A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese vinh university foreign language department === === trÞnh thÞ minh A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and vietnamese (phân tích đối chiếu bổ ngữ tríc cđa cơm danh tõ tiÕng anh vµ tiÕng viÖt ) Graduation thesis Field: linguistics Vinh, may 2009 = ?@ = TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my hearty gratitude to Mrs Ngun ThÞ Kim Anh, MA who supervised me to finish this graduation thesis During the time when I was doing my graduation paper, she has helped me with enthusiastic guidance, adequate help, and especially invaluable encouragement The paper would not have been completed without her direction, instruction, and especially the generous consultation I would also like to say my thankfulness to my lecturers, especially Mrs Cao Thị Phơng at the Foreign language Department, Vinh University for her books, reference books, and graduation papers From those materials, I could approach to different sources of knowledge My thanks also go to 32 students from the course 47 of Foreign Language Department and pupils from Thanh Hoa Intern Ethenic High School for their enthusiasm and participation in this study I am also grateful to my family, my relatives, and my friends who comforted me and helped me a lot My parents advised me to concentrate on my study and supported me whenever I met some obstacles My friends lent me lost of useful materials In my opinion, learning is a long process in which the teachers play an important role in helping students reach to the final study target I am indebted to the teachers of my university, especially my teachers of Foreign language Department for their comprehensive lessons as well as their encouragement Finally, I wish to acknowledge to all Vinh, May 2009 TrÞnh ThÞ Minh TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Abstract This study aims to discuss the premodification of noun phrases in English and in Vietnamese and their impact upon teaching and learning English in the Vietnamese situation Attempts have been to state the similarities and differences in premodification of noun phrases – in the two languages and raise and solve some difficulties and problems arising particularly from differences between English and Vietnamese Finally, some suggestions are made for those who may be responsible for teaching English as a Foreign Language to younger pupils as well as adults, or to students at universities or colleges TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Abbreviations E.g : For example Premo : premodification Postmo : postmodification etc : et cetera i.e : it means that * : impossible => : entail Table of contents Page TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Acknowledgements .i Abstract ii Abbreviations .iii Table of contents iv Part A: Introduction .1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study Part B: Development Chaper 1: Theoretical Background 1.1 An overview on Contrastive analysis .4 1.2 Noun phrases in English 1.2.1 Definition .5 1.2.2 Parts of the noun phrases .6 1.3 Noun phrases in Vietnamese 1.3.1 Definition .9 1.3.2 Part of the noun phrases Chapter 2: Premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 12 2.1 Premodification of noun phrases in English 12 2.1.1 Types of premodification items 12 2.1.2 Premodification by Adjectives 14 TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 2.1.3 Premodification by Participles 14 2.1.4 Premodification by Genitive 15 2.1.5 Premodification by Genitives without Head .16 2.1.6 Premodification by Nouns 16 2.1.7 Multiple premodification .17 2.2 Premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese 18 2.2.1 The classifier c¸i 19 2.2.2 Quantity words 21 2.2.3 Fixed order Words .23 Chapter A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 25 3.1 Adjectives .26 3.2 Participles .29 3.3 Genitives 32 3.4 Nouns 33 3.5 Quantity 34 Chapter Some suggestions for teaching english noun phrases to Vietnamese learners 36 4.1 Mistakes in using noun phrases 36 4.2 Suggestions to the problem .37 Part C: Conclusion 41 Concluding remarks 41 Suggestions for further studies 42 TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese References .43 Appendix Part A: introduction Rationale of the study English is the most popular language in the world It plays an important role in our social-economic life of human beings Indeed, in the minds of many people, there is no longer an issue They argue that English has already become a world knowledge by virtue of the political and economic progress made by English speaking nations in the past 200 years It is now the main language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports, international competition, pop music and advertising In order to speed up the country’s economy, and to improve living standards as soon as possible, it is very necessary for scientists, technicians and engineers to learn and acquire English so as to keep up date with the latest developments in technology taking place in the world Learning and teaching English, reading with comprehension or translating material from English into Vietnamese or vice versa, always create difficulties for learners particularly because of the differences between English and Vietnamese There are differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar In order to help learners acquire a better knowledge of English, it is of great importance to predict difficulties arising from the differences between the two languages and solve them In English grammar, word combination in phrase is considered to be one of the most difficult phenomena TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese For instance, they can not tell which of the following phrases is true or false E.g “The boy selling car” “The boy who sells car” Noun phrase is one of the most important word groups carrying much semantic weight We ourselves sometimes make confusion in using English noun phrases To Vietnamese, noun phrase is different In order to distinguish this issue, in this graduation thesis, we have decided to choose