MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A Thesis Field: English Language Code: 8220201 SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVES IN SOME ENGLISH WORKS WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA TÍNH TỪ MIÊU TẢ TRONG MỘT SỐ TÁC PHẨM VĂN HỌC ANH VÀ LIÊN HỆ VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT) NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ Hanoi, 2018 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A Thesis Field: English Language Code: 8220201 SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVES IN SOME ENGLISH WORKS WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA TÍNH TỪ MIÊU TẢ TRONG MỘT SỐ TÁC PHẨM VĂN HỌC ANH VÀ LIÊN HỆ VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT) NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ Supervisor: Dr PHẠM THỊ TUYẾT HƯƠNG Hanoi, 2018 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Syntactic and sematic features of English descriptive Adjectives in some English works with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents” (Đặc điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa tính từ miêu tả số tác phẩm văn học Anh liên hệ tương đương Tiếng Việt) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Ha Noi, 2018 Nguyen Thi Thu Ha Approved by SUPERVISOR Dr Pham Thi Tuyet Huong Date: 26/12/2018 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS On the completion of this thesis, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Pham Thi Tuyet Huong, who gave me benefit of her wisdom and her expert knowledge as well as her constant encouragement from the beginning stage of working out the research proposal to the final stage of writing up the thesis Without her critical comments and valuable suggestions this study could not have been completed I would like to express my appreciation to all my teachers at the Department of Post Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University for their teaching and very helpful comments on earlier versions of the study My thanks also go to my friends, who gave me documents and encouraged me much while the work was in process I am deeply grateful to students and my teacher, my colleague, Tran Dang Ninh high school Without their help, my work would not be possible Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my beloved family who always stands by and helps me overcome all the difficulties in studying and fulfil of this academic work iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table: 2.1 Types of adjective 11 Table 2.2 Types of adjectives and their order 25 Table 3.1 Result of theory of descriptive adjectives 36 Diagram 3.1: Errors made by students when using order of descriptive adjectives 36 Diagram 3.2: Errors made by students when using descriptive adjectives 37 Diagram 4.1 Syntactic features of descriptive adjectives in Vietnamese 48 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ABSTRACT .vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Objectives of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Methods of the study 1.6 Scope of the study 1.7 Significance of the study 1.8 Design of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 2.2 An overview of adjectives in English 2.2.1 Definitions of adjective in English 2.2.2 Syntactic features of English Adjectives 11 2.2.3 Semantic functions of English adjectives 14 2.2.4 Classification of adjectives 18 2.4.5 Placement and order of adjectives 21 2.2.6 English Descriptive Adjectives 22 2.3 Vietnamese adjectives 25 2.3.1 Definition of Vietnamese adjectives 25 2.3.2 Features of Vietnamese adjectives 26 2.5 Summary of the chapter 32 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 33 3.1 Subjects 33 3.1.1 Sample collection 33 3.1.2 Participants 33 3.2 Instruments 33 3.3 Procedure 35 v 3.3.1 Data collection procedure 35 3.3.2 Questionnaires 35 3.4 Statistical Analysis 36 3.5 Summary of this chapter 38 Chapter 4: SYTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVES IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WORKS WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 39 4.1 Syntactic and semantic features of descriptive adjectives in English 39 4.1.1.1 Syntactic features of descriptive adjective in English 39 4.1.1.1 Descriptive adjectives as compound adjectives 39 4.1.1.2 After adverbs of degree 40 4.1.1.3 Using in comparison form 41 4.1.1.4 Before a noun 43 4.1.1.5 Following some stative verbs 44 4.1.6 Function of a noun 45 4.1.1.7 Using in inverted sentences to emphasize characteristics of nouns or subjects in sentences 45 4.1.1.8 Using in compound adjectives expressing the determination of nouns 46 4.1.2 Semantic features of descriptive adjectives in English 47 4.1.2.1 Using in comparison structures expressing the reference, the changes of situations 47 4.1.2.2 Expressing the contrast 48 4.2 Syntactic and semantic features of descriptive adjectives in Vietnamese 49 4.2.1 Descriptive adjectives are often used after a noun 49 4.2.2 Using before a verb 49 4.2.4 Before a noun 50 4.2.5 Being used in comparison form 51 4.3 Semantic features of descriptive adjectives in Vietnamese 52 4.4 Similarities and differences of the syntactic features of descriptive in English and Vietnamese 53 4.4.1 Similarities of the syntactic features of descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese 53 4.4.2 Differences of the syntactic features of descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese 