What's the difference between 상태동사 and 형용사?

Question

Korean Grammar for International Learners calls descriptive verbs 상태동사:

However, I thought these words were also often called 형용사 - so I got the impression that 상태동사 and 형용사 are basically the same thing. Following a conversation with another Korean SE friend here, I wonder if that is correct.

Are 상태동사 and 형용사 the same thing, are 형용사 a subset of 상태동사, or are they different altogether?

Answer 1

There is no 상태동사 in Korean. I think you are confused with other languages such as English. There are only verbs and adjectives in Korean and nothing in-between.

The simplest way to distinguish 형용사 (adjective) from 동사 (verb) is to conjugate by placing '-ㄴ' or '-는' before '다' using the basic (root) form. If the conjugated form makes sense, it is a verb. If not, it is an adjective as follows:

1. Changing the words to basic forms.

슬프네 -> 슬프다

예뻤지 -> 예쁘다

먹어라 -> 먹다

가신다 -> 가다

2. Place '-ㄴ' (when the last word before 다 ends with a vowel) or '-는' (when it ends with a consonant) before '다'.

슬프다 -> 슬픈다 (X)

예쁘다 -> 예쁜다 (X)

먹다 -> 먹는다 (O)

가다 -> 간다 (O)

The first two are adjectives and the last two are verbs.

Let's see how your examples work.

강하다 -> 강한다 (X)

밝다 -> 밝는다 (X)

Neither of them works and it proves that they are adjectives.

When you see a translated version of those adjectives in Korean, it might sound like a verb, but there is no 상태동사 in Korean.

Answer 2

Reference

1) There are several ways in defining a descriptive verb.

2) Descriptive verb and dynamic verb are subsets of verb and adjective is a subset of descriptive verb. But it is mechanical view point. In language view point, we use term adjective.