the topic “A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese” Through contrastive analysis, we can enrich our knowledge about premodificaton of noun phrases in both languages in order to help students learn English well We hope that this study will contribute a small part in teaching and learning noun phrases Aims of the study The thesis targets to: - Giving a systematical presentation of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - Making a contrast between English and Vietnamese premodification of noun phrases and a part from that, find their similarities and differences - Giving out some suggestions for teaching noun phrases to Vietnamese learners Scope of the study Noun phrase is an important and complicated part of English Grammar in English Besides, due to constraints as well as the framework of a graduation thesis, it is impossible to touch all the differences and similarities in syntactic structures In this study, we only mention some common features of TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese premodification of English and Vietnamese then a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese language Methods of the study With the aims above, in the course of writing paper, we have followed the procedure below: - Describing theoretical premises of premodification of noun phrases - Collecting and classifying materials, analyzing and synthesizing all information about premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - Contrasting English premodification of noun phrases with those in Vietnamese to find out the differences and similarities between them Design of the study Except for the acknowledgement, the abstract, the table of contents as well as the references, appendix, this study consists of three parts Part A entitled “Introduction” outlines the background of the Graduation Thesis In this part, we present some information about the reasons for choosing the subject, the aims, the scope, the methods and the design of the study Part B entitled “Development” includes four chapters Chapter deals with the theoretical background Chapter is about Premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Chapter gives out A contrastive analysis of Premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Chapter provides Some suggestions for Teaching noun phrases to Vietnamese learners Part C entitled “Conclusion” expresses a brief overview on the achievements of the thesis and gives some suggestions for further studies References Appendix TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Part B: development Chapter Theoretical Background 1.1 An overview on Contrastive analysis Nowadays, the distances among countries are day by day shortened by the development of technology and information and exchanges are greatly increasing, which lead to the demand for learning and teaching of foreign languages and interpretation Contrastive Analysis (CA) is to compare two or more languages regardless of whether they are related to each other and of course, to find out the differences and similarities between them Thus, it plays an important role in translating, teaching and learning a foreign language There are two kinds of CA: the contrast of languages and the contrast of signs The contrast of languages is comparing one language to another, of which is the base and the other is the means of contrast This kind aims at finding out their specific features The contrast of signs is the study on the inside relationships of languages such as categories, structural systems and so on In practice, CA has its usages as follows: - The ability of discovering a great number of structural features of contrasted languages TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 10 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese But the classifier c¸i can be placed before any head 2: E.gs: cËu häc sinh nµy : This pupil mèo : This cat cam : This orange tree kilô thịt Cái : This kilogramme of meat When the word c¸i is used as premodification, it has some connection with the word-order of the whole noun phrase Whenever the classifier c¸i (determiner) is used as premodification, postmodification is necessary E.g We can say: Cái cậu học sinh Classifier uncle pupil this =>This pupil *But we can not say: C¸i cËu häc sinh Classifier uncle pupil Whenever the classifier c¸i is used as premodification, we must have head 1: E.g We can say: - Cái cậu học sinh Head Head => This pupil * But we can not say: TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 25 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - C¸i häc sinh Classifier pupil this When the word is used as head 1, we can not use the classifier c¸i as premodification; instead we have to replace it by a different classifier in order to avoid repetition E.g We can not say: - Cái bàn But we can say: - Cái bàn => This table Or we have to delete one word, especially in written language E.g We can not say: - C¸i c¸i bàn But we can say: - Cái bàn => This table 2.2.2 Quantity words Quantity words can be used as premodification of noun phrases Words denoting cardinal numbers such as: hai=two, năm=five, bảy=seven, etc Words denoting indefinite numbers such as vài=some, dăm=some, etc Words denoting distribution such as một=every, or each When quantity words are used as premodification, they will influence the order of the noun phrase When the classifier c¸i is used, the quantity words can be placed before it If there are no quantity words before it, the head will be interpreted as singular TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 26 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese E.g + Cái bàn này: This table + Những bàn này: These tables If quantity words are used, classifier or words which denote units are also obligatory E.g We can not say: + ba muèi Three salt + vµi chim Some birds + hai tre Two bamboos In the premodification of noun phrases, quantity words denoting totality can be used In Vietnamese, when these words are used, the words denoting indefinite numbers can or can not be used E.g - TÊt c¶ häc sinh But not: : All pupils - Tất vài học sinh : All some pupils 3 Totality “TÊt c¶” is used in two cases: E.g We can say: - Tất ba cô gái - Tất sách We also say: - Tất học sinh trờng - Tất giáo s Totality is opposite It is only used in the first case E.g We can only say: - Cả sách Trịnh Thị Minh K45E1 English – Vinh University 27 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - Cả ba cô - Cả học sinh trờng But not: - Cả giáo s Because when we say Cả giáo s này, means cả, đến - “including”, but not totality We should not misunderstand two words “c¶” which have different meanings Totality TÊt th¶y is only used when having a lot of things TÊt th¶y + + + C¶ + + - TÊt c¶ + + + + Vài học sinh Cuốn sách Ba cô Những giáo s Học sinh trờng Figure 2.2.3 Fixed order Words - Classifier c¸i always stands after the quantity words - Quantity words always stand after words denoting totality Let’s look at a diagram of the order of the premodification Totality TÊt c¶ All TÊt c¶ All TÊt c¶ All C¶ All Premodification number classifier ba three hai two năm five ba three Head unit c¸i classifier a/the c¸i anh classifier brother c¸i chiÕc classifier a/the cân classifier kilogamme noun gà chicken sinh viên student bàn table thịt meat Postmodification predicative demonstratives mái female lêi biÕng lazy thÊp short thiu stale Êy that Êy that Êy that Êy that Figure So as to understand the position of premodification, we assign number -1 to classifier c¸i; number -2 to number, quantity; and number -3 to totality, it TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 28 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese can be seen that the premodification of noun phrases following form: Position Examples -3 -2 -1 + + + Cả Sáu Cái all six classifier + + Cả Sáu _ all six + + S¸u C¸i six classifier + + Cả Cái all classifier + Cái classifier + Cả all + Sáu six - can occur in the Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Con gµ chicken Êy that Êy that Êy that Êy that Êy that Êy that Êy that Êy that Figure In this figure we see that: form (1) consists of three positions; from form (2) to form (7) we see that one or more slots are not filled Form (8) is a limited one: there is no premodification In short, when one comes to consider the premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese, three points need special attention They are the classifiers, quantity words and the order TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 29 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Chapter a contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese In chapter 2, we have seen that premodification in English noun phrases can be formed by: predeterminers, determiners, postdeterminers, adjectives, participles, genitives, noun, adverbial phrases, sentences Now we compare with Vietnamese ones, we have a contrast about some following typical items Generally speaking, those which are premodification in noun phrases in English are postmodifiers in Vietnamese noun phrases, except for types of TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 30 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese words, i.e identifier or classifier c¸i, and quantity markers such as hai = two, vµi = some E.g - Hai sinh viên Two students - Cái têng Classifier wall => The wall - Vài sách Some books On the status of classifiers like c¸i, however, look at the discussion in 2.2.1 3.1 Adjectives As far as adjectives are concerned, it is worth mentioning that they function as premodifiers in English but as postmodifiers in Vietnamese First, if in a premodification in an English noun phrase, there is one adjective, it mostly stands right before the head The situation in Vietnamese is quite opposite, since such modifiers stand right after the head The pattern found in Vietnamese seems to be more typical of SVO Vietnamese languages than does that found in English We now make some observations on the use of adjectives as premodifiers in English and as postmodifiers in Vietnamese TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 31 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese A problem arises when premodification in noun phrases involves more than one adjective In some cases, it is easy to see the parallelism in postmodification in Vietnamese E.gs - A serious political problem vấn đề trị nghiêm trọng - A Soviet trade delegation đoàn thơng mại Liên xô - Gothic church architecture kiÕn tróc nhµ thê Gothic In these cases, Vietnamese order is the mirror image of English order But in many cases, differences can be seen In English, evaluative or subjective adjectives frequently precede those relating to the size, while these in turn frequently precede those expressing shape; within size, expression of height tend to precede those of girth With such a phrase as - A fat old man The situation is different in Vietnamese Aimed at understanding the situation we did a simple experiment with 32 Vietnamese students from Foreign Language Department, Vinh university, who were asked to provide a natural English equivalent in Vietnamese for the English phrases: TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 32 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - A fat old man 30 persons preferred: ông già béo (mirror image) 2 persons preferred: ông béo già With the phrase: - An old blue dress 24 persons preferred: Bộ quần áo xanh cũ persons preferred: Bộ quần áo cũ xanh persons accepted both of these orders With the noun phrase: - A large enough lecture room The variety is even greater 22 persons preferred: phòng giảng đờng ®ñ réng person said that such a structure does not exist in Vietnamese person preferred: phòng giảng đờng rộng đủ persons said that the word “enough” does not exist in Vietnamese noun phrases In this case, in modern Vietnamese, the head consists of two sub-heads: lecture (1) and room (2); thus in Vietnamese, it is acceptable to say: TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 33 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - Một giảng đờng đủ rộng In short, whereas adjectives are mostly used in premodification