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Ideal Systematic Approach to Korean?

 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery Post Reply
18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
Gon-no-suke
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 6433 days ago

156 posts - 191 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, Japanese, EnglishC2
Studies: Korean, Malay, Swahili

 
 Message 17 of 18
04 July 2008 at 3:37am | IP Logged 
Please allow me to elaborate on the distinction between 語基 and 語幹. In my understanding 語基 is a alternative way of defining the 語幹 by including the vowel combinations used to attach different suffixes. I have extracted the following example from the homepage I linked to above:

Traditional definition
Verb form | 語幹 | 語尾
주면 | 주 | 면             
주어서 | 주 | 어서
받으면 | 받 | 으면
받아서 | 받 | 아서

Alternative definition
Verb form | 語幹 | 語尾
주면 | 주 | 면
주어서 | 주어 | 서
받으면 | 받으 | 면
받아서 | 받아 | 서

As can be seen above, it is just a matter of moving the vowels from right to left, conjugating the verb stems in stead of the suffixes. This might seem like a futile excercise, but for Japanese speakers this is congruent with the way Japanese verbs are handled when witten in kana.

Japanese verbs
Verb form | 語幹 | 語尾
よみます | よみ | ます
よんで | よん | で
よめば | よめ | ば
たべます | たべ | ます
たべて | たべ | て
たべば | たべ | ば

There are thus multiple forms of the Japanese verb stem, depending on what suffix it binds to. Applying this to Korean verbs might perhaps only feel natural for Japanese speakers, but I think another merit is that since there are fewer types of verb stems then there are suffixes, it is easier to learn which type of conjugated verb stems (語基) that go with each (unconjugated) suffix, than to learn the conjugations for each suffix depending on which type of traditional verb stem it affixes to. In the end it's a question of combinatorics.

Since I am neither a linguist, nor proficient in Korean, I fear that my explanation is both trivial as well as difficult to comprehend. Sorry about that. I just hope that Jana F will find this comparision between Korean and Japanese grammar as enlightning as I found it.

Tore Eriksson

Update: Tried in vain to line up my tables...

Edited by Gon-no-suke on 04 July 2008 at 3:56am

1 person has voted this message useful



nhk9
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6803 days ago

290 posts - 319 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 18 of 18
11 November 2008 at 1:39am | IP Logged 
Gon-no-suke wrote:
Please allow me to elaborate on the distinction between 語基 and 語幹. In my understanding 語基 is a alternative way of defining the 語幹 by including the vowel combinations used to attach different suffixes. I have extracted the following example from the homepage I linked to above:

Traditional definition
Verb form | 語幹 | 語尾
주면 | 주 | 면             
주어서 | 주 | 어서
받으면 | 받 | 으면
받아서 | 받 | 아서

Alternative definition
Verb form | 語幹 | 語尾
주면 | 주 | 면
주어서 | 주어 | 서
받으면 | 받으 | 면
받아서 | 받아 | 서

As can be seen above, it is just a matter of moving the vowels from right to left, conjugating the verb stems in stead of the suffixes. This might seem like a futile excercise, but for Japanese speakers this is congruent with the way Japanese verbs are handled when witten in kana.

Japanese verbs
Verb form | 語幹 | 語尾
よみます | よみ | ます
よんで | よん | で
よめば | よめ | ば
たべます | たべ | ます
たべて | たべ | て
たべば | たべ | ば

There are thus multiple forms of the Japanese verb stem, depending on what suffix it binds to. Applying this to Korean verbs might perhaps only feel natural for Japanese speakers, but I think another merit is that since there are fewer types of verb stems then there are suffixes, it is easier to learn which type of conjugated verb stems (語基) that go with each (unconjugated) suffix, than to learn the conjugations for each suffix depending on which type of traditional verb stem it affixes to. In the end it's a question of combinatorics.

Since I am neither a linguist, nor proficient in Korean, I fear that my explanation is both trivial as well as difficult to comprehend. Sorry about that. I just hope that Jana F will find this comparision between Korean and Japanese grammar as enlightning as I found it.

Tore Eriksson

Update: Tried in vain to line up my tables...


I think you had meant to say '食べれば’? From what I know there's no たべば

Sometimes foreign books tend to oversimplified how verbs are constructed in Japanese; they often give parts of different verbs names like 'stem 1', 'stem 2', etc., with no pre-defined meaning. This can pose a problem for the serious learner later on.

For our info, 食べれば's 語幹 is "た”、べれ is its 已然形, and ば is a 助詞。In other words, it has 3 parts. Many books written here in North America would normally try to break it down into 食べ and れば


1 person has voted this message useful



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