 below for an example of how this form is used to

express a witnessed event.

Dictionary Form Present Tense Past Tense

눈이 오다

―nuni oda‖

눈이 오더라

―nuni odeora‖

눈이 왔더라

―nuni wattdeora‖

To snow I saw that is was

snowing

I saw that it had

snowed

Table 8

To conjugate the verb for the observed past, the verb can either simply drop the ―da‖ and

allow for the affixation of ―deora‖ or it can be conjugated for the past and then allow for the

affixation of ―deora‖. When the verb is conjugated according to the first option to describe an

event which took place in the past, the semantic implication is that the speaker witnessed the

event taking place firsthand. However, if the verb is conjugated for the past, it means that the

speaker did not actually witness the event itself, but has knowledge of the event having taken

place because of certain evidence, such as a new blanket of snow on the ground. Using this

construction to express an opinion is no different in terms of conjugation (Yeon and Brown,

2011). The following example can be found on page 202 of Yeon and Brown’s book.

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(8) 나는 그 영화가 너무 무섭더라.

I SUB that movie SUB too scary found.

I found that movie too scary.

Future tense

The future tense calls for the affixation of –ㄹ(r/l)/을(eul) 거(geo) onto any verb’s root

form. After this affix, a politeness level is chosen and affixed on the very end of the construction.

The use of either the –ㄹ(r/l) or 을(eul) depends on whether the root verb ends in a vowel or

consonant. For example, since the verb ―to eat‖ ends in a consonant after the ―da‖ is dropped, it

would be conjugated for the future using the 을(eul). The verb ―to eat‖ would be conjugated for

the future in the following way: 먹다 (meok da) 먹 (meok) + 을 거 (eul geo) 먹을 거

(meokeul geo) + 야 (ya)/예요 (yeyo)/-ㅂ 니다 (-mnida).

Dictionary

form

Informal Polite Formal Honorific

Consonant

Ending 먹다

Meok da

―to eat‖

먹을거야

Meokeul geo

ya

―I will eat‖

먹을거예요

Meokeul

geoyeyo

―I will eat‖

먹을겁니다

Meokeul

geomnida

―I will eat‖

드실거예요*

Deushil

geoyeyo

―You will eat‖

Vowel

Ending 일하다

Il hada

―to work‖

일할거야

Il halgeo ya

―I will work‖

일할거예요

Il halgeoyeyo

―I will work‖

일할겁니다

Il halgemnida

―I will work‖

일하실거예요

Il hashil

geoyeyo

―You will

work‖

Table 9

Modifying Nouns

When modifying nouns with action verbs or adjectives, or creating a relative clause, one

must consider the tense or aspect of the verb that is to be used. For example, if one wants to

create the relative clause ―the apple that I ate‖, then one combines the verb ―to eat‖ and the noun

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―apple‖ and the verb must be conjugated for past tense. The same goes for clauses like ―the apple

I will buy‖ and ―the apple I am buying‖: the verb in the relative clause must be conjugated for

tense.

Modifying nouns with verbs requires knowledge of a couple simple conjugation rules.

There are three ways to conjugate verbs for the appropriate tense in relative clauses. Using three

different affixes, the tense of a verb can be indicated. The three affixes are -는 (neun), -은 (eun),

and 을 (eul) and they are added directly to verbs which end in consonants after the ―da‖ in their

dictionary form has been dropped. Verbs which end in vowels take -는 (neun), -ㄴ (n), and -ㄹ

(r/l). -는 (neun) is the present tense affix, -은 (eun) is the past tense affix, and -을 (eul) is the

future tense affix (Yeon and Brown, 2011). Table ten below shows examples of usage and

provides translations.

