One of the many long sentences I encountered while reading My Name Is Kim Sam Soon novel is this:
오늘따라 강하게 나오는 딸의 반발에 엄마는 눈에 힘을 주며 밥주걱을 들고 있던 오른손을 치켜드신다.
Again, even if I understood almost every word perfectly the problem of who did what, who did what, who did what to whom, what was done by whom clouded my mind.
Eventually, using my DIY-aka-pseudo-linguistic method again, I was able to figure out who’s who and what’s what. But a user, bonbon2023, from WordReference was able to explain the sentence awesomely in a linguistic way and I’d like to share it with you guys – especially to those who are also studying / are interested in linguistics.
For lexical explanation, 오늘따라 강하게 나오는 딸의 반발에 엄마는 눈에 힘을 주며 밥주걱을 들고 있던 오른손을 치켜드신다.(Mom raises her right hand, which have held rice spatula, with glaring eyes seeing daughter defiant today for some reason.) In this context, though different wording, 눈에 힘을 주다 can be otherwise expressed as 눈을 부릅뜨다 or 눈을 번뜩이다. ‘오늘따라’ means ‘왠일인지 오늘, which is today for some reason, and ‘따라’ signifies there’s no specific reason.’강하게 나오는 딸의 반발에’ suggests ‘Daughter is being defiant’
For grammar explanation, this is how I analyze the sentence by morphology or syntax.
Basically when we analyze sentences in morphology, we usually reveal the nine parts of speech in the sentence.
오늘(noun, 명사)/따라(particle 조사)/ 강하게(adjective, 형용사)/ 나오는(verb, 동사)/ 딸(noun, 명사)/의(particle, 조사)/반발(noun, 명사)에(particle, 조사)/ 엄마(noun, 명사)/는(particle, 조사)/ 눈(noun, 명사)/에(particle, 조사)/ 힘(noun, 명사)/을(particle, 조사)/ 주며(verb, 동사)/ 밥주걱(noun, 명사)/을(particle, 조사)/ 들고(verb, 동사)/ 있던(verb, 동사)/ 오른손(noun, 명사)/을(particle, 조사)/ 치켜드신다(verb, 동사).The above is based on nine parts of speech. If I go further, ‘따라, 는’ is ‘focus particle or delimiter'(보조사), ‘의’ is 관형격조사, ‘에’ is adverbial case particle(부사격조사), , ‘을’ is objective case particle(목적격조사) in your sentence. And when it comes to word-building ‘치켜드시다’ is the complex verb(합성동사), which ‘치키다’ and ‘드시다’ are mixed by the ending ‘-어’ attaching to the stem ‘치키-‘.
Given the sentence in terms of inflection(활용), which refers to change in form of verb or adjective, ‘주며’ ‘들고’, ‘있던’, ‘나오는’, ‘치켜드신다’ are considered.
The ending -며 in 주며 is coordinate conjunctive ending(대등적연결어미) because it links the preceding clause and following clause on grammatically equal terms.
-고 in 들고 is supplementary conjunctive ending(보조적연결어미) since it enables 있던 to modify ‘들고’, thereby adds progressive meaning in the chunk. ‘-ㄴ’ in 있던 and ‘-는’ in 나오는 are 관형사형어미 so 있던, 나오는 modify noun ‘오른손’, ‘딸’ respectively. -ㄴ다 in 치켜드신다 is closing ending(종결어미).On the other hand in syntax, there are seven parts of sentence 부사어, 관형어, subject(주어), object(목적어), 서술어, complement(보어), 독립어 when basically analyzing the sentence.
Thus the compound sentence is analysed as:
오늘따라 강하게 나오는 딸의(관형어) 반발에(부사어)/ 엄마는(subject)/ 눈에(부사어) 힘을(object) 주며(서술어)/ 밥주걱을 들고 있던(관형어)/ 오른손을(object)/ 치켜드신다(서술어).
The subject ‘엄마는’ is the third person singular. 부사어, 관형어 are additional constituents when it comes to constituents of sentences, thus the sentence can make sense even after omitting them like the following> “엄마는 힘을 주며 오른손을 치켜드신다.” This is main sentence.
The type of compound sentence is extended sentence(이어진문장) since ‘엄마는 눈에 힘을 주며’ and ‘밥주걱을 들고 있던 오른손을 치켜드신다’ are coordinate clauses(대등절) linked by ‘-며’.
Consider the following:
오늘따라 강하게 나오는 딸의(관형구) 반발에(adverbial phrase)/ 엄마는 눈에 힘을 주며(coordinate clause)/ 밥주걱을 들고 있던(관형구)/ 오른손을 치켜드신다(coordinate clause).
‘오늘 따라 강하게 나오는 딸의'(관형구) performs as the 관형어 that modifies noun 반발 in adverbial phrase(부사구). 밥주걱을 들고 있던 modifies noun 오른손.
When we look at ‘치켜드신다’. The ‘-시-‘ prefinal ending shows the respect to the agent ‘엄마’ and there’s ‘-ㄴ다’, which is the form of 해라체 of declarative form.
However, the sentence on the whole shows the sentence is not aimed for specific audience. In other words, closing ending ‘-ㄴ다’ in this sentence is not closing ending of 해라체 in 상대높임법 used for face-to-face or conversational situation(상관적장면) but neutral-register(하라체) of in declarative sentence used for writing(단독적장면).
Given the tense, the tense of main sentence is present tense determined by closing ending ‘-ㄴ다’. If the ‘inflected forms performing as noun, numeral, pronoun modifier'(관형사형) are underlined for explaining relative tense based on time of event in main sentence, it is shown as the following:
오늘따라 강하게 나오는 딸의 반발에 엄마는 눈에 힘을 주며 밥주걱을 들고 있던 오른손을 치켜드신다.
The first 관형사형, the ‘time of event(사건시)’ of ‘나오는’ coincides with the time of event in main sentence, thus it’s present tense. The second, the time of event of ‘있던’ precedes that of main sentence, thus it signifies lasting of movement precedes the point of ‘time of event’.FYI: Think about nine parts of speech and seven constituents of sentence when you analyzing sentence.
WOW! Like, really WOW! Not anyone can explain this sentence the way he explained it. And for a moment I even thought he’s probably one of our professors. I wish he (she?) is my professor though. Not only did I learn how to analyze the sentence, but I also learned a lot about syntax.
I’m not sure if I can do it on my own though when it comes to analyzing sentences as I go on with my reading but I will try my best.
This is one of the few moments I love being a linguistic student! 🙂
I love going to WordReference Forums whenever I have questions about Korean. The people who answer are really awesome! And I also like browsing through the questions of others because most of them were stuff I’m also curious/confused about.
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I was stuck in traffic yesterday for a good 4 hours. Thanks to the traffic jam I was able to finish 4 chapters of the novel I am reading :). And the more I read, the faster and easier it becomes. ^^
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