54 vi 4.5 Similarities and differences of the semantic features of descriptive in English and Vietnamese 55 4.5.1 Similarities of the semantic features of descriptive in English and Vietnamese 55 4.5.2 Differences of the semantic features of descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese 56 4.6 Errors and causes of committing errors by learners of English when using descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese 56 4.6.1 Common errors 57 4.7 Implication of the study 59 4.8 Summary 60 CHAPER 5: CONCLUSION 62 5.1 Summary of findings 62 5.2 Concluding remarks 62 5.3 Recommendation for Further study 64 Appendix 65 Appendix 69 REFERENCES 70 vii ABSTRACT Parts of speech play important role in using English Grammar, widely used in English and Vietnamese both in daily conversations and literary works Adjective is an interesting category of English Grammar It is used in many contexts to describe the characteristic, quality, shape, things or people…However, the use of the syntactic and semantic functions of adjectives sometimes cause learners of English to be confused and this theme has not been adequately dealt with in some previous studies Moreover, adjectives are used regularly and naturally in everyday communication Being interested in adjectives, I choose the thesis with title Syntactic and semantic features of English descriptive Adjectives in some English works with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents On the other hand, reading is one of effective study methods There are a lot of English learners who have problems with the comprehension of English and books, especially books in literature, because of the meanings of words in these books, specially, English descriptive adjectives In order to help learners to have a better understanding of the use of descriptive adjectives, this study will analyze sentences with descriptive adjectives in some Charles Dickens’ and Hans Christian Andersen’s stories to point out similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese descriptive adjectives in syntactic and semantic features The findings of the thesis illustrate some implications for teachers, learners of English and translators from the use of English descriptive adjectives Hopefully, the study may help learners, teachers, and translators of English avoid difficulties in using English descriptive adjectives Numerous descriptive adjectives in English and stories have been analyzed cautiously by applying the qualitative approach; descriptive and contrastive methods are followed to achieve the set objectives Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study Language holds a crucial role in communication among people and English is considered an international language and used as means of communication in business, technology, scientific research, medicine, politics, etc As a result, a need for learning English as a second or foreign language is increasing in many countries including Vietnam where English is learned by both very small children and retired people and becomes a compulsory subject at all levels “ For the first time in the country’s many thousand – year- long history, English emerged as the most important foreign language, which was chosen by most students’ (2007) Additionally, “More English language books became available in the country and a greater desire for specialized study of English became apparent as more Vietnamese desired these language skills for specific work environment’’ (Shapiro, 1995) Anh states that the number of students choosing to learn English to complete the compulsory foreign language component in the curriculum has risen overwhelmingly (as cited in Le, 2011) Any language in the world serves the demand for communication of human beings However, each language has its origin, characteristics and values English and Vietnamese are two vastly different languages Thus, in communication, we have difficulties in expressing our ideas, especially in transferring meanings of words from a language to another one, in our case from English to Vietnamese and vice versa and especially when we want to describe characteristics of humans or things There are many problems in learning English as listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, lexicology, etc In grammar, the adjective is one of the essential parts of speech to form a sentence Adjectives are frequently used in daily life such as describing people, things, objects, or expressing feelings, emotions, etc English adjectives are diversified in many forms, meanings as well as usage It takes learners quite a long time to understand grammar deeply, especially adjectives It 59 4.6.2 Causes of committing errors in using descriptive adjectives The first source is a lack of common knowledge and linguistic competence at a certain stage of their learning This often occurs in early classroom settings where learners are required to produce the new language in the forms of writing compositions, talking about something or talking the tests while their language competence is unable to meet their needs of communication Therefore, the learners have a tendency to base their L2 production on what is most familiar whir them in their mother tongue The second factor is the limitation of foreign language environment This third factor is the way learners are asking to produce second language This involves the tasks having mother tongue influent rooted in them