잇다

First attested in the Yongbi eocheon'ga (龍飛御天歌 / 용비어천가), 1447, as Middle Korean 닛다 (Yale: nis.ta).

• (SK Standard/Seoul) IPA^(key):
• Phonetic hangul:
  • Though still prescribed in Standard Korean, most speakers in both Koreas no longer distinguish vowel length.

잇다 • (itda) (irregular, infinitive 이어, sequential 이으니)

1. (transitive) to join, to piece together, to connect
2. (transitive) to continue, to keep on
3. (transitive) to succeed to, to carry on, to inherit
4. (intransitive) to follow (after)

From Old Korean 有叱 (*Is-).

• IPA^(key): /ìs.tá/

잇다〮 (ìstá) (infinitive 이셔〮 (ìsyé), sequential 이시니〮 (ìsìní)) (intransitive)

1. to be (at a place); to exist
2. to have
3. (auxiliary) to be (in a state of having done the main verb)

• The verbal stem usually took the form 잇 (is-) before a consonant-initial suffix, and 이시 (isi-) before a vowel-initial one. When followed by certain suffixes, including the dictionary citation suffix 다〮 (-tá), both were permissible. Thus 잇다〮 (ìstá) and 이시다〮 (ìsìtá) are both permissible.
• However, 잇다〮 (ìstá) and 이시다〮 (ìsìtá) had a nuanced difference when acting as an auxiliary verb. As an auxiliary, the verb had the meaning of "to exist in a state of having VERBed". But if 잇다〮 (ìstá) was used, the completion of the act in the past was emphasized; if 이시다〮 (ìsìtá), the continued existence in the present of the completed state was emphasized.
• In the seventeenth century, the semantic gap widened so that the former eventually morphed into the modern past tense marker 었 (-eot-), while the latter form survived as an auxiliary. Thus Modern Korean has the doublet 사람이 죽었다 (saram-i jug-eot-da, “a person died”) and 사람이 죽어 있다 (saram-i jugeo itda, “a person is there, dead”), both coming from the same Middle Korean verb.

• Korean: 있다 (itda)
• Korean: 었 (-eot-, past tense marker) (compounded with verbal infinitive suffix 어 (-eo))

• 나찬연 (Na Chan-yeon) (2014) Jungse Gugeo Munbeop-ui Ihae: Immunpyeon [Understanding Middle Korean Grammar: Introduction], Gyohak Yeon'gusa, →ISBN