KIM Phil. (2008). A Contrastive Study of Conjugational Endings in Korean and Kazakh. Altai Hakpo 18: 125-145. The Altaic Society of Korea.

Kazakh is part of the Turkic group of Altaic family of languages. However, there is controversy as to their generic relation with the Altaic family of languages. Kazakh is spoken by more than 10 million people living in Kazakhstan, as well as, in neighboring countries, such as Mongolia, China etc. Korean and Kazakh both have a strong agglutinative property with well‐developed ending systems, a specific feature of the Altaic family of languages.

This paper aims to systemize the conjugational ending system in Kazakh according to their morphological location and syntactic‐semantic function, and to compare conjugational endings in Korean and Kazakh to show syntactic and semantic similarities and differences. The following observations were found. Non‐final endings in Korean are temporal and deferential, while counterparts in Kazakh are temporal, modal (subjunctive and optative), negative and voice. For final endings, there are indicative, imperative, interrogative, exhortative, exclamatory, modifier and connective endings in Korean, while in Kazakh only personal, imperative, participle and verbal adverb endings.

Temporal endings are syntactically and semantically similar in the two languages. Connective endings in Korean are syntactically similar to verbal adverbs in Kazakh. However, Kazakh does not have terminal endings comparable to Korean interrogative, exhortative, exclamatory endings. In Kazakh, interrogation is realized by using an interrogative particle, exhortation by imperative ending, and exclamation by an exclamatory word. Unlike Korean modifier endings, in Kazakh participle endings can terminate a sentence.

Keywords: conjugational ending, Korean, Kazakh, morphological