말이야 좋지
word-CONTR good-SUSP
Words are good [but…]
I understand this almost perfectly but I’m just as almost clueless how to understand the grammar of it.
It’s not really a complete sentence – the “-지” ending on the verb stem “좋” is what I think of as a contingent negative, a sort of non-finite subjunctive or something like that (in saying that, I don’t mean to offer some alternative interpretation to the formal linguistic description – e.g. Martin calls it a “suspective” ending, but that term [like most of Martin’s] seems rather misleading [or limiting] about usage). So you could read the verb as “I suppose it’s good” and then you add the contrastive “-이야” on the noun “말” which means all kinds of things, but mostly “words.”
So eventually you get something like “Sure, words are good, but…”
In fact, this phrase basically seems to mean: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”