First published in 1994 by Routledge as part of its Descriptive Grammars Series, Korean marked a significant milestone in the internationalization of Korean studies, as it followed the general framework for language description developed by world-renowned typologist, Bernard Comrie. In accordance with the intent of the Routledge series, this allowed the structure of Korean to be presented in a way that facilitates comparison with a broad range of typologically and genetically distinct languages for which parallel reference grammars have been published: Abkhaz, Basque, Tamil, Rumanian, Finnish, Punjabi, and Maori, to name just a few.
Following Comrie’s principles, the book is organized into five major chapters, each covering a different field of inquiry within linguistics: syntax, morphology, phonology, ideophones and interjections, and lexicon. Within each chapter, carefully constructed sections and subsections take the reader through the fine details of the language’s vocabulary and structure, with revealing examples and commentaries underpinning the presentation.
Sohn’s discussion of coordination is a case in point. One of the sixteen major sections in the chapter on syntax, it is subdivided into multiple sub-sections, each dealing with a different aspect of this phenomenon-coordination with ‘and,’ with ‘or’, with ‘but,’ coordination at the level of sentences, coordination at the level of words and phrases, and so on. Reading through these sections, the key points, all amply illustrated, are evident. Not only is the essence of the Korean system easy to discern, the points of differences with other languages, especially English, come quickly to the fore-fulfilling the intent of the book and of the series in which it appears. The entire book is a model of carefully organized and clearly written linguistic exposition and commentary, offering broad coverage of the patterns and phenomena that make Korean unique.
Korean has aged well. It remains a highly accessible and useful compendium of Korean grammar. It is still considered a standard work in the field and is an essential addition to the library of scholars working on Korean linguistics and pedagogy.

— Reviewed by William O’Grady (University of Hawai’i at Manoa)

PREFACE to the KUP Edition
PREFACE
TABLE OF ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS
ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. SYNTAX
1.1. General properties
1.1.1. Sentence types
1.1.1.1. Direct speech and quoted speech
1.1.1.2. Interrogative sentences
1.1.1.3. Imperative sentences
1.1.1.4. Propositives and other sentence types
1.1.1.5. Indirect speech acts
1.1.2. Subordination
1.1.2.1. Markers of subordination
1.1.2.2. Noun clauses
1.1.2.3. Adjectival (relative) clauses
1.1.2.4. Adverbial clauses
1.1.2.5. Sequence of tenses
1.2. Structural properties
1.2.1. Internal structure of the sentence
1.2.1.1. Copular sentences
1.2.1.2. Verb sentences
1.2.1.3. Adverbials
1.2.2. Adjective phrases
1.2.2.1. Operational definition of adjective phrase
1.2.2.2. Arguments of adjectives
1.2.2.3. Adjective-modifying adverbs
1.2.2.4. Order of constituents
1.2.3. Adverbial phrases
1.2.3.1. Operational definition of adverbial phrase
1.2.3.2. Elements modifying adverbials
1.2.3.3. Relative order
1.2.3.4. Restrictions
1.2.4. Postpositional phrases
1.2.4.1. Operational definition for postpositional phrase
1.2.4.2. Postpositional phrases and their arguments
1.2.4.3. Modification of postpositions
1.2.4.4. Multiple case governing of postpositions
1.2.5. Noun phrases (nominal constituents)
1.2.5.1. Operational definition for noun phrase
1.2.5.2. Modifiers in noun phrases
1.2.5.3. Multiple modification and order of constituents
1.3. Coordination
1.3.1. Sentential coordination
1.3.2. Coordination of words and phrases
1.3.3. Number of coordinators
1.3.4. Coordination and comitative
1.3.5. Cooccurrence between different types of elements
1.3.6. Omission under identity
1.4. Negation
1.4.1. Sentence negation
1.4.2. Constituent negation
1.4.3. Multiple negation
1.4.4. Negation in coordinated structure
1.4.5. Negation by predicate in higher clause
1.5. Anaphora
1.5.1. Means of expressing anaphora
1.5.2. Syntactic properties of anaphoric expression
1.6. Reflexives
1.6.1. Means of reflexivity expression
1.6.2. Scope of reflexivity
1.6.3. Intraclause reflexivity
1.6.4. Positional possibilities within clause
1.6.5. Antecedent and reflexive
1.6.6. Reflexive relations within nominalized clauses
1.6.7. Reflexive relations within noun phrases
1.6.8. Reflexives without overt antecedent
1.6.9. Other uses of reflexives
1.7. Reciprocals
1.7.1. Means to express reciprocals
1.7.2. Scope of reciprocality
1.7.3. Antecedent and reciprocal
1.8. Comparison
1.8.1. Means to express comparison
1.8.2. Omitted elements
1.8.3. Correlative comparison
1.9. Equatives
1.9.1. Means to express equatives
1.9.2. Omitted elements
1.10. Possession
1.10.1. Constructions of possessive sentences
1.10.2. Alienable versus inalienable possession
1.10.3. Temporary versus permanent possession
1.10.4. Possession of persons, animals, and things
1.10.5. Present versus past possession
1.11. Emphasis
1.11.1. Sentence emphasis
1.11.2. Constituent emphasis
1.11.3. Focus of yes-no questions
1.12. Topic
1.12.1. Means to indicate topic of a sentence
1.12.2. Elements to be topicalized
1.12.3. Trace in movement
1.12.4. Topicalization as obligatory or optional
1.13. Heavy shift
1.13.1. General
1.13.2. Structures subject to heavy shift
1.13.3. Positions for heavy shift
1.14. Other movement processes
1.14.1. Scrambling
1.14.2. Postposing
1.15. Minor sentence-types
1.15.1. Lack of main predicate
1.15.2. Omission of main clauses
1.16. Word-classes
1.16.1. Categorization of word-classes
1.16.2. Noun
1.16.3. Pronoun
1.16.4. Verb
1.16.5. Adjective
1.16.6. Adverb
1.16.7. Determiner
1.16.8. Particle
1.16.9. Word-class summary

