UNIT 4: Korean Word Classes

Just like English language, Korean Hangul has have word elements categorized into word classes.  
  

Words are basic units that make up a sentence. Every word in a sentence has each different grammatical function as an element that is categorized into different word classes. These are,

•          Nouns
•          Pronouns
•          Particles (attach to nouns that add grammatical relationships or particular meanings e.g., 이/가 as subject particle)
•          Numbers
•          Counters (classify nouns according to general attributes for numbering purposes e.g., 개 for counting items/units)
•          Verbs
•          Adjectives (also called as descriptive verbs)
•          Copula (indicates equational expression: 이다 “be”  and 아니다 “be not”)
•          Adverbs
•          Prenouns (appears before a noun just like English demonstratives such as this, those, that and these)

These said word elements are generally classify into two, inflected and uninflected words. In Korean, inflection of words refers to the process of adding some kinds of affixes to a word to indicate a change of grammatical function such as tense, aspect and number but not its form class. In other words, verb is always a verb no matter what changes it has been through. For instance,

            가 “go”  becomes  갔어요 “went”

Meanwhile, the category of words that only undergoes inflection is verbs and adjectives. Thus, all other word classes do not undergo inflection such as nouns, pronouns, particles, numbers, etc.