Negative questions in English and Vietnamese - A contrastive analysis

Negative questions in English and Vietnamese - A contrastive analysis

I - Ngo Thi Thu Hien, hereby state that, this thesis is the result of my own research and thesubstance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degrees to anotheruniversities or institutions

Signature:………Date : August, 2007

This paper focuses on English and Vietnamese negative questions in term of structuresand word using The author wishes only to concentrate on four types of negative questions:negative Yes/ No question, negative Tag- question, negative Wh- question, negative

alternative question The thesis is divided into three parts, the main content is presented in part

two The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese negative questions havebeen analysed and pointed out With an ambition to help teachers and learners have a clearunderstanding about the English and Vietnamese negative questions, the author also drawn outa survey questionnaire to find out the common mistakes made by Vietnamese students Andthen the author has managed to suggest some ways to correct common those mistakes.Suggested exercises are also offered to help learners to practice and avoid committingmistakes The thesis mainly focuses on the structures of four types of negative questions inEnglish and Vietnamese, the negative words that are used in negative questions are alsoconsidered However, the pragmatic and semantic features have been initially investigated; adeeper approach to the pragmatic and semantic feature is suggested for further study.

Acknowledgements

Writing a dissertation is not just a matter of getting the work done efficiently and withgood input-output ratio, for me it has been much about finding my place in the matrix ofdifferent research traditions and people doing that research I feel very fortunate to have comeacross and made friends with a large number of kind, bright and encouraging people duringmy research.

This work would never have been possible without the encouragement and supportfrom my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do I have been extremely lucky to havehim as my mentor and guide in writing this thesis.

I am also indebted to all my lecturers at University for their precious knowledge,useful lectures in linguistics, which lay the foundation for this study.

Lastly, I would like to thank the most important people in my life, my family andfriends I am forever grateful for my parents, who have given me their unconditional supportand provided me with the feeling that I am free and capable to pursue any goal in life that I setmy mind

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study……… 2

4 Methods of the study……… 2

5 Design of the study……….2

Part 2: DevelopmentChapter 1: Theoretical Background1 Negation in English and Vietnamese in brief………

1.4 Relationship between Scope and Focus of negation………

2 Negative questions in English………

2.1 What is a negative question?

2.2 The semantic and pragmatic approach to English negative questions………….

4446667778Chapter 2: A contrastive analysis of the English and Vietnamese negative questions 1 Negative forms and non- assertive forms in English………

1.1 Negative forms………

1.2 Words with negative meaning………

1.3 Non – assertive forms………

2 Negative orientation………

3 English negative questions……….

3.1 Negative Yes/ No questions………

3.2 Negative Tag- questions………

3.3 Negative Wh- questions………

3.4 Negative alternative questions………

4 A contrastive analysis of negative questions in English and Vietnamese equivalents 4.1 Introduction……….

4.2 Structures ………

4.2.1 Negative structures in Yes/ No questions………

4.2.2 Negative structures in Tag- questions………

4.2.3 Negative structures in Wh- questions………

4.2.4 Negative structures in alternative questions……… 1111121213141415161617171818222327

2 Research background and Methodology………

2 Implication for teaching and learning……….

3 Suggestion for further studies………

Appendix 1: Questionnaire 29

List of tables

Table 1: Structures of English and Vietnamese negative Yes/ No question

Table 2: Structures of English and Vietnamese negative Tag- question.

