SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to describe the basic syntactic structure of standard Korean in formal terms. The thesis opens with an introduction, Chapter I, to the general background of the Korean language, its alphabet, the dialect chosen for analysis, followed by a discussion of the scope of analysis. In Chapter II, Phonology, a brief summary of the Korean phonological system and a phonetic description of the Korean phonemes are given. Then there follows a discussion of the intonation system and the type of transcription employed in the thesis. This is followed by Chapter III, Word classes, in which six main word classes and their sub-classes necessary for the subsequent syntactic description are set up by formal criteria. Chapter IV, Verb structure, is entirely devoted to a discussion of the internal structure of the verb with special emphasis on inflection, by virtue of which the verb can function at every level in the grammatical hierarchy. In Chapter V, Phrase, three different types of phrase are distinguished and their syntactic functions in other structures, according to which they are distinguished, are described. This is followed by Chapter VI, Clause, where two main clause types are distinguished by syntactic and/or morphological criteria: Final clause and Non-final clause. Final clauses are further divided into six sub-types according to the type of predicate and the elements found in them. On the other hand, non-final clauses are subdivided into (a) Nominal, (b) Adjectival, and (c) Adverbial clauses on the basis of their syntactic functions. The thesis ends with Chapter VIII, Sentence, where Major and Minor sentence types are distinguished according to the presence and absence of a final clause. The Major type sentences are classified into four sentence categories according to the mood suffixes found with the verb and/or the intonation time employed.