Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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 Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:55 am Post subject: |
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| HymanKaplan wrote: |
I think this is because Koreans would usually use verbs where we would use adjectives: "He scares me," or "you bore me." My linguistics teach told me that many languages use verbs in place of adjectives wherever possible. Arabic takes this to the extreme--and never uses copula + adjective. Korean may somewhere between these extremes. Though I'd need a Korean-speaker to confirm this. |
Well, 'musopda' can mean either 'it's scary' or 'I'm scared' depending on the context, and it's an adjective, not a verb: they conjugate differently. Then again, a linguist might disagree that you can properly call it an adjective, and in Korean class they classify it as a 'D.V' or descriptive verb (as opposed to an action verb). DVs and AVs certainly are very similar in form. DVs function the same as adjectives, however.
This may not be relevant, but they do make a distinction with 'musoweohada' meaning she or he is acting scared or seems scared, used for the third person only. If you wanted to say someone is scary, you'd most likely just use 'musopda' referring to yourself, or you could say 'musopgae hada' meaning he or she is making me scared.
With the borrow/lend distinction you can make this clear in Korean by using 'bilyeo-juda' rather than plain 'bilida' for 'lend'. It's a matter of applying the tools of the language you're working with to the matter at hand: sometimes you can do the same job as you would with your own language even if not carried out in the same way; sometimes you can't quite do the same job. |
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