Table 3: Structures of English and Vietnamese negative Wh- question

Table 4: Structures of English and Vietnamese negative alternative question

Part 1: Introduction1 Rationale

English is not the most widely spoken language in the world in terms of the number ofnative speakers there are many more Chinese speakers than native English speakers butChinese is spoken little outside of Chinese communities, so English is the most widespreadlanguage in the world It is difficult to estimate exactly how many English speakers there are,but according to one estimate there are more than 350,000,000 native English speakers andmore than 400,000,000 speakers of English as a second language (a language used in everydaylife, even though it is not the native language) or foreign language (a language studied but notused much in everyday life)

However, even these numbers do not really indicate how important English is as a worldlanguage, because less than fifteen percent of the world population uses English The

importance of English is not just in how many people speak it but in what it is used for.English is the major language of news and information in the world It is the language ofbusiness and government even in some countries where it is a minority language It is thelanguage of maritime communication and international air traffic control, and it is used evenfor internal air traffic control in countries where it is not a native language

In communicative process in English as well as in other languages, questions play animportant role in our daily life We are not able to keep communicating going on well withoutasking questions We ask in order to exchange information, ideas, feeling and knowledge Onthe other hand, we sometimes ask questions not for the above purposes but for confirmation,refusal irony or reply avoidance It is undeniable that questions can not be missed incommunication There are a lot of types of question in English but in this paper I would like todevote all my interest in English negative questions in order to get more understanding of thistype of questions and we can be able to use it flexibly and fluently The contrastive analysis ofEnglish and Vietnamese negative questions also reveals the similarities and differences in bothlanguages From my experience and knowledge, I will go deep into this matter in a hope ofassisting to help people who are interested in the subject matter.

2 Aims of the study

The study is mainly aimed at:

 Examining how structures and negative words of English and Vietnamese negativequestions are built and used in details

 Making a comparison of English negative questions with Vietnamese equivalents Exposing some common mistakes made by Vietnamese students and presenting

some suggested solutions

 Heightening learner’s awareness in teaching and learning English and Vietnamesenegative questions.

3 Scope of the study

The study “English negative questions in English and Vietnamese - a contrastive analysis”focuses on English negative questions in English and Vietnamese equivalents within the frameof structures and using negative words There are four types of questions will be focused: Yes-

No question, tag question, wh-question, alternative question Especially, only negativequestions that use negator “not” will be discussed, other will be suggested for further study.Then the author also conducted two questionnaires to find out the mistakes made byVietnamese students, and from these mistakes, some suggestions to improve are provided.

4 Methods of the study

The study is conducted by carefully collecting materials from various sources to have full–blown information of English and Vietnamese negative questions Moreover, I haveconsulted with my supervisor, and obtained much suggestion, instructions and encouragementfrom him And lastly, the contrastive analysis is made intra- and interlingually: Englishnegative questions with Vietnamese counterparts, contrastive analysis involves two stages:description of the structures and the use of negative words in both languages.

5 Design of the study

This study is divided into three main parts:

 Part 1 is the Introduction of the study It includes the rationale for choosing thetopic, the aims, the scope, the methods and design of the study.

 Part 2 contains three chapters, in which Chapter 1 provides readers sometheoretical background on negation, negative questions in English and Vietnamesein brief Chapter 2 is also the main part of the study, provides the contrastiveanalysis of English and Vietnamese negative questions Chapter 3 presents a smallresearch of the author to find out some common mistakes made by Vietnamesestudents in using English negative questions and suggested solutions.

 Part 3 is the Conclusion of the study It also gives out implication for teaching andlearning Negative questions and some suggestions for further studies.

Part 2: DevelopmentChapter 1: Theoretical background

This chapter focuses on some theoretical background on negation, negative questions inEnglish and Vietnamese in brief As negation is a complex part, many grammarians havestudied on it They also gave out ideas about negation and forms of it and I have consultedsome grammar books before carrying out my study.

1 Negation in English and Vietnamese in brief.1.1 Definition of negation.

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, published in 1994,negation is the act of stating that something does not exist or is untrue, and the VietnameseDictionary, published in 1998 by the Centre of dictionary and Da Nang Publishing House says

that negation is the act of rejecting the existence, the necessity of something; is the oppositionof affirmation There also have been many definitions of negation made by many scholars sofar: Frank, Marcela (undated; 205) states that negation shows disagreement, denial, absence of

somebody or something, or an opposite idea or quality Forming a negative clause meansputting “not” directly after operator Semantically speaking, Frank has pointed out theimportance of negation in establishing “a counter–part” of affirmation Grammaticallyspeaking, the insertion of “not” in predicate of a sentence is a signal of negation.

