# 통일되지았 을 때



## wonlon

It is a line in my textbook which asks the student to fill in a table to talk about what he/she thinks about unification of Korea. My problem is the use of *았 *here.

위의 표현을 사용하여 *통일되지 않았을 때*와 *통일되었을 때* 한국이 어떻게 달라질지 정리하고 여러분의 생각을 이야기해 보십시오.

*통일되지 않았을 때*
*통일되었을 때*

Surely it is not about past actions here. But then why is *았 *used here?


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## Environmentalist

Hi Wonlon.
It is the past tense because it is subjunctive.
You are assuming that Korea is unified so the sentence suggests a hypothetical situation.


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## wonlon

Environmentalist said:


> Hi Wonlon.
> It is the past tense because it is subjunctive.
> You are assuming that Korea is unified so the sentence suggests a hypothetical situation.


How is it different from purely *통일되지 않을 때 *and *통일될 때*?


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## Environmentalist

Good question.
There's no big difference between the past and present tense in that case.
Unlike the English subjunctive rules, most people use either of the tenses in Korea.


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## Rance

From Naver Dictionary:


> *-았-*
> [어미]
> 
> 
> 1.이야기하는 시점에서 볼 때 사건이 이미 일어났음을 나타내는 어미.
> 2.이야기하는 시점에서 볼 때 완료되어 현재까지 지속되거나 현재에도 영향을 미치는 상...
> 3.이야기하는 시점에서 볼 때 미래의 사건이나 일을 이미 정하여진 사실인 양 말할 때 쓰는 어미.



For our particular case, the third definition is used.
Although we are dealing about a hypothetical situation, I believe it's conditional mood and not subjunctive mood.
The problem is asking you talk about possible outcomes under different conditions. 

"-았-" is re-emphasizing an already conditional clause as a conditional clause as if it's further reassuring that the conditional is just a conditional that it is unlikely to happen.
Hence I would say  "*통일되지 않을 때" *and "*통일될 때" *are first conditional while "*통일되지 않았을 때" *is second conditional.


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## Environmentalist

Rance said:


> From Naver Dictionary:
> 
> 
> For our particular case, the third definition is used.
> Although we are dealing about a hypothetical situation, I believe it's conditional mood and not subjunctive mood.
> The problem is asking you talk about possible outcomes under different conditions.
> 
> "-았-" is re-emphasizing an already conditional clause as a conditional clause as if it's further reassuring that the conditional is just a conditional that it is unlikely to happen.
> Hence I would say  "*통일되지 않을 때" *and "*통일될 때" *are first conditional while "*통일되지 않았을 때" *is second conditional.




Thank you for better information.
Korean grammar is too difficult to grasp perfectly. 
Actually, I never think about the grammatical structure of Korean language when I speak. Maybe that's why.
Anyway, as far as Korean learners are concerned, they must be going through a tough time out there.
Cheer up.


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