such as translating a paragraph into the target language, writing an easy or describing a picture orally, etc The final factor is the monitor use The learners are said to think in their mother tongue and attempt to put their idea in the target language 4.7 Implication of the study With the scope of this study, we have dealt with some basic knowledge of importance of adjective in vocabulary system, recognition of the descriptive adjectives The findings of the study may be beneficial to the language learners since they provide a good background to how to use the various meanings of these adjectives appropriately For language teaching, this study may prompt the need of encouraging students to exploit the diverse meaning of adjectives for the purpose of using adjectives flexibly and fully As discussed above, the meaning of the word is not determined by itself but by its relations with other linguistic elements Thus, we can only identify the meaning of the word when it is put in a specific context This may become a challenge for those who learn English as a second language Thus, this study hopes to provoke learners’ awareness of considering the contexts in which the words are employed, especially the contexts where the shape physical objects or the 60 expression of mental feeling are embedded It can be inferred that when teaching the meaning of the word, the teacher should give specific situations or contexts reflecting exactly different meanings of a word, or direct students are necessary collocations in recognition of word meaning If the teacher only gives students Vietnamese equivalents of the meaning taught without context, this can create great difficulties for the students to understand them because one English lexeme could have one or more than one Vietnamese equivalents and vice versa, especially the case when descriptive adjectives are followed by the noun Moreover, people always affected by their mother tongue when they learn a foreign language Then, they often impose Vietnamese thinking on translating English words into Vietnamese Learners often apply rules of their mother tongue in the production of foreign language sentences whenever they are short of knowledge or they are careless As a result, that the translational equivalent becomes rigid is avoidable Hence, pointing out all the similarities and differences between two languages with the teachers’ help is necessary The differences between two languages always make the errors when the learner study other language without their mother tongue With Vietnamese people, when they study English desctiptive adjectives they often put them before a verb or noun like Vietnamese With the purpose of this study, the writer hopes that the learner can differ these two languages Lastly, the teachers should give as many chances for the learners to encounter the concerned word form as possible Furthermore, doing various exercises also help the learners use descriptive adjectives effectively and vividly 4.8 Summary Through the scope of the above analysis, we found that many of the differences and similarities in terms of semantic features of the language and the culture of both English and Vietnamese Both languages are used descriptive adjectives to express; shape and size, color, time…; but each language has its own way to express ideas and implications by specific cultural characteristics of each country English and Vietnamese always focused on the attributes of the human 61 personality and the world around them In the process of studying, we realize that descriptive adjectives takes an important role in both English and Vietnamese The major grammatical similarities are that both English and Vietnamese adjectives occur after a noun However, it is not too difficult for students to understand and remember when comparing and contrasting two languages These are just a few ideas tried down the years which have proven to be fun, motivating and adaptable to the needs of the particular group of learners Teaching learners about the importance of adjectives gives them the opportunity to be more creative in their use of English Adjectives also differ as to their function The change in the position and, accordingly, of the syntactic status of the adjective may also result in the change in the meaning of the adjective 62 CHAPER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Summary of findings This study aims at examining English descriptive adjectives in some English and American works and their Vietnamese equivalents and helping Vietnamese students master effectively in using descriptive adjectives and ways to overcome difficulties in using it This conclusion will summarize the main issues that have been discussed in this thesis and main findings This is the first study that had addressed descriptive adjectives in some English and American works such as “Cinderella” by Hans Christian Andersen and Perrault “The little Mermaid” by Walt Disney, “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens and “The little Match Girl”, “The sleeping beauty in the woods” by Hans Christian Andersen) A different interpretation and variety is denoted in these works through its large spectrum of descriptive adjectives that prove a high range of creativity and knowledge possessed by the authors They have their own way with different times of using descriptive adjectives After examining 300 sentences that appeared in these works we have found out the syntactic