Is it true that Koreans might sometimes be cautious about actually saying the verb in a sentence?

Question

Richard Harris, in his book Roadmap to Korean, makes an observation (under the heading 'Cautious to Conjugate') that

Koreans in some situations try to avoid clearly saying a verb and its ending, perhaps because it forces you to commit to a 'speech level' and risk speaking inappropriately.

Is this a phenomenon that is commonly observed? If so, what are some tactics that may be used to do this? The book mentions

• people saying the verb endings 'through laughter, or quiet as a whisper'
• using a noun but no verb
• people leaving a sentence hanging in 'mid-air' for someone else to pick up
• Women covering their mouths to obscure what's actually being said

(But the book doesn't actually give any examples of sentences, exchanges, or utterances that I can share with you - sorry!)

Answer 1

Not very common (I think), but many people show this behavior with different reasons.

Korean has formal speech forms. Minors must use formal speech form in conversation with seniors. Between civilians, number one rule is the age. But there are other hierarchies: office rank, school seniority, gender(!), and so on.

Suppose there are two office workers with same age but different gender. If one is lower ranked male and the other is high ranked female, some male people feeling ashamed when using strict formal form to speak to same aged women. But because she is higher rank, he can't use normal form. So he obscure his sentence ending with various methods.

Also note that, Koreans use formal form to address school seniors but this raises many problems in universities ;-)

Answer 2

I am not sure if I understood your question 100%, but let me try to answer it.

One of the most distinct features of Korean (and Japanese) is you conjugate and negate verbs at the end of a sentence. For example:

난 (I) 너를 (you) 사랑 (love)...

If you hear someone say this, you never know whether 'I' loves or doesn't love 'you' as there could be many different sentences as follows:

난 너를 사랑해: I love you.

난 너를 사랑안해: I don't love you.

난 너를 사랑했어 (지금은 아니야): I loved you (but not now).

난 너를 사랑할래: I will love you.

난 너를 사랑하지 않아: I don't love you.

난 너를 사랑하고 싶어: I would like to love you. (I'd like to fall in love with you.)

난 너를 사랑이라 부르고 싶어: I want to call you 'Sarang'.

난 너를 사랑하지 않는게 아니야: It's not true that I don't love you.

If a speaker doesn't make it clear after "사랑" in the above sentence, there is no way we can understand what (s)he intends to mean.

Some Koreans intentionally take advantage of this feature and slurs or whispers the words at the end of the sentence to be intentionally ambiguous or confusing. But I don't think it happens very often.

Answer 3

I will add some to previous answers and comments :

1) Not host in given situation : Sometimes, one dislikes a duty in a present situation. If there is a group of going to eat, then one of clarifying end may buy dinner.

2) Observing other's interest : When we talk, someone want to satisfy other. So when we observe other's face, the sentence may vary : 밥은 choice 1 양식이 좋아 먹으러 가자 (Western style is suitable for a dinner. Let's go) choice 2 됐고 영화 보러 가자 (I am not hungry so that let' go to theater.)

3) End of conversation : If we have nothing to talk (that is, at end of talk), then clarifying end may imply that I have something to talk.

4) Stupid gesture : Except a case where there are a lot of talking or we can talk in a balance, clarifying end seems to be weird.