Talk:같다

Etymology

Is the hota in the older form kot.hota related to modern Korean verb 하다 (hada)? If so, what is the preceding kot portion? Does it have any cognates in the modern language? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

@Eirikr: Yes, hota is equivalent to modern hada. *kot is a reconstructed Middle Korean root glossed with 如 (“to be like”). Seo Jeongbeom argued that the concept of 同 (“same”; gatda) and 如 (“to be like”; *kot) can be derived from the concept of “word; speech” (cf. Japanese 言(こと) (koto)), since agreement or accord was usually expressed verbally in ancient times, as shown by the common component of 口 (“mouth”) in these characters. He proposed that this extended root also gave rise to the *kal- in 가르치다 (gareuchida, “to teach”) and *kkwotay in 잠꼬대 (jamkkodae, “somniloquy”). I find this theory somewhat far-fetched. The only Japanese comparandum I find reasonable is 如(ごと)し (gotoshi, “like”). Wyang (talk) 22:53, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Very interesting. Investigating 如し (gotoshi), the development of the term from the common pattern of [NOUN] が (subject) 如し (gotoshi) seems more like 〔 [NOUN] が (ancient possessive) 事 (goto) 〕 + し (adjectivizing suffix) -- as in, 〔 that person or thing's thing / way / abstract sense 〕 + (adjectivizing suffix). So if the MKO and OJP are related, that suggests the kot in MKO may also be the 것 (geot) in modern KO.

I'm also curious about the apparent ho- / ha- ablaut. I see patterns of "o" / "a" ablaut in ancient Japanese as well, where the "o" denotes inner, inward, inherent quality, and the "a" denotes outer, outward, or apparent quality. Compare a couplet like has- / hos-, as in 挟む (hasamu, “to be stuck between”), 端 (hashi, “outer edge of something”), vs. 細い (hosoi, “slender”), where the has- denotes the narrowness between two things, and the hos- denotes the narrowness of the thing itself. Another is tam- / tom-, as in 溜まる (tamaru, “to collect in a place, as rainwater in a puddle”) vs. 止まる (tomaru, “to stop, in a particular location”), and the older root verbs tamu (“to collect in a place; to form something to a set shape; to become or be colorful; to bend, to turn” and tomu “to be or become bountiful; to stop; to visit”. A later development with similar shapes is in verb conjugations, where spontaneous or apparent changes take -aru and inwardly directed and intentional changes take -oru, like 困る (komaru) vs. 籠る (komoru).

Is there any chance that this ho- / ha- shift in the MKO verb reflects a similar semantic ablaut, where the "a" stems denote outward or appearance and the "o" stems denote inward or inherent quality? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:17, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

@Eirikr: The potential derivation of 如(ごと)し (gotoshi) from 事(こと) (koto) is intriguing (perhaps Seo's theory is not so unconvincing as I previously thought). Middle Korean ᆞ (o) was lost in the Seoul dialect; it evolved to modern Korean ᅳ (eu) non-initially and to ᅡ (a) initially. Modern hada is the direct descendant of Middle Korean hota.

However, ablaut is abundant in Korean. Modern Korean vowels ᅡ (a) and ᅩ (o) belong to the same category (yang vowels) and are typically contrasted with the vowels ᅥ (eo) and ᅮ (u) (yin vowels). The obsolete vowel ᆞ (o) was also a yang vowel. These ablaut formations are extensive in the modern language, and more so in ancient Korean; yang vowels are lighter and cuter, and yin vowels are heavier and more serious. The ablaut pairs I love the most are 맛 (mat, “(food's) taste”) ~ 멋 (meot, “(man's) taste”) and 작다 (jakda, “small”) ~ 적다 (jeokda, “few”). It is certainly possible that 것 (geot) used to contrast with some yang vowel variant, and was distantly related to 같다 (gatda), like Seo hypothesised.

Vovin's book claims there was no reconstructable ablaut in Proto-Japonic. I don't know how reliable the claim is; you would have a better judgement than I do. :) Wyang (talk) 15:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• @Wyang Happily, I have that book on my shelf. That said, I have not yet had time to get to it.

I haven't read any Vovin aside from short extracts. I've run across him saying a number of things that I don't agree with, including what came across as a blanket statement that JA and KO are absolutely unrelated. I see plenty of OJP evidence that seems to point to ablaut, and some suggestion of related terms in KO, such as the なる (naru) / なす (nasu) / 乗る (noru) / 乗す (nosu) verb cluster in OJP and the compellingly similar 나다 (nada) / 낳다 (nata) / *노다 (noda)? / 놓다 (nota) cluster in KO.

Thanks for the pointer! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I believe na- in Korean and Japanese are unmistakably cognate. I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on the Japanese cluster, but the Korean ones are definitely related and one can also add 넣다 (neota) to the cluster. I've always been under the impression that Japanese had lots of vowel alternations in word formation. I haven't read Vovin either; skimming through it on Google Books suggests it's quite worth reading - there are a lot of novel and interesting viewpoints. (But, time ...) Wyang (talk) 11:56, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

@Wyang: This is a fun and fascinating discussion. In the interests of not overwhelming this talk page :), I'm moving discussion to your talk page. Feel free to bump it to mine if you'd prefer. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:56, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Addendum re: JA comparanda

Bizarrely, OJP has two words koto that have opposite meanings.

• 同 (koto), root of 如し (gotoshi, “similar, same”)
• 異, 殊 (koto), root of 異なる (kotonaru, “to differ, to be different”, itself apparently a verb development from adjective 異なり (kotonari, “differing, different”), in turn from 異 + に (ni) + あり (ari)), 殊に (koto ni, “especially, particularly”, originally the adverb of kotonari)

I'm flummoxed how there would be two such koto terms with exactly opposite meanings. I can't find any clear instances of either spelled in man'yōgana, so I cannot compare 甲・乙 vowel values for the /o/ -- that might possibly reveal that these weren't originally the same word, phonemically speaking.

Have you read anything about this phenomenon? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:57, 4 June 2018 (UTC)