Korean Nouns and Pronouns - Pronouns in Detail

Pronouns in Detail

Korean has personal pronouns for the 1st and 2nd person, with distinctions for honorifics, and prefers demonstrative pronouns in the 3rd person, which make a three-way distinction between close, distant, and previously mentioned.

The plural suffix -deul is also used with pronouns, both where it's necessary, as in geudeul (그들, "they") and optionally in some cases like urideul (우리들) where it's redundant.

Geu (그) has a range of meanings, "he," "she," or "it." Due to this ambiguity and the ability of the Korean language to drop pronouns which can be reconstructed from context, geu is seldom used by itself. But it has enjoyed a revival recently as the translation of "he" in works translated from European languages.

The monosyllabic pronouns na (나), neo (너), and jeo (저), add -i (이) or -i ga (이가) rather than the expected -ga (가) to form the nominative case (see below). This produces the forms nae (내), ne (네), and je (제). Geu (그) is found in all three forms, as geu-i (그이) and geu-iga 그이가, in addition to regularly formed geuga (그가).

Additionally, because many Koreans have lost the distinction between the vowels ae (애) and e (에), ne (네, "you") is dissimilating to ni (니).

In colloquial Korean, the topic forms naneun (나는, "me") and neoneun (너는, "you") are often pronounced, and sometimes written, as nan (난, "me") and neon (넌, "you"). Similarly, the accusative forms nareul (나를) and neoreul (너를) tend to become nal (날) and neol (널). The possessives na-ui (나의, "my") and neo-ui (너의, "your") have the alternate forms nae (내) and ne (네).

The classifier jjog (쪽, "side") is also used when referring to people. Ijjog (이쪽, "this side") then means "this person, these people" (that is, he, she, or they), but is further extended via "our side" as a polite form for "us" or "me".

The "given" series is often called "medial", and said to be close to the addressee rather than the speaker. However, they actually refer to referents already established in the conversation, whether near or far. With new referents, the near or far forms will be used.

In colloquial speech, the object words, composed of the prefix plus the generic noun classifier geos (것), frequently drop the final s (pronounced t), with proximate igeos (이것) becoming igeo (이거) This occurs before case clitics as well, with the nominative form igeos-i (이것이) becoming ige (이게), topical igeos-eun (이것은) becoming igeon (이건), and accusative igeos-eul (이것을) becoming igeol (이걸, "this").

In colloquial Korean, interrogative mu-eos (무엇) contracts to mwo (뭐, "what") (often pronounced meo, as w tends to drop after m), and the accusative mu-eos-eul (무엇을) contracts to mwol (뭘, "what").

The word for "who" is nugu (누구), which in the nominative is nuga (누가). "How many" is myeoch (몇).