Talk:괴다

Derivation

Perhaps a long shot, but I'm curious if there might be any connection with Japanese 恋 (koi, ancient kopi, “love, chiefly romantic”), in turn from Old Japanese 恋ふ (ko₁pu, “to love, chiefly romantically”). I recall reading somewhere that /p/ in Koreanic underwent lenition to /w/ in certain circumstances. If that Koreanic lenition happened after borrowing (either into or from Japonic), that would account for the /p/ in Japanese. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:23, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eirikr I think the connection is quite likely, actually!

First off, the Middle Korean word has rising pitch, which implies an Old Korean bisyllabic form: /koCi-/.

Now we need to retrieve the unknown consonant C. Normally we would look at other dialects, but unfortunately this verb is defunct in the modern spoken dialects outside Jeju, which has undergone the same process of consonant lenition and deletion as Seoul and has the quite unhelpful form 궤다 (gweda).

However, it's possible that C was /p/. This is because the conservative Gyeongsang dialect form 사비 (sabi, “shrimp”) is reflected in late Middle Korean as 사이 (Yale: sai) following the deletion of /p/, so we know that while Old Korean /p/ normally ultimately results in /w/, this was not necessarily the case before /-i/. So we could very well have had */kopi-/ > */koβi-/ > /koj-/ for this verb stem.

Korean also has the adjective 곱다 (gopda, “to be beautiful”), which seems related to this verb. The /-p/ in 곱다 (gopda) is a well-known adjective-deriving suffix in Middle Korean akin to English -able: see 미다 (mida, “to ostracize”) and 밉다 (mipda, “to be hateful”), 놀라다 (nollada, “to be surprised”) and 놀랍다 (nollapda, “to be surprising”), 웃다 (utda, “to laugh”) and 우습다 (useupda, “to be ridiculous”), etc.

곱다 (gopda) is also a verb stem with rising pitch in Middle Korean, again implying the bisyllabic form /koCəp-/. Assuming C is /p/, we might have */kop-əp-/ > */koβ-əp-/ > /kow-əp-/ > /ko-op-/ (rounding of vowel triggered by /w/) > /kop-/.

The /i/ in 괴다 (goeda) could well be the Korean valency-changing causative suffix applied to this hypothetical stem */kop-/. So maybe there was an Old Korean verb stem */kop-/, either a loanword from or the source of the Japanese, which had something to do with love and beauty.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 23:56, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eirikr To add to this, if the transitive verb 괴다 is indeed a derived causative, this implies that the original form is intransitive. While very tentative, the most natural semantic value of this hypothetical intransitive */kop-/ would seem to be something like "to behave in a lovable manner". This would produce the following literal meanings:

• 괴다: to cause to behave in a lovable manner [in the lover's eyes] > to love
• 곱다: to be able to behave in a lovable manner > to be beautiful

Again, this is very speculative.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 00:04, 20 October 2020 (UTC)