and semantic features of descriptive adjectives to express their devices in using words 5.2 Concluding remarks As mentioned the study is developed on the base of some linguist’s concepts of syntactic and semantic and their viewpoints on adjectives in English such as Harford and Hensley (2001), Lyon (1996), Crystal (1992) and is especially under the influence Quirk and Green Baum (1972) Among means of vocabulary, adjectives are more preferable Many descriptive adjectives with different degree of popularity can be used to express the aim of using but this study only investigates the above-mentioned adjectives due to time constraints a shortage of reference sources Semantically, there are many similar semantic and syntactic features in both English and Vietnamese In general, English adjectives and Vietnamese adjectives express the same meaning with the exception of some differences in shades of meaning of certain adjectives 63 In the previous chapters, the thesis has so far studied the syntactic and semantic features of descriptive adjectives in terms to show inevitable close link between the superficial grammatical structure of using descriptive adjectives and their underlying syntactic and semantic features, there are many adjectives of this kind are collected, classified, analyzed A contrastive analysis is carried out to find out both similarities and differences in syntactic and semantic features of descriptive English and Vietnamese adjectives This aims at helping learners of English and Vietnamese as a foreign language understand and use these adjective phrases properly and effectively in reality In terms of semantic and syntactic features, the meanings of all the collected descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese could be expressed through many aspects Both English and Vietnamese descriptive adjectives have symbols relating to geographic feature, cultural specifics and region Nevertheless, Vietnamese descriptive adjectives use figurative meaning to complaint or sarcasm incisively while English ones have more gentle shade Moreover, when English descriptive adjectives are close to daily life, Vietnamese ones have more historical features in their adjectives With syntactic features, descriptive adjectives are both function as attributive and predicative, but, in general, function of descriptive adjectives changes from pre-modifiers in English to post-modifiers in Vietnamese They both after some stative verbs such as: feel, be, seem….in English, in Vietnamese are cảm thấy, thì… Specialy, only descriptive adjectives can be in comparison form in both English and Vietnamese In Vietnamese, comparison can express by some words: hơn, thêm, nhất… In English, we have level for comparison: equality, comparative, superlative Semantically, the biggest similarities between English and Vietnamese descriptive adjectives both make the language more abundant and interesting Thanks to descriptive adjective people can imagine all things in more lively and vivid way and they can be used in of metaphors and metonymies is common in both 64 English and Vietnamese Besides, they have a little difference in meaning when translating two languages So the learners often make mistakes by cultural differences Such as, compound descriptive adjectives in English often translate to verbs in Vietnamese or descriptive adjectives in Vietnamese sometime become adverb in English In order to help Vietnamese learners of English overcome the difficulties in using English descriptive adjectives, we had listed out some implications such as some mistakes that learners often have in using English descriptive adjectives ways to help learners overcome difficulties in using them We hope that these implications will help both learners and teachers master this importance grammatical point effectively and contribute greatly to the students’ English performance 5.3 Recommendation for Further study The study focused on the comparative analysis of the syntax and the sematic functions of descriptive adjectives in Vietnamese and English This study however, cannot be said to have exhausted all The number of descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese are found and discussed in this study is smaller than that in real-life use However, I hope that the serious work had well served the research questions as a contribution to the rich collection of other previous studies on the same area Owing to the limitation of my knowledge as well as time, my research stops here but I expect that it will be profoundly analyzed more by following people who are interested in study adjective in English and Vietnamese It is recommended, therefore, the following aspects dealing with English descriptive adjectives need further studies: -Semantic and syntactic features in English and their Vietnamese translational equivalents - Cultural features of descriptive adjectives in English and Vietnamese - Linguistic and cultural characteristics of descriptive adjectives in idioms and proverbs 65 Appendix SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE This questionnaire aims to investigate your intuition about English descriptive adjectives Your responses to this questionnaire will be kept strictly confidential and will be used for research purpose only Please fill out both parts of this questionnaire Thank you! PART I Please circle a response for each question Question 1: When learning English which of the following parts of