My research mainly bases on English Grammar book “A University Grammar of English”

(R, Quirk.1973) According to him, the negation of a simple sentence is accomplished by

inserting not, n’t between the operator and the predication Although the definition of

negation varies from scholar to scholar, from dictionary to dictionary, we can draw some mainpoints as follows:

Negation is a part of men’s cognition activity and communication process It also a basiccategory of thinking, of formal logic It is the opposition of the affirmative category.

1.2 Scope of negation

The term scope of negation is introduced to refer to the stretch of language over which thenegative has its effect The relation between negative words and non-assertive words that theygovern will happen in scope of negation (that is part of language that the negative meaningoperates through) The scope of negation formally extents from the negative words to the endof the clause or to the beginning of a final adjunct The subject and any adjuncts occur beforea final predication often lies outside it Thus, the operator can be within or outside the scope.Below are some examples to illustrate:

E.g.: I completely did not agree with you (1)

Versus I did not completely agree with you (2)

In (1), the scope of negation stretches from “not” to “you”, subject (I), adjunct (completely),operator (did) are excluded, the predication takes full negative effect

(1) = It is complete that I did not agree with you or = that I did not agree with you is complete

Sentence (2) I did not completely agree with you, subject (I) and operator (did) are put outsidewhile adjunct is inside, negative meaning extends from negative word to the end of the clause.

(2)= I agree with you, but not always.

The scope of negation also extends to the beginning of a final adjunct.

E.g.: He did not come back in the afternoon (3)

Versus: He did not come back in the afternoon (4)

Two examples above, final adjunct as adverbial maybe within and outside scope:(3)= It is not true that he came back in the afternoon

(4)= In the afternoon, he did not come back.

The adverbial is not always essential to the structure of a sentence, thus, it can move to theinitial or final position of the sentence Final adjunct in the negative sentence is to tell us thetime that action happens

Similarly, to take another example:

E.g 1: He doesn’t listen to you on purpose

= That he listens to you on purpose is not true (implies, sometimes he does this)E.g 2: He doesn’t listen to you on purpose

= On purpose, he doesn’t listen to you (He never does this)

The negative clause that has adjunct is ambiguous to interpret Because adjuncts are optionalelements and have no fixed position that listeners understand in their own ways.

The scope of negation only works with non-assertive forms In the negative with assertiveforms, the scope does not include them It is because assertive-forms do not exert negativeeffect.

E.g.: He did not collect some stamps ≈ He collected some stamps He did not collect any stamps ≈ He collected no stamps

A negative with assertive-form implies another affirmative or is regarded as “partial negative”.Apart from adverbials, the ambiguity is also made by an operator in a negative, here, operatoris not a normal auxiliary expressing grammatical function, but a modal auxiliary With anegative modal auxiliary, verb phrase falls into a situation that the negation belongs to mainverb or auxiliary, the interpretation of the negative depends on the negative meaning of modalauxiliaries themselves.

1.3 Focus of negation

We need to identify not only the scope, but the focus of negation Focus of negation givesa stress on particular part of a negative clause, this not only indicates the contrast of meaning

implicit in the negative but also implies the rest of the clause in the positive The focus ofnegation is to place effect on single word, which belongs to either open-class item in clause.The grammarians divided focus of negation in English into two types:

1.3.1 End-focus

Quirk (1974; 407) defines that end focus is the chief prominence on the last- open items(verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs) and proper noun The end focus is used to withdrawhearer’s attention to information that speaker wants to convey; when a negative clause hasend-focus, only last item is negated the rest is positive.

