Subject marker: –이/가
As mentioned in Lesson 1, Korean is an agglutinating language. It means that Korean uses little grammatical devices attached to words to specify their roles in a sentence. English is not an agglutinating language, employing rather a fixed word order and prepositions in order to specify the role of each part.
A subject of a sentence is the agent (doer) of the action described by the sentence. Assuming that a state of being can also be treated as an action, a subject can take any kind of predicate, i.e., a verbal, an adjectival, or a nominal predicate. Think of “S goes,” “S is bad,” and “S is a man.” In each case, S is the subject. To mark this subject, Korean attaches either 이 or 가 to it. -이 is used when the subject word ends without a final consonant (patch’im), whereas -가 is for those ending without a final consonant.
Only nouns can be subjects in Korean, such is the case in English. In other words, when you see a part of a sentence attached with -이 or -가, you will know that it must be a noun. However, you might hear sometimes people say sentences without using subject markers -이/가 for subjects. It is because the sentences were simple and a conversational reality is presumed. For these sentences, subject markers can be replaced by a short pause. In sentences the structure of which is complex, or in written forms, the markers should be specified.
Now, let’s look at some more examples.
| subject | predicate | ||
|
이 바지 |
가 | 편안해요. | These pants are comfortable. |
|
기차 |
가 | 와요. | The train is coming. |
|
선생님 |
이 | 웃으세요. | The teacher is laughing. |
|
저것 |
이 | 학교이에요. | That (over there) is a school. |
|
이것 |
이 | 곰이예요. | This is a bear. |
| 연습 <practice>
Use the following pairs of words to make sentences in mid-poite style. Don’t forget to use subject markers, and to translate each sentence, as given in the above examples. |
| subject | predicate | |
| 1. | 이 사람 (this person) | 친구 (friend) |
| 2. | 장미 (rose) | 비싸다 (to be expensive) |
| 3. | 물 (water) | 차다 (to be cold) |
| 4. | 나무 (tree) | 좋다 (to be good) |
| 5. | 저 사람 (that person) | 건강하다 (to be healthy) |
| 6. | 돈 (money) | 많다 (to be many/much) |
| 7. | 아기 (baby) | 건강하다 |
| 8. | 이것 (this [thing]) | 모자 (hat; cap) |
| 9. | 여기 (here; this place) | 학교 |
| 10. | 바지 | 작다 (to be small) |
| 11. | 공부 (studying) | 싫다 (to be dislikable) |
| 12. | 차 (car) | 오다 (to come) |
| 13. | 친구 | 일하다 (to work) |
| 14. | 집 (home) | 어디 (where) |
| 15. | 저 사람 | 누구 (who) |
| 16. | 책 (book) | 싸다 (to be cheap) |
| 17. | 미국 (America) | 멀다 |
| 18. | 이 컴퓨터 (this computer) | 괜찮다 (to be okay) |
| 19. | 동생 (a younger sibling) | 자다 (to sleep) |
| 20. | 숙제 (homework) | 많다 |
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