# Posted: 2 Nov 2006 22:35 KST - Edited by: _joseph_
... Re-Sideview ...
Okay, this is an overview of the games that Koreans can play on the tail end of a korean verb! Unfortunately, it is a difficult game for foreigners: the odds are stacked against us because they made so many endings to be tacked onto the end of a verb as to frustruate us into submission .... as to make us whine and waggle ... as to scream....
You will spend many hours in your Koren study studying the endings of verbs which are made by VST + some ending. In this respect, Korean is no different from Japanese. Many books are nothing but dialogues to teach vocabulary and the verb endings in practice,followed by example verb endings.
To make this perfectly clear, take the contrasting example of a romance language like Spanish, French, or Italian. When you study these languages, you also study conjugation. However, this really means studying tenses, i.e. how to combine a helping verb with a past participle to form a verb tense. However, in Korean, studying conjugation and studying verb tenses are two separate issues. Whereas French may have 12 verb tenses (and is confusing for that reason) Korean has 4 conjugations but there are over a thousand endings that can be thrown onto the verb stem using one of the 4 ways of combining the ending with the stem. In other words, studying conjugation is not studying tense, it is studying how to combine the stem with the novel concept of a so-called verb ending.
However, the multitude of verb endings can be divided into 4 general groupings, as far as their formations are concerned. This will not help you learn the many verb endings, but it will provide a guide as to their formation strategies.
Details of the samples for the groupings (and examples of their usage) can be found in the grammar forum sections, here at ezcorean.com. There are three difficulty levels, which I have tried to make based on usage and simplicity: beginner grammar forum for beginners and the for intermediate connective endings, and the advanced grammar entries. In the outline below, if you follow the links you will get details and examples. On last count, I have about 600 of them cataloged, and mint has furnished many excellent examples.
Here, in this forum, I just want to outline them and outline them roughly.
Please note that this classification is for purposes of organization, and has no linguistic signification. That is, they are classified for the foreigner trying to learn the language; to learn any foreign language you have to know the rules, so here they are!
The three verb conjugative classes are as follows:
| dictionary verb form | (1) VST + ending | (2)VST + 어/아 + verb ending | (3)VST+ 으 + ending | | 먹다 | 먹고 | 먹어 | 먹으니 | | 신다 | 신고 | 신어 | 신으니 | | 믿다 | 믿고 | 믿어 | 믿으니 | | 울다 | 울고 | 울어 | (우니) |
Let`s see the 3 categories in action now.
Note: Unfortunately, all three categories have irregular verb forms .
1) VST + endings: endings which are added directly to the verb stem after dropping the 다 dictionary ending from the verb. This is a unique section because the verb ending is usually not changed; do I have to add the rider again that there are irregulars?
Note that the verb stem and the ending are in many cases collapsible because if the preceding syllable ends in a vowel, the ㅂ moves onto the preceding syllable as such:
가다 -> 가 + ㅂ니다 -> 갑니다
A. Declarative: ㅂ니다
B. Interrogative: ㅂ니까
C: Imperative 십시오
D: Propositive (let\‘s) ㅂ시다
E: VST + 자 the informal propositive
F. connective endings which combine sentence fragments or signal the end of a thought. One example of a connective ending is VST + 고 .
G. The class of adnominal endings which make adjectives from descriptive verbs, so they can modify nouns like relative clauses do in English. The one that comes to mind is 던.
H. nominal endings which make a verb into a noun; a gerund is created with these verb endings. For example, VST + 기 makes the verb into a gerund.
I. adding 은/는 to adjectives before the noun they modify.
2) The 어/아 ending. Though being terminative, this special verb ending also has further functions such as combining two verbs into one, and other functions as well. The formation of this ending is discussed
the next section of this course
Examples:
A. 어도
B. 어서
C. 었다 the past tense formation
and others.... please see the conversation lists.
3) Adding 으 to the verb stem then adding another ending.
These are often listed in the literature using the syntax
because the 으 is included only if the preceding syllable ends in a consonant.
These formations are different from #2 above 어/아 ending because the verb stem doesn`t change in their formation.
Examples are:
A. -(으)러
B. 으면
C. 으니.
4. 이
이나마
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