E.g.: She wasn’t at home ≈ (She was at somewhere, not at home)

They haven’t been to Paris ≈ (They have gone to somewhere, but not Paris)

1.3.2 Contrastive-focus

Special or contrastive focus may be placed at earlier points and falls on any of the final elements of the clause or final item which belongs to closed-system items (prepositions,pronouns, etc ) Using contrastive focus, only one item is negated and the rest of clause isunderstood in positive sense.

non-E.g.: `Peter did not send a postcard to Mary on Christmas ≈ (Someone sent a postcard to Mary on Christmas, not Peter) Peter did not send a `Postcard to Mary on Christmas

≈ (Peter sent something to Mary on Christmas, not postcard)

The contrastive focus points out which element is negated in a clause to contrast it withsomething or somebody already mentioned Contrastive focus falls on a final item, but notend-focus.

E.g.: She is not waiting for `me ≈ (She is waiting for someone, not me) His father was not `out ≈ (He was in)

Operator also gets a contrastive focus which places contrastive emphasis on tense.E.g.: She `didn’t study English two years ago (Now, she is learning English)

Operator is used in elliptical replies to concentrate attention on new information by avoidingrepetition of given information.

E.g.: Have you phoned your parents? No I ` haven’t ≈ (I haven’t phoned my parents)

Did you go out last night? No, I `didn’t ≈ (I didn’t go out last night)

The participation of end focus and a contrastive focus makes the focus of negation not asambiguous as the scope of negations they also have a certain contribution to findingappropriate account for ambiguity in the scope of negation.

1.4 The relationship between scope and focus of negation

The scope and focus are interrelated in such as a way that the scope must include thefocus In an independent clause the scope of negation covers all the negative effect the extentof the scope is identified by the position of the focus.

2 Negative questions in English2.1 What is a negative question?

Negative questions differ in meaning from normal questions only in that the speakerexpresses an implied assumption or hope for which he is requesting affirmation or denial Thestructure calls for the speaker to state his/her assumption and then ask the question "do you" ifhis assumption is negative or "don't you" if his assumption is positive

E.g.: You (do) swim, don't you?

The speaker of this question is assuming and / or hoping that the other person does swim andrequesting affirmation The “do” in parentheses is optional Conversely, one may also say this:

E.g.: You don’t swim, do you?

In this version, the speaker suspects and /or hopes that the other person does not swim and isrequesting affirmation Thirdly, there’s also this version:

E.g.: Don’t you swim?

This sentence also implies suspicion that the person at whom it is directed does not swim, butthe connotation of doubt is not nearly as strong But those are closed negative questions, itrequires a yes/no answer and closed negative interrogatives are used when the answer istentatively assumed by the speaker However, there also exist open interrogatives, negative orpositive, can have any answer so they don't generally show attitude or assumption on the partof the speaker

2.2 The semantic and pragmatic approach to English negative questions

Ladd (1981) presents a first look at the semantics and pragmatics of negative questions.The first is a systematic ambiguity in negative questions, such as:

E.g.1: Isn’t there a vegetarian restaurant around here?E.g.2: Didn’t he even vote for Reagan?

The ambiguity in these is remarkably hard to keep hold of, and the following elaboration maybe helpful.

E.g.3: (Situation: Kathleen and Jeff have just come from Chicago on the Greyhousebus to visit Bob in Ithaca)

Bob: You guys must be starving You want to get something to eat?

Kathleen: Yeah, isn’t there a vegetarian restaurant around here- Moosewood,or something like that

Bob: Gee, you’ve heard of Moosewood all the way out in Chicago, huh? Ok,let’s go there.

Kathleen uses the negative question Isn’t there a vegetarian restaurant around here? to ask forconfirmation of something she believes to be true Compare this to the following case:

E.g.4: (Situation: Bob is visiting Kathleen and Jeff in Chicago while attending ameeting)

Bob: I’d like to take you guys out to dinner while I’m here, we’d have time togo somewhere around here before the evening session tonight, don’t youthink?

