9 The Adjective Class in Korean 231While no bare verb or adjective can be head of an NP or make up an NP all by it-
self, a nominalized verb or adjective functions as head of an NP just like any other
noun.
(12) Verb: ka-ss-um-ul a-n-ta
gO-PPS-NR-ACC knOW-IN-DC
'(I) know that (he) went'
ka-ki ttaymun-ey
go-NRbecause-of
'because (he) goes'
Adjective: coh-ass-um-ul a-n-ta
gOod-PPS-NR-AC knOW-IN-DC
'(I) know that (he) was good'
coh-ki ttaymun-ey
good-NR because-of
'because (he) is good'
A morphological difference appears in constructions like ka-ki-nun ha-n-ta '(he)
goes, but' (lit. 'as for going, (he) does', and coh-ki-nun ha-ta '(he) is good, but' (lit. 'as
for being good, he is'). Notice that the pro-verb hata 'do' takes the indicative suffix
-«, but the pro-adjective hata 'be' takes ZERO indicative.
Many conjunctive suffixes are shared by verbs and adjectives, but there are
some that are not. While no conjunctive suffixes can occur only with adjectives,
only verbs occur with suffixes like -(u)lyeko 'intending to', -(u)le 'for the purpose
of, -koca 'wanting to, wishing to', -nulako 'while doing (something else)', -kose 'and
then, and -nuni 'instead of doing'.
(13) Verb: sengkongha-lyeko/koca kongpuha-n-ta
succeed-intending/wanting to study-iN-DC
'(I) study in order to succeed'
Adjective: *kippu-lyeko/koca kongpuha-n-ta
happy-intending/wanting to study-iN-DC
'(I) study in order to be happy'
On the other hand, the intensifier suffix -ti occurs only with adjectives in the con-
struction of Adjective x + -ti + Adjective x.
(14) Verb: mek-ti mek-nun-ta '(someone) eats a lot'
eat-ft' eat-iN-DC
alh-ti alh-nun-ta '(someone) is very ill'
be.ill-ft be.ill-iN-DC
Adjective: cha-ti cha-ta '(something) is very cold'
cold-ft' cold-DC
tal-ti tal-ta '(something) is very sweet'
sweet-ft sweet-DC