북한의 문법론 = On Grammatical Studies in North Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

It is true that the grammar of North Korea has considerable differences from ours in grammatical terms and in details of grammatical descriptions.
It has the category of grammatical marker, namely to(吐), which comprises verbal and adjectival final endings, prefinal endings; case markers, delimiters, plural marker; even passive and causative suffixes, and copula. Recently, it has divided the so-called morphology into three fields of study, that is, into the study of parts of speech, that of word formation, and that of narrow morphology which deals with the forms and functions of words containing to(吐). The study of word formation in North Korea postulates the category of semantic formative(意味部) which is similar to a morpheme in nature but not the smallest meaningful unit, and which participates in word formations.
In syntax, frequent debates can be found on the problem of statementness(陳述性) of a sentence, i.e., on the most essential properties of sentencehood. With regard to this statementness it makes much of modalities related to the functions of some prefinal endings and adverbials with respect to the speaker's attitude. The peculiarities of syntax of North Korea could also be found in the classification of sentence types, its constituents and the types of word-combination(This is roughly equivalent to the syntagmatic and/or government relations of words).
In general, we can safely say that the grammar of North Korea is basically or more of less normative study, in the sense that the main concerns of the grammar is hardly beyond the scope of potential problems inherent to the normative grammar and that the grammar is intended to direct speakers to perform the proper language life. The study of word formations has more direct relevance to this purpose than anything else. This does not mean that the grammar of North Korea has not explores the depth of the grammatical phenomenon. Especially, it has made some remarkable achievements in synchronic grammatical taxonomies.
The grammatical studies in North Korea have their own merits and demerits. We can expect a desirable situation in which the grammatical studies in the North well play roles complementary to those in the South in near future, since the grammatical studies of the South and the North have strong points in different areas of study respectively. In diachronic studies the South is strong, whereas the North is strong in synchronic studies. Whereas the South is strong in theory, the North is strong in taxonomy. In a certain field of study, it is neccessary for both to explore the grammatical phenomenon. The typical example of this kind is the copula ita. The North wrongly identifies it as transferentive marker, whereas the school grammar of the South views it as predicative case marker. However, the real nature of copula ita is nothing but an adjective at least in Korean.
Of course, there are intrinsic heterogeneities not so easy to overcome, including terminological problems. We believe the first step toward the solution of these problems is to understand the grammatical approaches of the other side.