speech in English language you think the most difficult? a noun b adjective c adverb d verb Question 2, adjective is a ……… word a simple word b compound c sentence d simple or compound Question 3: According to your knowledge, English descriptive adjectives provide more information to a……… by describing or modifying it a.Noun b verb c sentence d adverb Question 4: In which form of comparison can a descriptive adjective be used? a Equality b comparative c superlative d All three answers above Question 5: Which order of descriptive adjectives is right in the following noun phrases? a size/ shape/ opinion +noun b shape/size/ opinion +noun c size/ opinion/ shape+ noun d opinion/ size/ shape + noun PART II Do the following exercises Exercise 1: Put the words in the correct order in the following sentences was /it/ nearly quite/evening/ dark went / along /the / a poor /there/girl/little/street eyes/beautiful/blue/small 66 The/ flakes /snow / her /long/covered/ hair/fair/of was/flame/ bright/warm/it /thick/ the thick/ damp/ wall/cold was /behind /left good /woman/old /the the/ poor / maiden/little /left all/in/ the wild / alone/wood She/ saw /lovely/ slopes/green/ with vines 10 That/ she/ attractive/ had/ most/the/ small/ legs/white Exercise 2: Choose the right answers Choose the best answer to the following sentences: She now came to a large slimy place in the forest where ……………tumbled a large fat water-snakes b fat large water- snakes c water-snakes fat large d water-snakes large fat ………………………………was standing a The young handsome prince c the prince young handsome b the handsome young prince d Prince handsome young Their……… no longer fluttered in the wind a beautiful long hair c long beautiful hair b beautiful hair long d hair long beautiful This done, she gave her a pair of the ……glass slippers in the whole world a pretty c prettier b prettiest d pretties The … gave her for her gift that she should be the……… person in the world a youngest…more beautiful b younger…beautifuler c younge…more beautiful d youngest…most beautiful The……….princess that was ever seen a more beautiful b most beautiful c beautifuest d beautiful which they had two children, the………, a daughter, was named Dawn, and the…… a son, they called Day, because he was a great deal ………… than his sister a older younger……handsomer c elder…younger….handsomer 67 b older…young……handsomer d older…younger……more handsome Every year they bore the ……… red and white roses a fine b finer c most fine d finest Then they went …… into the woods, and in its middle, where it was …., they found a little bewitched house that was…… a deep darker…emptier b deep…dark emptier c deeper…darkest…empty d deep…darker empty 10 They were ………… than the church towers humans built a far big b far bigger c bigger far d far biggest Exercise 3: Underline the descriptive adjectives in this passage: Each of the small princesses had her own little plot in the garden where she could dig and sow as she wanted; one gave her flower plot the form of a whale, another preferred hers to look like a little mermaid, but the youngest princess made hers completely round like the sun, and only had flowers that shone red like it did She was strange child, quiet and thoughtful, and while the other sisters added the most remarkable things they had taken from stranded ships as decoration, all she wanted to have, apart from the rose-red flowers that resembled the sun high up above, was a beautiful marble statue, it was of a fine-looking lad, carved out of clear white stone and left on the sea-bed after a ship had foundered At its base she planted a rose-red weeping willow, it grew splendidly and with its fresh branches over the statue, down towards the blue sea-bed, where its shadow appeared to be violet and in motion, just like the branches; it looked as if the tree-top and its roots pretended to be kissing each other Exercise 4: Translate into Vietnamese and English 1.Outside the palace there was a large garden with bright-red and dark-blue trees, with fruit that shone like gold and flowers ……………………………………………………………………………………… 2.She was strange child, quiet and thoughtful 68 ……………………………………………………………………………………… 3.Rét dội Tuyết rơi Trời tối hẳn Đêm đêm giao thừa ……………………………………………………………………………………… Em hơ đôi tay que diêm sáng rực than hồng Chà! Ánh sáng kỳ diệu ……………………………………………………………………………………… 69 Appendix Key to answer for Exercises: Exercise 1: It was nearly quite dark evening There went along the street a poor little girl Beautiful small blue eyes The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair It was a warm, bright flame The thick, cold, damp wall was left behind The good old woman The poor little maiden left all alone in the wild wood She saw lovely green slopes with vines 10 That she had the most attractive small white legs Exercise 2: 10 A B A B D B C D C B Exercise 3: Small/ little/ youngest/red/ strange/ quiet/ thoughtful/ remarkable/ rose-red/ beautiful marble/ fine-looking/ rose-red/fresh/ blue Exercise 4: Trước lâu đài vườn rộng, cành xanh thẫm, vàng lóng lánh, cánh hoa đỏ ửng tựa than hồng Tính tình nàng trầm lặng đoan trang Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening the last evening of the year As she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful light 70 REFERENCES In English 1.Alexander, L, G (1988) Longman English Grammar Hong Kong: Longman 2.Amvela & Jackson (2000) Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology 3.Arnold, L (1986) The