CHAPTER 2. MORPHOLOGY
2.1. Inflection
2.1.1. Noun inflection
2.1.1.1. Indicators of noun phrase functions
2.1.1.2. Expression of syntactic functions
2.1.1.3. Syntactic functions with nonfinite verbs
2.1.1.4. Nonlocal semantic functions
2.1.1.5. Local semantic functions
2.1.1.6. Location in time
2.1.1.7. Double case-marking
2.1.1.8. Nominal number-marking
2.1.1.9. Noun classes
2.1.1.10. Definiteness in noun phrases
2.1.1.11. Indefiniteness in noun phrases
2.1.1.12. Referentiality in indefiniteness
2.1.1.13. Genericness in noun phrases
2.1.1.14. Relative importance of noun actors
2.1.2. Pronouns
2.1.2.1. Personal pronouns
2.1.2.2. Reflexive pronouns
2.1.2.3. Reciprocal pronouns
2.1.2.4. Possessive pronouns
2.1.2.5. Demonstrative pronouns
2.1.2.6. Interrogative pronouns and other question words
2.1.2.7. Relative pronouns and other relative words
2.1.3. Verb morphology
2.1.3.1. Voice
2.1.3.2. Tense
2.1.3.3. Aspect
2.1.3.4. Mood
2.1.3.5. Nonfinite forms
2.1.3.6. Other inflectional categories
2.1.3.7. Strings of verbs
2.1.4. Adjectives
2.1.4.1. Predicative versus attributive
2.1.4.2. Absolute versus contingent
2.1.4.3. Agreement
2.1.4.4. Comparison
2.1.4.5. Degrees of quality
2.1.4.6. Predicative inflectional categories
2.1.5. Postpositions
2.1.6. Numerals and quantifiers
2.1.6.1. Numeral forms in counting
2.1.6.2. Cardinal numerals as attributes
2.1.6.3. Distinct numerals for different objects
2.1.6.4. Ordinal numerals
2.1.6.5. Other derivatives of numerals
2.1.6.6. Quantifiers
2.1.7. Adverbs
2.1.7.1. Expressions of comparison
2.1.7.2. Degrees of quality
2.2. Derivational morphology
2.2.1. Nominal derivation
2.2.1.1. Nouns from nouns
2.2.1.2. Nouns from verbs
2.2.1.3. Nouns from adjectives
2.2.1.4. Nouns from adverbs
2.2.1.5. Nouns from determiners
2.2.2. Verb derivation
2.2.2.1. Verbs from nouns
2.2.2.2. Verbs from verbs
2.2.2.3. Verbs from adjectives
2.2.2.4. Verbs from adverbs
2.2.3. Adjective derivation
2.2.3.1. Adjectives from nouns
2.2.3.2. Adjectives from verbs
2.2.3.3. Adjectives from adjectives
2.2.3.4. Adjectives from adverbs
2.2.4. Adverb derivation
2.2.4.1. Adverbs from nouns
2.2.4.2. Adverbs from verbs
2.2.4.3. Adverbs from adjectives
2.2.4.4. Adverbs from adverbs
2.2.4.5. Adverbs from determiners
2.2.5. Determiner derivation
2.2.6. Postpositional derivation
2.2.6.1. Postpositional compounds
2.2.6.2. Complex postpositions
2.2.6.3. Derived postpositions
2.2.7. Compound morphology
2.2.7.1. General properties of Korean compounds
2.2.7.2. Compound nouns
2.2.7.3. Compound verbs
2.2.7.4. Compound adjectives
2.2.7.5. Compound adverbs
2.2.7.6. Compound determiners

CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY
3.1. Phonological units (segmental)
3.1.1. Distinctive segments
3.1.2. Phonetic characteristics
3.2. Phonotactics
3.2.1. Admissible simple consonants
3.2.2. Admissible consonant clusters
3.2.3. Admissible vowels
3.2.4. Structure of lexical morphemes
3.2.5. Syllable structure
3.2.6. Cooccurrence restrictions
3.3. Suprasegmentals
3.3.1. Distinctive length
3.3.2. Stress
3.3.3. Pitch
3.3.4. Intonation
3.4. Morphophonology (segmental)
3.4.1. Sound alternations
3.4.2. Metathesis processes
3.4.3. Coalescence processes
3.4.4. Deletion and insertion
3.4.5. Reduplication
3.4.6. Consonant weakening in irregular verbs
3.5. Morphophonology (suprasegmental)
3.5.1. Vowel shortening
3.5.2. Stress, tone, and intonation

CHAPTER 4. IDEOPHONES AND INTERJECTIONS
4.1. Ideophones
4.1.1. Sound symbolism
4.1.2. Structural aspects
4.1.3. Sample list
4.2. Interjections
4.2.1. Interjectional types
4.2.2. Structural features
4.2.3. Sample list

CHAPTER 5. LEXICON
5.1. General characteristics of Korean lexicon
5.2. Structured semantic fields
5.2.1. Kinship terminology
5.2.2. Color terminology
5.2.3. Body parts
5.2.4. Cooking terminology
5.3. Basic vocabulary

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX