case: Case marker

Definition

case refers to a case marker that appears after a sentence element to indicate its grammatical role within a sentence.

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Characteristics

• The case tag generally appears as a preposition or postposition following pronouns, nouns, or noun phrases, and it functions as a dependent of these elements.
• In Korean, case markers for key sentence elements, as well as auxiliary postpositions like JX (Postposition_auxiliary, 보조사), are typically attached to the preceding word. However, if they are incorrectly spaced, they should be treated as case tags
• Examples:
  • 학교 앞에서 친구를 기다립니다.
  • 이틀 후에 새 학기가 시작됩니다.
  • 저는 친구 하고 여행을 갈 예정입니다.
  • 일부(50%) 는 찬성이라고 밝혔다.

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Boundary cases and clarifications

Differences with related tags

• case vs. mark (Marker):
  • Both the case tag and the mark tag can consist of the same form of NNB (Noun_common_bound, dependent noun), as they function as words that indicate the grammatical role of specific elements.
  • The case tag follows nouns directly, while the mark tag comes after predicates and introduces subordinate clauses.
    • case: 한 시간(obl) 후에 식당에 도착합니다.
    • mark: 물을 한 컵 마신(advcl) 후에 밥을 먹습니다.

Special cases

1. VCP (Copular_positive, 긍정 지정사) as a case tag
   • ‘이다’ belongs to VCP, functioning as a predicate while also attaching to the preceding word like a postposition. If ‘이다’ is incorrectly spaced from the preceding noun, it should be parsed as a case tag.
     • 빌리 씨는 미국사람 이다.
     • 매연은 환경 오염의 원인 중 하나 이다.
2. Parsing ‘등’ as a Case Marker
   • In Korean, “등,” which means “etc.” in English, follows a list of two or more nouns. It either limits the reference to just those items or suggests that there are more similar items.
   • ‘등’ is classified as an NNB in terms of part of speech, but it is parsed as a case because it typically comes after nouns and shows the grammatical relationship between them.
     • 수요일에 국어, 수학, 체육 등 수업을 듣는다.
     • 산에서 진달래꽃, 개나리 등을 보니 자연이 참 좋다고 생각했습니다.

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Examples