-음

Alternative forms

• ㅁ (-m) (after vowel-final and ㄹ (l)-final verbal stems)

Etymology

Of native Korean origin, from Middle Korean 음〮 (Yale: -úm), ᄋᆞᆷ〮 (Yale: -óm).

This suffix is the most common Middle Korean nominalizer, including in the gugyeol sources of the fourteenth century and in the Hangul sources of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but is very rarely attested in pre-fourteenth-century Old Korean sources. Choe 2017 comments that no intermediary stage appears to exist, and that this sudden post-fourteenth-century dominance of an apparently novel grammatical suffix is puzzling and difficult to explain.

The older nominalizers were realis 隱 (*-n) and irrealis 尸 (*-l), both of which are now adnominal suffixes.

In Middle Korean, 음〮 (Yale: -úm) proper only derived nouns from verbs, while verbal substantives ("-ing", "that...") were formed by bimorphemic 움〮 (Yale: -wú-m), the first element traditionally being analyzed as the "modulator" suffix 우〮 (Yale: -wú-). The "modulator" disappeared around the late sixteenth century, leaving 음 (-eum) to do double duty.

Suffix

음 • (-eum)

1. -ness; -tion; -ment (noun-deriving suffix for verbs and adjectives)

   Synonym: 기 (-gi)

   ‎나누 (nanu-, “to divide”) + ‎음 (-eum) → ‎나눔 (nanum, “division, charity”)

   ‎기쁘 (gippeu-, “happy”) + ‎음 (-eum) → ‎기쁨 (gippeum, “happiness”)

2. (formal) the act of, the process of, -ing, being […] , to be […] (gerund- or noun clause-forming suffix for verbs and adjectives)

   Synonym: 기 (-gi, non-formal)

   우리가 만남은 우연이 아니다.

   uri-ga mannam-eun uyeon-i anida.

   Our meeting [each other] cannot be an accident.

   이가 옳지 않음은 명백한 사실입니다.

   i-ga ol-chi aneum-eun myeongbaek-han sasir-imnida.

   This not being right is an evident fact.

3. (formal or Internet, slang) A formality-neutral sentence ender used in certain contexts when one desires to avoid formality distinctions, such as in formal reports or Internet conversations.

   생물학에 큰 관심을 가지고 있음.

   Saengmulhag-e keun gwansim-eul gajigo isseum.

   [Student] has great interest in biology.

   (in a school report)

   2020년 12월 9일에 씀.

   2020-nyeon 12-wol 9-ir-e sseum.

   Written on 9 December, 2020.

   (in the preface of a book)

   님, 거기 가 봄?

   Nim, geogi ga bom?

   Have you been there?

   (in an Internet conversation)

References

• 최성규 (Choe Seong-gyu) (2017) “명사형 어미 ‘ㅁ’의 형성 과정 탐색 [myeongsahyeong eomi ‘-m’ui hyeongseong gwajeong tamsaek]”, in Gugeohak, volume 83, →DOI, pages 153—181