I want to write about something called “문장의 5형식.” This translates as “[the] 5 forms of sentences” and is a core component of what Koreans learn when they study English grammar. This disturbs me to no end, because, of course, despite my training in linguistics, this concept has no meaning for me. It’s specific to English-as-a-foreign-language as taught in South Korea, as far as I can tell. But most English grammar books include it, and it has become apparent that I need to know about it, if only to be able to best help my students to make sense of what they’re being taught.
I remember, vaguely, running across this same issue last year some time. I decided that since I have had the same issue twice, I should “document” it on my blog, because my brain is too porous to retain the specifics and searching for the relevant terms online revealed nothing that was sufficiently bilingual to prove remotely useful by way of explanation or summary. By putting it in my blog, here, I will be able to find this information in the future quickly by googling. This is the essence of the sense in in which this blog has, more and more, become a sort of aide-memoire for me.
Here is the page from the student textbook that mentions the grammar point of the five forms.
Like most Korean EFL grammar textbooks, the text book is mostly in Korean. This is annoying, as it makes it challenging for me to provide any kind of support to the the Korean-speaking teachers in teaching material from the book. (The book title, for completeness’s sake, is 중학영문법3800제 [at right]).
Anyway, what are these five forms? I speculate that they’re linked to, or derived from, something in classical Korean grammar (which in turn is linked to classical Chinese grammar in the same sort of geneological relationship as modern English grammar has with classical Latin grammar).
The first form (1형식) is an intransitive sentence, with a non-pronoun subject and verb. This form also allows prepositional-phrase complements (and adverbials?). The book examples are
The sun shines.
I went to school.
The second form (2형식) is a verb with subject complement (a subject complement construct? 주격보어 is “subject complement”). The book example is
He looks happy.
The third form (3형식) is a transitive sentence with subject-verb-object (SVO). The book example is
Amy likes her teacher.
The fourth form (4형식) is a ditransitive sentence with a subject-verb-IO-DO (간접목적어 is “indirect object” and 직적목적어 is “direct object”). The book example is
She gave me a book.
Does this mean it only allows prepositional indirect objects? Typically ditransitives with phrasal indirect objects occur with the two objects reversed, e.g.
?*She gave a book to Mortimer.
The fifth form (5형식) is what I would call an “object complement construct” – I don’t really know (or recall) if there is some other term for this type of sentence in English (복적격 보어 is “object complement”). The example in the book is
We call her ‘Angel.’
I find it very ironic, that the single thing that is impelling me most toward improving my Korean, these days, is my desire to understand English Grammar (*as taught in Korea – that’s the caveat).
[daily log: walking, 5 km]
The irony of you, the linguist, needing to learn Korean so that you can teach English in Korea to students who are used to thinking of English grammar in terms of Korean grammar–this is so rich! I felt impelled to comment. But there’s nothing ironic about using your blog as a personal memory aid–that’s just brilliant! It makes me want to start my own blog, but I’m not that ambitious. So I’ll have to content myself with reading your blog, meaning that what I remember will be partially affected by what you blog about. Fortunately, your blog has a wide range. Life could be worse.