Kathleen: I guess, but there’s not really any place to go in Hyde Park.Bob: Oh, really, isn’t there a vegetarian restaurant around here?Kathleen: No, about all we can get is hamburgers and souvlaki.

Bob uses the negative question here for a very different reason: he had previously assumed thetruth of the proposition there is a vegetarian restaurant around here, but has now inferred fromwhat Kathleen says that this proposition is actually false, and is using the negative questions tocheck this new inference.

The ambiguity in (E.g.2) is between ‘left-wing’ and ‘right-wing’ readings as seen in (E.g.5)and (E.g.6).

E.g.5: (Situation: A and B are former left-wing activists discussing the recent activitiesof a colleague.)

A: Did you hear John’s decided to go to business school?

B: Yeah, I can’t believe how much he’s changed these days, didn’t he evenvote for Reagan?

A: That’s what somebody told me.

E.g.6: (Situation: A and B are staunch Republicans)

A: What’s Dick been up to these days, I haven’t seen him at the Club for ages.B: Haven’t you heard? He says he’s disillusioned with two-party politics, he’s

joined Common Cause, gave a lot of money to the Citizens’ Party…A: Didn’t he even vote for Reagan?

B: Not as far as I know.

The situation in (E.g.5) is like that in (E.g.3), the negative question is being used to confirmsomething the speaker believes to be true, namely that John voted for Reagan In (E.g.6), onthe other hand, as in (E.g.4), the negative question is used to check on a new unexpectedinference, namely that Dick didn’t vote for Reagan.

At first glance it might appear that the different implicatures and appropriateness conditionsseen in (E.g.3) and (E.g.6) are purely pragmatic, and that apparent ambiguity results fromdifferent pragmatic inferences drawn by the hearer on the basis of knowledge about thespeaker’s politics, eating habits, etc.

Chapter 2: A contrastive analysis of the English andVietnamese negative questions

1 Negative forms and non-assertive forms in English1.1 Negative forms

In English, besides inserting not, there are other words which have a negative meaning such as

no+phrase; pronoun: no one, nobody, nothing…

E.g.: There’s no money in my pocket ≈ (There is not any money in my pocket)

Here, we have no as negative determiner and it is one of the negative items in English with

 We also use none and neither (of) to replace for pronouns and determiners:

Eg1: None of them was absent.

Eg2: We wanted to meet them, but there were none arrived.

Eg3: Neither of them are dentists.Eg4: Neither class is opened.

Furthermore, negative words are various Except for words above, there are some negative

items such as: nowhere (adverb of place); never (adverb of time); no longer/ no more;neither….nor.

Eg1: I have never seen such a tall man.Eg2: She is no longer a good student.Eg3: Jack neither arrived nor phoned me.

In addition to the negative words that gave out in the first part, there are some words, whichexists the negative in meaning and behaviour such as: seldom; rarely; barely; scarcely,although they do not appear negative in form, but they bare negative meaning Like “never”,an adverb of frequency, when they are put at initial position, the subject-operator inversion isrequired for the emphasis.

Eg1: I have never seen such a tall man → Never have I seen such a tall man.Eg2: He hardly travels anymore → Hardly has he travel anymore.

1.2 Words with negative meaning

In English, some verbs have negative meaning and make up negative sentences withoutusing negative words, which is used to distinguish other verbs having negative meaning byadding negative prefixes, e.g.: dis, in, un, etc… These verbs are perceived as containing“negator” in it, including, “fail”, “stop”, “prevent”, “abstain from”, “avoid”, “deny”,“hesitate”, etc…

Eg1: I have failed to sign a long-term contract ≈ (We haven’t signed a long term contract)Eg2: The bad weather prevented us from going out ≈ (We couldn’t go out because of the bad weather)

Apart form it, some verbs imply negative meaning because they are antonyms of the positiveverbs.