in English, they are used in postmodification in Vietnamese In noun phrases containing just one adjective, there is parallelism in the two languages - The beautiful hair Mái tóc đẹp Whereas with noun phrases containing more than one adjective, various orders are possible in Vietnamese: - An interesting new theory - Mét lý thuyÕt míi hay + Change in Vietnamese - A black dividing line a Mét ®êng kỴ ®en b Mét ®êng ®en kỴ - A heavy black truck a Mét chiÕc xe ®en to b Mét chiÕc xe to đen Trịnh Thị Minh K45E1 English – Vinh University 34 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 3.2 Participles In the case of premodification by participles in English, they correspond to structures of postmodification in Vietnamese We can see the parallel order in the two languages In English, participles are placed before heads of noun phrases used as adjectives E.g - Boiling water - A working man With present participles, in Vietnamese there is a word “®ang” – “ingform” which is often added between the head and the modification E.g - A developing country Một nớc phát triển In most cases, the word “®ang” is optional and in fact tends not to be used very much E.g - He was surprised by an approaching train Anh ta ngạc nhiên tàu đến - I was awakend by a barking dog Tôi thức giấc chã sña With past participles, there are two situations: a If modification involves only one word, one-to-one parallelism can be seen in the two languages, i.e past participles which stand before a head in English correspond to a form placed after a head of a noun phrase in Vietnamese TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 35 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese E.g - A broken window C¸i cưa sỉ - A defeated army Một đội quân thất trận In these cases, the word bị-passive or đÃ-already are sometimes used between the head and the modification Generally speaking, the word “bÞ” is used when the action is carried out by an outsider and the action has a negative effect - The injured man was waiting for the doctor Ngời bị thơng chờ bác sĩ đến đÃ-already is used when the speaker is the doer of an action and the action has a positive effect - The completed report is on my table Bản báo cáo đà hoàn thành bµn However, these words are more usually used in the written than the spoken form of Vietnamese: In English, such structures are probably as common in the spoken as in the written language b If the modification consists of two words in English noun phases, the corresponding modification is placed after the head of the noun phrase in Vietnamese, but the order may vary E.g - A newly-arrived immigrant Một ngời di c đến Trịnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 36 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese - A recently sold car Mét chiÕc « t« míi b¸n - The above – mentioned article Một đề cập In most cases, we see that paralleled order of compound adjectives can be seen in the two languages, but in some cases, it is different 3.3 Genitives One type of premodification in English is in the genitive case; - This fine old man’s scruffy bowler hat E.g The sentence can be analyzed as follows: Noun phrase (genitive) - This fine old man’s Adjective - scruffy Noun modifier - bowler Head noun - hat Noun phrases in genitive are marked by an’s added to the final word (not necessarily the head) to indicate possession E.g - An old man’s bicycle - A man’s old bicycle In Vietnamese, there is no case comparable to this If one wants to express possession as in: - An old man’s bicycle One has to use the word của-of - Chiếc xe đạp ông già Trịnh Thị Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 37 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese A bicycle of an old man - Ngôi nhà thầy giáo The house of the teacher In such noun phrases, in English, heads are placed at the end, but in Vietnamese, the situation is quite different since they stand at the beginning of the phrase A notable feature of English genitive premodification is the deletion of the heads especially when this denotes premises of establishment; E.g a I shall be at Bill’s Where “Bill’s” would normally mean “where Bill lives” Or b I shall be at the dentist’s The “dentist’s” here refers to a commercial premises Such cases not exist in Vietnamese To express these ideas the Vietnamese have to use the word nơi or chỗ place or house for (a) and phòng khám a room for health examination-for (b) Thus: a Tôi có mặt / đến chỗ Bill b Tôi đến phòng khám 3.4 Nouns As to modification by nouns, we can see that this occurs in both languages The difference is once more position of modifier in relation to the heads of noun phrases In English, they stand before the head - A factory manager TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 38 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese While in Vietnamese, they are placed after the head: - Ông giám đốc nhà m¸y Mr manager factory However, it is easy for learners to learn the order because it is paralleled in the two languages E.g - A car factory manager Giám đốc nhà máy ô tô 3.5 Quantity In English as well as in Vietnamese, numbers and quantity words are used as premodification - The two students Hai sinh viªn -All books you borrowed from the library Tất sách anh mỵn cđa th viƯn At the same time, we see that the order of words in these noun phrases is the same in the two languages - The three girls Ba cô gái - Two hundred people took part in the demonstration TrÞnh ThÞ Minh – K45E1 English – Vinh University 39 ... A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese Abstract This study aims to discuss the premodification of noun phrases in English and in Vietnamese and their... development of technology and information and exchanges are greatly increasing, which lead to the demand for learning and teaching of foreign languages and interpretation Contrastive Analysis (CA) is... phrases in English and Vietnamese premodification of English and Vietnamese then a contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese language Methods of the study With the aims above, in the course of