Dictionary

Form of Verb

Past Present Future

먹다

Meok da

―To eat‖

먹은 사과

Meogeun sagwa

The apple that I ate

먹는 여자

Meokneun yeoja

The girl that is eating

먹을 사과

Meokeul sagwa

The apple that I will eat

사다

Sa da

―To buy‖

산 사과

San sagwa

The apple that I bought

사과를 사는 여자

Sagwa reul saneun yeoja

The girl that is buying an

apple

살 사과

Sal sagwa

The apple that I will buy

Table 10 Modifying nouns with adjectives requires knowledge of slightly different conjugation

rules. Firstly, the adjectives in a clause can only be conjugated for the present tense. They are

conjugated with either –ㄴ (n) or –은 (eun), depending on whether the root form of the adjective

ends with a vowel or a consonant. If it ends in a vowel, the affix –ㄴ (n) is used and if it is a

consonant, the affix –은 (eun) is used. In table eleven below there are a few examples of this.

The adjective ―to be delicious‖ is a special case because it utilizes the affix –는 (neun) (Yeon

and Brown, 2011).

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Dictionary Form of

Adjective

Conjugated for present

tense

예쁘다

Yaebbeu da

―To be pretty‖

예쁜 여자

Yaebbeun yeoja

Pretty woman

넓다

Neolb da

―To be broad‖

넓은 그림

Neolbeun keurim

Broad/wide picture

맛있다

Mashitt da

―To be delicious‖

맛있는 음식

Matshitt neun eumshik

Delicious food

Table 11

Conjunctive Words

Conjunctive words and how tense is applied to verbs and adjectives when used with the

shortened form of these words will be explained next. In Korean, combining sentences makes the

speaker sound more educated and combining sentences can be accomplished by combining

certain connector words with verbs and adjectives (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Four words that are used very often and shortened in sentences are the words for ―and‖,

―however‖, ―so‖, and ―even though‖. These are the focus of this section. There are restrictions on

which tenses can be used with verbs when they are followed by the shortened version of these

words and these restrictions will be explained.

그리고 (keurigo) is shortened to 고 (go) in sentences; it carries the meaning ―and‖. The

shortened version of this word can be used with present and past tenses.

(9) 밥을 먹었고 물을 마셨어요.

bap eul meokeottgo mul eul ma sheosseoyo

Rice OBJ ate and water OBJ drank.

I ate rice and drank water.

하지만 (hajiman) carries the meaning ―however‖. It can be combined with verbs

conjugated for present, past, and future tenses. When combined with most tensed verbs, it is

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shortened to 지만 (jiman). It is simply 하지만 (hajiman) in the case of ―hada‖ verbs which are

marked for the present tense. For example, if one wants to connect the two sentences 먹었어요.

하지만 아직 배고파요 (Meokeosseoyo. Hajiman, ajik bae go pa yo), ―I ate. But I am still

hungry‖, the shortened form of ―but‖ (하지만/hajiman) needs to be combined with the verb ―to

eat‖. The verb ―to eat‖ retains its past tense marking, so it is combined with jiman (Yeon and

Brown, 2011). Refer to the following for a complete breakdown of the combined sentences:

(10) 먹었지만 아직 배고파요.

Meokeottjiman ajik bae go pa yo.

I ate but still I am hungry.

I ate but I am still hungry.

An example of how to use this word when combined with a verb that is conjugated for

the future tense is as follows:

(11) 숙제를 할거지만 지금 너무 피곤해요.

Sukje reul halgeojiman jigeum neomu pigonhaeyo.

Homework OBJ will do but now too tired.

I will do my homework but right now I am too tired.

Just as is shown in the section on the future tense, the verb ―to do homework‖ is

conjugated for the future tense using the affix ―halgeo‖.

그래서 (keuraeseo) is shortened to -어/아서(eo/a seo) and carries the meaning of ―so‖,

―because of‖ and cannot take conjugation for any other tense but present when the shortened

form is used. The actual tense of the sentence can only be expressed at the end of the

construction.

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(12) 공부해서 시험을 잘 봤어요.

gongbu hae seo shi heom eul jal bwasseoyo

Studied so test OBJ well took

Because I studied, I did well on the test.

그래도 (keuraedo) is shortened to -어/아도 (-eo/a do) and means ―even though‖. The

shortened form of this word cannot take conjugation for any other tense but the present though it

usually refers to an event that happened in the past. If the tense on the verb at the end of the

sentence is future, then this word allows the speaker to refer to a potential event. The actual tense

of the sentence can only be expressed at the end of the construction. Refer to the following

example (ppomppu.co.kr):

(13) 빅맥 4 개를 먹어도 아직 배고파요.