E.g.: forget=not remember; refuse=not accept; prohibit=not allow; oppose= not support

Like negative verb, there are some prepositions related to position and direction, expressingnegative meaning They include: away from, off, out of… Preposition phrases have impliednegative meaning which requires non-assertive forms including: without, against, instead of,beyond, etc…There are also adjectives that have negative meaning like: hard, unaware,difficult…

English negation is various and copious, it integrates into every aspect of language- negativeitems, negative pronouns, determiners or implied-negative of notional words The structure ofnegative clause is made by many negative elements other negator “not”.

1.3 Non – assertive forms

According to Quirk (1973; 184), there are numerous items that do not naturally occuroutside negative, interrogative, and conditional clauses:

Eg1: We haven’t seen any soldiers.Eg2: We have seen any soldiers.

Non-assertive forms are items having no negative meaning but mostly used in negative, not inaffirmative These forms include “any” series opposite to “some” and other items such asdeterminers, adverbs, or pronouns…These forms usually go with negator “not” or other phrasestructures containing negative meaning, which distinguishes real negation using negativeitems “no” and “never” English negation is diversified by using both negative items and non-assertive forms because there are consequently two negative equivalents of each positivesentence.

E.g.: We have some lunch a We have not any lunchb We have no lunch

As example above, it is noted that there are always two negative sentences equivalent toaffirmative, one employs non-assertive form and the other uses negative item Both of themare negative and close paraphrases The second sentence looks like an affirmative since it hasno “not” or “n’t” following operator, but they have a negative element; the determiner “no”.The first sentence is obviously a negative sentence, but its effect is less strongly negative thanthe second It seems that an ordinary negative sentence is weaker than the one in which thenegative making is part of another word or phrase.

2 Negative orientation

As we know, a question may be presented in a form which is referred to a negativeorientation in questions Here I want to refer the negative orientation in question Negativeorientation is found in questions which contain a negative form of one kind or another:

E.g.: Can’t you give us any hope of success? ≈ (It is really true that you can’t…?)Negative orientation is complicated, however, by an element of surprise or disbelief whichadds implication of positive meaning There is a combination of “positive and a negativeattitude, which may distinguish as the “old assumption” (positive) and “new assumption”(negative) The “old assumption” tends to be identified with speaker’s hopes and wishes, sothat, the negative oriented often express annoyance of disappointment.

E.g.: Hasn’t he come here yet?

≈ (I’d hope he would have come here by now, but it seems that he hasn’t)

Another type of negative question combines not with the assertive items that are the formal

signals of positive orientation.

E.g.: Didn’t someone give you letters yesterday?The question above is similar to tag- question

≈ Someone gave you letters yesterday, didn’t he? (I assumed that someone gave you letter, am I right?)And such questions are also similar to statements showing disbelief:

≈ Surely someone gave you letters yesterday.

3 English negative questions

Negative questions are used in many different situations One of the most common is whenyou think the other person will answer in agreement with you For example, if someone askedme, "Isn't it hot today?" I would understand that the person asking thinks it is hot and alsoexpects that I think it is hot as well and will agree In contrast, if the person asked me, "Is ithot today?" I would understand that the person actually does not know if it is hot or not(maybe they haven't been outside yet that day) and is asking me to provide that information.Another function is to check information Maybe you see someone at a party who looks reallyfamiliar and you feel like talking to them You think they were in one of your classes last

semester You can ask, "Weren't you in Professor X's history class last semester?" or "Wereyou in Professor X's history class last semester?" The meaning is the same, but which one youuse depends on how sure you are If you are very sure, use the negative (you expect them toanswer yes, similar to the example above) If you are less sure use the regular form.

3.1 Negative Yes/No questions

According to Alexander (1992; 255), negative Yes/No question can appear in a post subject

position in its full form not , or in pre-subject position in its clinic-contracted form n’t In other

word, it has either contracted forms or uncontracted forms (negative full form and negativeshort form) According to Quirk et al (1980) the negator full form is rather formal while theshort form is usually preferred in informal spoken English.

