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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Korean and Japanese (was Scots and English (was: Re: Flemish and Dutch))
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References: <3nqtn1$b7v@bertha.gssec.bt.co.uk> <johna.59.000BD048@tiny.me.su.oz.au> <D9FKJw.pA@midway.uchicago.edu> <3qii94$lvf@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 04:53:06 GMT
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In article <3qii94$lvf@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>,
What-the-Hell <peabody@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>Daniel von Brighoff (deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu) wrote:
>: In article <johna.59.000BD048@tiny.me.su.oz.au>,
>: John Atkinson <johna@tiny.me.su.oz.au> wrote:

>: >Nearly identical grammar?  
[snip]
>: >But other than that their grammar is anything but  
>: >"identical".  
>
>: Let's try a little experiment:  Post a short sentence in romanised
>: Japanese (system of your choice) and I'll translate it into (romanised)
>: Korean, pointing out the morphological correspondances as I do so.  

>Daniel, I recently posted the sentences:
>
>Cha o yomimasu
>
>and:
>
>Kare wa biru o yomu nagara, terebi o miremasu
>
>First, could you check if I used the right form of miru?

"miremasu" is not a form of "miru."  You must be thinking of 
"misemasu" which is the polite causative, i.e. "to show."

>Second, could you correct the "yomu nagara" so that it's in the right form?

It should be "yomi nagara."

	And now, while I'm waiting for the doubting Mr. Atkinson to 
take me up on my challenge, let me tackle the two sentences Mr. Reid
has thoughtfully provided.  (Romanisation note:  I use the Yale system 
for Korean rather than M-R because it a) unambiguously represents 
Korean morphophonemic script and b) requires no diacritics.)

The first is a cakewalk:

 Cha      o         yom-   i      masu
"tea"  obj.-part. "drink"-stem  polite-ending 
 Cha     lul        masi-  e       yo

"[I/we/you/she/etc.] drinks tea."

(Note that the form masieyo is usually contracted to masyeyo
or [Seoul dialect] maseyyo.)

The second is only slightly more complicated. I'll tackle it one 
clause at a time:

Kare     wa          biru      o        yom-     i    nagara
"he"   topic-part.  "beer"  obj.-part  "drink"-stem  "while"
I.i    nun          maikcu    lul       masi-         myense

"While he drinks beer..."

Some explanation:
1)  Korean and Japanese both have three-way deixis and both use a
combination of deictics + bound nouns in place of third person
pronouns.  As can be seen from the first sentence, verbs are not 
marked for person; nevertheless, pronomial subjects are only used for
emphasis.
2) Note the difference in the "stem-form" of masi- between this example
and the one previous.  There are a number of Korean forms which
correspond to the Japanese form, verb-stem + a/e (depending on vowel
harmony) being only the most common equivalent.

terebi   	 o         mi-            masu
"tv"    	obj.-part "see"-stem   polite-ending
theylleypicen 	lul        po-   a         yo

"...he watches television."

Note that miru "to see, to watch" is one of a class of Japanese verbs
that form their stem by dropping the final -ru instead of by changing
the final -u to -i.

Any questions



-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