English Word 4.Bayer, M.C (2003) Lexical Categories: Verbs, Nouns, and Adjectives Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press 5.Bale, A (2009) A universal scale of comparison Linguistics and Philosophy 6.Bartsch, R and Vennemann, T (1973) Semantic Structures: A Study in the Relation between Syntax and Semantics Frankfurt: Athaenum Verlag 7.Bolinger, D (1967) Adjectives in English: Attribution and predication Lingua 8.Cappenlen, H and Hawthorne, J (2009) Relativism and Monadic Truth Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press 9.Cappelen, H and Lepore, E (2005) Insensitive Semantics: A Defense of Semantic Minimalism and Speech Act Pluralism Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell 10.Cook (1999), Effects of the Second Language on the First, SLA 11.Cinque (1994), Adjectives: Formal Analyses in Syntax and Semantics, John Benjamins Publishing Company 12.Cohen, S (1999) Contextualism, skepticism and the Structure of reasons Philosophical Perspectives 13.Cresswell, M (1973) Logics and Languages London: Methuen 14.Cresswell, M J (1976) The semantics of degree In B Partee 15.John Eastwood (2002) Oxford guide to English grammar Oxford University Press 71 16.Huddleston, R & Pullum, G.K (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language Cambridge University Press 17.Hyams, H.P (2003), Feud in Medieval England Linguistics and Philosophy 18.Kamp (1975) Meaning and the Dynamics of Interpretation in CRIS PI 19 Klei (1980) Efficacy of ivermectin in Blagburn BL 20.Kennedy (2007) A Critical and Historical Analysis in Relation to the English Law on Homicide and Causation United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press 21.Lasersohn, P (2005) Context dependence, and presonal taste Linguistics and Philosophy 22.Leech, (1990) Semantics: The Study of Meaning Oxford: Clarendon Press 23.Lewis, D.K (1970) General Semantics Synthese 24.McCarthy, M, O’Keeffe, A & Walsh, S (2010) Vocabulary Matrix 25.Montagua, R (1974) English as a formal language In R Thomason (ed), Formal 26.Partee, B.H (1995) Lexical semantics and compositionality In L Gleitman and M Liberman (eds.), Language An Invitation to Cognitive Science Cambridge: MIT Press 27.Quick, R, Greenbaum, S., Leech, G and Svartvik, J., (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language United State: Longman 28.Quick, R et al, (1972) A University Grammar of English Esses: Longman 29.Richard, M (2004) Contextualism and relativism Philosophical Studio 30.Rồi (2003), Custom Version of Understanding Human Communication Oxford: Clarendon Press 31.Sinclair, J (1991) Corpus Concordance Collocation Oxford: Oxford University Press 32.Thornbury, S (2002) “How to Teach Vocabulary “, United State: Longman 33.Widdowson, H.G (1996) Linguistics Oxford University Press 34.Yule, G (1997) Pragmatics Oxford: Oxford University Press 72 35.Patricia Cabredo Hofherr (2010) Adjectives - Formal analyses in syntax and semantics In Vietnamese 1.Cao Xuân Hạo (1998), Tiếng Việt - vấn đề ngữ âm, ngữ pháp, ngữ nghĩa Hà Nội: NXB Giáo Dục 2.Diệp Quang Ban (2005), Ngữ pháp Tiếng Việt 3.Đinh Văn Đức (1986), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt (từ loại) Hà Nội: NXB đại học trung học chuyên nghiệp Hà Nội 4.Đinh Văn Đức (2001) Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt (từ loại, viết bổ sung) Nxb ĐH Quốc gia Hà Nội, 5.Hoàng Thung (2003) Tiếng Việt 6.Lê Biên (2002), Từ loại Tiếng Việt 7.Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh (2001), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội: NXB Từ điển Bách Khoa 8.Nguyễn Lý Kha (2009) Ngữ Pháp tiếng Việt 9.Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1999), Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội đại học Quốc gia 10.Nguyễn Văn Thanh (2003), Tiếng Việt Hiện đại 11.Mai Ngọc Chừ (2006), Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học tiếng Việt / - Hà Nội: NXB Giáo dục 12.Trần Ngọc Dũng (2010), Cẩm nang Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt On the internet: http://partofspeech.org/kinds-of-adjectives-descriptive-adjectives/ https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/english-adjectives/ Materials In English Cinderella by The Grimm Brothers (1812), David Copperfield by Charles Dickens The little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson (1848), Little Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm (1911), 73 The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood by Charles Perrault (1959), Snow White and Rose Red by Caroline Stahl (1776–1837), The Twelve Brothers by The Grimm Brothers The Little Mermaid by the Danish (1837) In Vietnamese Chàng Cóc lấy Vợ Tiên 10 Hòn Trống Mái 11 Nàng Út Trong Ống Tre 12 Sự Tích Rồng cháu Tiên 13 Sự Tích Quả Dưa Hấu 14 Tích Chu 15 Tấm Cám 16 Thạch Sanh 17 Truyện ngụ ngôn Kiến Voi ... features of English descriptive adjectives in English works with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents - describes and analyses syntactic and semantic features of descriptive adjectives and. .. thesis with title Syntactic and semantic features of English descriptive Adjectives in some English works with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents On the other hand, reading is one of effective... following objectives are looking forward to: - To investigate the syntactic and semantic features of English descriptive adjectives with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents - To find out