Do you not buy that book? Don’t you buy that book?

Uncontracted forms are normally used in formal questions when we require special emphasisto express anger, surprise, etc And in rhetorical questions, not requiring an answer.

E.g1: Can you not stop asking me for money?E.g2: Will you not apologize for me?

Contracted forms are used when speaker is expecting the answer “Yes”, it’s also used toexpress surprise, disbelief, annoyance or sarcasm.

E.g1: Don’t you spend your holiday in France?E.g2: Can’t you shut the door behind you? Also they are used for invitation and exclamation:

E.g1: Won’t you come in for a few minutes?E.g2: Isn’t it a lovely day?

3.2 Negative Tag- questions

The tag question consists of operator plus pronoun, with or without a negative particle, thechoice and tense of the operator are determined by the verb phrase in the subordinate clause:

E.g1: The football was exciting, wasn’t it?E.g2: They did not work all night, did they?

As the examples illustrate, if the subordinate clause is positive, the tag is negative, and viceversa Both patterns are used to ask the hearer to agree that the statement in the main clause istrue.

The nuclear tone of the tag occurs on the operator and is either a rise or fall Four main typesof tag question emerge from the observance of these rules:

Type I Positive +Negative

E.g.: You can dance, `Can’t you?

(Rising tone) Type II Negative + Positive

E.g.: You can’t dance, `Can you?

(Rising tone) Type III Positive +Negative

E.g.: You can `Dance, can’t you?

(Falling tone) Type IV Negative + Positive

E.g.: You can’t `Dance, can you?

(Falling tone)

However, negative tag questions have been discussed An affirmative statement is oftenfollowed by a negative tag question, in order to ask for confirmation of the affirmativestatement In the following examples, the negative tag questions are underlined Contractionsare usually used in negative tag questions.

E.g1: You are coming with me, aren't you?E.g2: You like coffee, don't you?

3.3 Negative Wh- questions

Wh-questions are another common kind of question They are also called informationquestions because the answer to the question requires more than just a Yes- or- No answer.Most Wh-questions begin with words that start with the letters “Wh”, and they usually endwith falling intonation Negative Wh-questions can be formed by putting Wh-element before anegative operator “not” followed by a subject Or like negative Yes/No questions negator“not” can be put in a post-subject position in its full form or pre-subject position in its shortform.

E.g1: What do you not like to eat?E.g2: What don’t you like to eat?

This kind of question is not merely a means of requesting information, it has much more sensethan other questions when going with “why”:

E.g1: Why don’t they give her a lift? (Surprise)

E.g2: Why didn’t you tell me about that problem? (Complaint)

Negative question with “why” contains much sense to express speaker’s attitude Meanwhile,“who”, “what”, “which”….etc are only used for requesting information.

E.g3: Who didn’t attend in the meeting yesterday?E.g4: Which colour didn’t our daughter like?

3.4 Negative alternative questions

An alternative question is a question that presents two or more possible answers andpresupposes that only one is true In form, alternative questions are similar to yes/nointerrogatives, in starting with the finite operator and not containing a question word.Alternative questions offer two or more options for responses Alternative questions, like Yes/No questions, ask on the whole idea expressed by the clauses as options A positive Yes/No

question can be converted into an alternative question by adding or not or a matching of a

→ Are you coming or aren’t you?

However, sometimes alternative questions may be concentrated on part of the whole clause.E.g1: Did John drink coffee or tea?

a “Is it the case that John drank any of these two things, coffee or tea?”b “Which of these two things did John drink: coffee or tea?”

When we turn to negative questions, we often add “not” after subject

E.g2: Did John not drink coffee or tea? ≈(Didn’t John drink coffee or tea?)→John did not drink coffee.

→John did not drink tea.

