3.16 Irregular Verbs — a First Look — Epoché
What you will be able to do Recognise the five patterns by which a Korean stem changes before a vowel ending, and name which one a given verb follows. Get from a dictionary form to a polite form for each of them: 한국어는 쉬워요. and 음악을 들어요. and 나는 몰라요. and 그 약은 써요. Work backwards from an irregular form to the dictionary form, which is what you need in order to look a word up. Say why the changes happen before a vowel ending and not before a consonant ending: 영어는 어렵지 않아요. keeps the final letter that 어려워요 , like 쉬워요 , loses. Say which lesson finishes the subject, and why this one is deliberately partial. Prerequisites : 3.15, the last of the sentence patterns. What you most need here is the polite ending of 3.7 Grammar and the past marker of 3.9, because the five patterns below are defined by what happens when one of those is attached. A dozen verbs in this volume have changed shape in ways the rules did not predict. The verb for listening lost its bottom letter and gained another; the verb for being easy lost one altogether; the verb for not knowing doubled one. None of these is arbitrary. Five patterns account for every one of them, each affects a set of stems, and each is triggered by the same thing: an ending that begins with a vowel. This lesson gives a few verbs for each of the five and stops there. The second phase, in lesson 3.28, takes the remaining patterns, among them the stems ending in the breathy letter, with their exceptions, and it is deliberately held back, because a learner who tries to master the irregulars before having any sentences to put them in will learn a table and not a language. The pattern Every one of the five works the same way at the top level. A stem ending in a particular letter, or in a particular vowel, changes when an ending beginning with a vowel is attached, and does not change when the ending begins with a consonant. So the same verb is irregular in the polite form and regular in the long negative. Before a vowel ending Before a consonant ending English 한국어는 쉬워요. [1] 영어는 어렵지 않아요. [6] Korean is easy. / English isn't difficult. 음악을 들어요. [7] 뭐 듣고 있어요? [23] I listen to music. / What are you listening to? The first pattern affects stems ending in the plain lip consonant. Before a vowel that consonant turns into a rounded glide (in 돕다 and 곱다 alone the bright one, 도와요 ), so the ending looks different from what the vowel harmony of lesson 3.7 would predict. It is the largest of the five and it contains a great many adjectives. Korean The verb English 한국어는 쉬워요. [1] to be easy Korean is easy. 물이 뜨거워요. [2] to be hot to the touch The water is hot. 너무 더워요! [3] to be hot (of weather) It's too hot. 정말 귀여워요! [4] to be cute It's so cute! 나도 만나서 반가워요. [5] to be glad to meet It's nice to meet you too. The second pattern affects stems ending in the stop at the teeth ridge. Before a vowel it becomes the liquid letter, which is why the verb for listening and the verb for walking look as they do. Korean The verb English 음악을 들어요. [7] to listen I listen to music. 마음에 들어요? [8] a caution: not this verb but a different, regular one meaning to enter, whose stem ends in the liquid and produces the same form Do you like it? 잘 못 들었어요. [10] the same, in the past, whose marker also begins with a vowel Sorry? 걸어서 왔어요. [9] to walk I came on foot. Not every stem ending in that letter belongs here. The verb for closing, which you met in lesson 3.1, keeps its letter before a vowel and is perfectly regular. There is no rule that will tell you which stems change; the dictionary marks them, and so does the word list of this course. The third pattern affects stems ending in the hissing letter, which simply disappears before a vowel, leaving two vowels side by side. Korean The verb English 감기가 안나아. [11] to get better I can't shake off my cold. 계속 미소지어. [12] to make, to build Keep smiling. Both of those are quoted in the plain style rather than the polite style of this phase, because the corpus this course draws on has no polite examples of this pattern at all. It is the smallest of the five and the rarest in speech, which is why two sentences are all that can honestly be shown. The fourth pattern affects stems whose last syllable is the flat vowel with the liquid letter. Before a vowel the flat vowel drops and the liquid doubles, so a two-syllable stem produces a form with a doubled consonant in the middle. Korean The verb English 나는 몰라요. [13] not to know I don't know. 배가 불러요. [14] to be full I'm full. 노래를 불러 주세요. [15] to call, to sing Please sing a song. 시간이 참 빨라요. [16] to be fast Time flies. The second and third rows are two different verbs that happen to produce the same form, which is worth noticing now rather than discovering in the middle of a meal. The fifth pattern is the simplest and the commonest. A stem whose last vowel is the flat one loses that vowel entirely before the polite ending or the past marker, and the harmony of lesson 3.7 is then decided by the vowel before it, or by the dark ending if there is none. Korean The verb English 그 약은 써요. [17] to be bitter The medicine tastes bitter. 그녀는 예뻐요. [18] to be pretty She is beautiful. 이 방은 너무 커요. [19] to be big This room is too big. 지금 바빠요. [20] to be busy I'm busy now. How This Differs from English English irregularity is in the word; Korean irregularity is in the join. An English irregular verb has a form that has to be memorised separately: go , went , gone . A Korean irregular stem does not have a separate form at all; it has a rule that applies whenever a vowel follows it, and the rule generates every form the verb has. Learn the pattern and you can produce the polite form, the past, the modifier and everything else. Nothing has to be memorised as a list. The trigger is phonological, not grammatical. English irregularity attaches to particular tenses. Korean irregularity attaches to the shape of the ending: any ending beginning with a vowel triggers it, and any ending beginning with a consonant does not. That is why the same verb ca