Chapter 134Kor: Simultaneity, Habits, and Conditions

134.1 Actions and states that overlap

One use of kor relates situations that hold at the same time. The predicates can describe different participants: Tamura's example has a group dancing and another person watching the speaker Tamura (1997: 49).

Satō makes the same point with a Chitose oral-literature passage in which the narrator's parents speak while smoke rises at their home Satō (2008: 50). The English translations ‘while’ and ‘as’ can express this overlap without imposing a shared-subject requirement.

134.2 Kor an and the comparison with wa and no

Kor followed by an or oka participates in continuative constructions. These include both events in progress and habits extending across a longer period. Tamura also allows the preceding predicate and the existential to have different subjects Tamura (1997: 49). See Chapter 110 (Existential Aspect: Kor An and Wa An) for their person marking and interpretation.

Nakagawa's Saru comparison places kor with an action in progress, wa with its resulting state, and no with a state without temporal change. He explicitly notes that manner constructions require more than this phase comparison Nakagawa (2024: 341–342).

Here no links the negative sleeping predicate to prayer, and kor an describes the continuing prayer. This example illustrates the combination in Saru; the wider distribution of negative linkage is discussed in Chapter 132 (Wa, Connected Events, and Ayne).

134.3 Habitual and conditional kor

The same written form also connects a recurring circumstance with what happens in it. Satō illustrates this with birds returning to roost at night Satō (2008: 49).

Satō also describes hypothetical questions such as asking what one should say, and a rare factual use, taanta ek kor, as, ‘He came here and stopped.’ His account therefore includes more than a single division between simultaneous actions and habitual conditions Satō (2008: 49). Nakagawa notes that simultaneous and conditional interpretations can be difficult to distinguish in some contexts Nakagawa (2024: 340).

134.4 Regional constructions and historical proposals

Regional comparison must distinguish the functions of the connectors. Horobetsu has conditional ko alongside continuative kor. Shizunai konno and koonno have factual and habitual uses. Several varieties east of Shizunai use kane or kan for continuation and sustained states Nakagawa (2024: 342, 348–349)Nakagawa & Fukazawa (2022: §4.3.2, examples 16–21).

Nakagawa and Fukazawa propose that conditional ko is older and became kor in some regions through attraction to the other connector. In their hypothesis, Shizunai subsequently added -no to preserve a distinction Nakagawa & Fukazawa (2022: §4.3.2). This is a historical proposal based on the distribution, rather than an automatic rule deleting final r in every ko form.