Lesson 1

The honourific system

A defining characteristic of Korean is its complex system of respect built into the language. Any Korean sentence lies at some point along two distinct axis: The use of honourifics (or lack thereof) and speech level. Honourifics is the use of special words or grammar to show respect towards the subject of the sentence. The speech level is used to show a level of respect towards the audience, reader or listener. For now, we will focus exclusively on the formal/polite level of speech and we will use both sentences with honourifics and those without.

In general, honourifics should be used whenever the subject is older than the speaker. This is why Koreans will often ask how old one is very early in a conversation. It is to determine whether they should be using honourifics or not. In particular, you should never use honourifics when referring to yourself.

Sentence Order

Unlike English, Korean word order is flexible. The way that the subject and object of a sentence is recovered is by use of noun suffixes. There are three subject suffixes and two object suffixes which differ in their use depending on the context. Here, we have the subject markers:

Suffix	Context	Example
이	If the subject ends in a consonant (and is not honourific)	도서관이
가	If the subject ends in a vowel (and is not honourific)	린다가
께서	If the subject is honourific	부모님께서

Next, we have the two object markers:

Suffix	Context	Example
를	If the object ends in a vowel	현우를
을	If the object ends in a consonant	도서관을

In addition to these two sets of markers, we also have a topicalization marker. This marker brings attention to the noun which it suffixes. This is similar to the fronting of nouns in English. For example, the difference between "I went to the store" and "It was the store that I went to" is that in the latter, it is emphasized that "the store" is important and not "I" or the "going" that is important.

Suffix	Context	Example
는	If the topic ends in a vowel	현우는
은	If the topic ends in a consonant	도서관은

Verb endings

There are many different word endings in Korean and we presently look at two of them. One for use in sentences with an honourific subject and one for use otherwise:

Suffix	Context	Example
- -	Non-honourific subject	린다가공부하
-시-	Honourific subject	부모님께서공부하시

There are some verbs which have irregular honourific versions. For these, rather that using the 시 suffix, the special honourific version must be used. Some examples follow:

Non-honourific verb	Honourific verb
있	계시
먹	잡수시
잘지내 (or 잘있)	아녕하시

Note that when we refer to the verb in the context of discussing grammar, we refer to the verb stem together with its endings. We will use the term verb stem when we wish to discuss only the verb stem without its endings.

Sentence endings

In this lesson, we will look at three dinstinct sentence endings, each of which has two forms depending on the verb in use. First, we look at the statement ending:

Sentence Ending	Context	Example
ㅂ니다	If the verb ends in a vowel	공부합니다
습니다	If the verb ends in a consonant	먹슴니다

Next, we have the question ending:

Sentence Ending	Context	Example
ㅂ니까	If the verb ends in a vowel	공부합니까
습니까	If the verb ends in a consonant	먹슴니까

Our final sentence ending in this section, we have the polite command ending:

Sentence Ending	Context	Example
십시오	If the verb ends in a vowel	가십시오
으십시오	If the verb ends in a consonant	읽으십시오

The polite sentence ending can only be used with non-stative verbs in Korean. That is, it can only be used with verb like "run", "jump" and "love" and not with verbs like "be happy", "be sad".

Phonology and Assimilation

Deletion of ㅎ

Very often, in Korean, the consonant ㅎ is deleted when following another consonant. For example, 안녕하 is often pronounced 안녕아 in regular speech. In addition, if ㅎ is followed by one of ㅂ, ㅈ, ㄷ or ㄱ, these consonants are pronounced as ㅍ, ㅊ, ㅌ and ㅋ respectively in addition to the deletion of ㅎ.

Progressive nasal place assimilation

Whenever one of the nasals ㄴ, ㅇ, ㅁ is followed by a consonant with a different place of articulation, the nasal takes on the place of articulation of the following consonant. Specifically, whenever ㄴor ㅇ is followed by ㅂ, ㅃ and ㅍ they are pronounced as ㅁ. Similarly, whenever ㅁ or ㄴ is followed by ㄱ, ㄲ or ㅋ, it is pronounced as ㅇ. Finally, whevenever ㅇ or ㅁ is followed by ㄷ, ㄸ, ㅌ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅉ or ㅊ it is pronounced as ㄴ.