Thursday, October 06, 2005

No 몸나다 in my Kor-Kor dictionary?

Today, I came across the expression "뭄둘 바 모르고," which I had never seen before. I suspected it might be a misspelling of "몸둘 바 모르고," so I looked it up in my computer-based dictionary. As I suspected, there was no 뭄두다. Then I looked up 몸두다 and found it in my Korean-English dictionary, but then I noticed that there was no Korean-Korean definition for the word. By the way, 몸둘 바를 모르다 means "do not know what to do with oneself," which seems like a useful expression.

Curious about why 몸두다 would be in my Korean-English dictionary but not my Korean-Korean dictionary, I checked the Yahoo! Online Dictionary to see if was there. It was not in Yahoo!'s Korean-Korean dictionary, either, but was in its Korean-English dictionary. Then I checked to see if 몸나다, which means "gain weight," would show up in my Korean-Korean dictionary. It was not there, either, though it was in my Korean-English dictionary. After that, I decided to see how how many other pure-Korean verbs use 몸, which means "body," to make a new verb. Here is what I found:
몸가지다: 1) become pregnant; 2) have the menses
몸나다: gain weight
몸달다: fidget; fret; be eager or anxious
몸담다: be employed in; work for
몸두다: stay in; find shelter with; stay with
몸바치다: sacrifice one's life
몸받다: work in place of an elder or superior
몸져눕다: take to one's bed; be ill in bed
몸풀다: 1) give birth; 2) relieve one's fatigue
몸하다: have the menses
The words in red have a Korean-Korean definition, but all the others do not. I am not curious enough to search for the conventions used in my dictionary, but I would guess that the words not defined in my Korean-Korean dictionary are still not completely accepted as standardized forms. I think they were included in the Korean-English dictionary for the benefit of foreign learners. The words, of course, are just a combination of a verb and the noun, 몸, which either acts as the subject or object of the verb, depending on the verb. Koreans have probably come to drop the subject or object marker so frequently that the verb and the noun are now pretty much seen as one word. I think some Korean-Korean dictionaries already recognize 몸두다, 몸나다, and the others as new words, and it is probably just a matter of time when all Korean dictionaries will.

Here are the original structures of these one-word 몸-verbs.
몸을 가지다: 1) become pregnant; 2) have the menses
몸이 나다: gain weight
몸이 달다: fidget; fret; be eager or anxious
몸을 담다: be employed in; work for
몸을 두다: stay in; find shelter with; stay with
몸을 바치다: sacrifice one's life
몸을 받다: work in place of an elder or superior
몸이 져눕다: take to one's bed; be ill in bed
몸을 풀다: 1) give birth; 2) relieve one's fatigue
몸을 하다: have the menses

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