E.g.3: Which car wouldn’t you like, the black one or the white one?→you wouldn’t like the black car

→you wouldn’t like the white car

4 A contrastive analysis of negative questions in English and Vietnameseequivalents

4.1 Introduction

What distinguishes a negative clause from a positive clause is the presence or absence of anegative marker Negative can be defined as a state in which a negative marker is present,whereas positive can be said to be a state of having no negative marker Huddleston (1984)identifies two types of negation: clausal and subclausal Clausal negation, sometimes calledsentence negation, produces a clause which is both syntactically and semantically negative, asin "She isn't happy" In this sentence, negation is marked by "n't", one of the two mostcommon markers in English, the other being "not" Subclause negation, by contrast, is oftencalled word negation, since it is negation within the limit of a word or phrase

Within the scope of this study, the writer only wants to focus on the analysis of structures(sentence negation) of four types English negative questions (Yes/No questions, tag-questions, wh- question and alternative questions), other types of questions will be ignored.We also would like to give the comparison of the use of “not” (Subclause negation) inEnglish negative question and negative words in Vietnamese equivalents.

4.2 Structures

4.2.1 Negative structure in Yes/No questions

As mentioned above we can also state Yes/No questions in the negative by using subjectoperator “not” And they have two forms: negative full form or negative short form In order

to form a negative question, the auxiliary is placed before the subject, and the word not isplaced after the subject However, when contractions are used, the contracted form of not

follows immediately after the auxiliary Questions in Vietnamese are usually formed by

adding the negators: “không”, “chưa”, “chẳng” or “chả” which are normally place after thesubject and before the predicate in combination with “ à/ ư/ sao/ hả/ hử/ chứ/ gì/ hay

sao/chớ/ chứ gì/ được sao/ được ư/ phải không/ đấy chứ” which occur in final position.

Sometimes “chẳng phải/ không phải/ chả phải/phải chăng/ chẳng phải là / không phải là /

chả phải là” in presubject position is used in combination with “à/ sao/ hay sao/ là gì/ đósao” in final position “Chẳng lẽ (nào)/(có) lẽ nào”/ có đúng là in presubject position can be

used in combination with negator “không/ chẳng/ chưa/ chả” before the predicate.

E.g.1: Didn’t you come there?E.g.2: Hasn’t she left?

E.g.3: Have I not asked you again and againto be here on time?

Bạn chẳng đến đó là gì?Cô ấy chưa đi à?

Chả phải là tôi đã nhiều lần đề nghị anh đếnđây đúng giờ hay sao?

It should be noted that there is no universally accepted contraction for am not In spokenEnglish, am I not? is often contracted to aren't I? However, although the expression aren'tI? is considered acceptable in informal English, it is not considered to be grammaticallycorrect in formal English In formal English, no contraction should be used for am I not.

In several negative Yes/ No questions, the negative particles and the non assertive form can

combine to produce a negative form (any, anything, anyone, ever, etc.) it can be replaced by astructure with a nuclear negator (no, nothing, no one, none, never, etc.) in which the predicatorremains positive in form (without not) and non-assertive words are replaced by nuclear

negator in the same positions This form of negative questions is rendered into Vietnamese in

the same way as the form with not plus non-assertive words.

E.g.1: Haven’t you ever been to HCM city? = Have you never been to HCM city?

Cậu chưa bao giờ tới thành phố HCMsao?

E.g.2: Didn’t anybody attend the meeting? = Did nobody attend the meeting?

Không /Chẳng có ai tham dự buổi họpcả hay sao?

Yes/ No questions expressed by interrogative structures can be oriented according to the kindof answer the speaker expects and are said to have neutral, positive or negative orientation.Negative Yes/No interrogative without non-assertive or assertive forms can be used with anegative orientation, he or she assumes that the answer also negative

E.g1: Aren’t you going to study tonight?(speaker assumes the answer is no – thelistener is not going to study tonight)

Tối nay anh không học chứ gì/ sao?

E.g.2: Won’t he teach her how to drive? Anh sẽ không dạy cô ấy lái xe chứ?