Bik maek 4 gae reul meokeo do ajik bae go pa yo.

Big Macs 4 OBJ ate even though still hungry

Even though I ate 4 Big Macs, I’m still hungry.

While the verb ―to eat‖ is not conjugated for the past, it carries the meaning of past. And

the verb ―to be hungry‖ could have been conjugated for the past or future tense as well. If ―to be

hungry‖ were conjugated for the past tense, the sentence would have the meaning ―Even though I

ate 4 Big Macs, I was still hungry‖ and if it were conjugated for the future tense, it would have

meant ―Even if I eat 4 Big Macs I will still be hungry.‖

Syntactic Features

Korean is an agglutinative language, which means that information such as tense, aspect,

and the social relation between speaker and listener is expressed in succession on the end of the

verb. In agglutinative languages there is no agreement between the subject or object and the

tense which appears on the verb. This is much different than English because English extensively

uses things like auxiliaries to convey tense or aspect. The past used most frequently in Korean is

Page 14: Korean tense and aspect

Stouffer 14

the simple past tense form, so the past tense has a predictable form. This is unlike what you see

in English (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Semantic Features

There are subtle semantic differences between the past tenses described above. While all

of the past tenses serve the purpose of communicating an event which happened in the past, they

have different semantic implications. Simple past is a plain statement of something that

happened; past-past is a statement about something that happened a very long time ago; observed

past can describe both what someone witnessed and what someone’s opinion is based on a past

event (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Observed past is usually used with verbs which, when used with plain past tense, actually

refer to a present state. For example, if one says ―Mina went to Germany‖ in Korean, the

sentence implies that Mina is still in Germany if it is conjugated for the simple past tense. If it is

conjugated for the past-past, then the sentence means that Mina went to Germany sometime in

the past and is back from Germany now. In the case of the observed past, only context can

indicate whether the speaker is referring to an event they witnessed or an opinion the speaker has

about something. This is because the conjugation does not differ between the two meanings, as

seen in table eight and example sentence (8). Certain tense forms can have double meaning,

observed past tense being one of such tense forms (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

Styles which are used in conjunction with verbs not only affect the conjugation of the

tense but also the semantic implications of that the sentence carries and there are a few

restrictions on when each style can be used. Plain style is used most by speakers when they are

thinking or talking to themselves and may be used in poetry, songs, novels, and private writing,

such as writing in a personal journal. The informal style is used between friends and implies that

the two people speaking in informal style know each other well. People can also use the informal

style when speaking to children. The honorific form can only be used by a speaker when they are

speaking about a person in higher social standing than them, so it can never be self-referential. If

someone used it in reference to themselves, they would be given a very odd look because they

are essentially honoring themselves in that case (Yeon and Brown, 2011).

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Concluding Remarks

Though not all aspects of the Korean tense system were explored in this paper, a good

amount of them were. The constructions for simple past, past-past, future, simple present,

progressive, and observed past were explained in the beginning. After that, the interaction of

tense within relative clauses and the use of tense with conjunctive words was discussed. Korean

is an agglutinative language, so its tense marking system has no bearing on parts of the sentence

other than the tensed verb. Styles such as informal and polite are expressed on the verb as well

and they affect how the tense of the verb is expressed. The honorific style has the most bearing

on sentences in Korean because it requires the use of subject and object markers which differ

from what is typically used in the other speech styles. It also has a restricted use because it

cannot be self referential

.

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Stouffer 16

Source Citations

Yeon, Jaehoon and Lucien Brown 2011. Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar. New York, NY:

Routledge.

The Survey of English Usage, 1996-1998 Tense and Aspect. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-

grammar/verbs/tense.htm Accessed on March 26, 2013.

Haeranmanse, 1/24/2012 Even though I ate four Big Macs I am still Hungry (Translated).

http://www.ppomppu.co.kr/zboard/view.php?id=freeboard&no=1472783 Accessed on April 16,

2013.