1 Vinh university foreign languages department ===  === g r a d u a t i o n t h e s i s English Adjective Antonyms And A Contrastive Analysis With Those In Vietnamese Supervisor: Dr. Lª C«ng Th×n Student: NguyÔn ThÞ Thanh Phong Class: 41A 1 Course: 2000 - 2004 Vinh - 2004 =  = antonyms of adjectives in english and a contrast with those in vietnamese table of contents Part one: Introduction 1. Reasons for the study 5 2. Aims of the study 6 3. Scope of the study 6 4. Methods of the study 6 5. Design of the study 7 Part two: Investigation Chapter one : Antonyms of adjectives in English I. The words 8 I.1. The words and their meanings 8 I.2. English adjectives 9 II. English adjective antonyms 2 10 II.1. Criteria of antonyms in English 10 II.1.1. The notional criterion 10 II.1.2. The criterion of combination 11 II.1.3. The criterion of interchangeability 11 II.1.4. The criterion of the context association 12 II.2. Definition of English antonyms 12 II.3 The antonyms of adjectives 13 (The reason for choosing adjectives among other kinds to study) III. Characteristic features 15 III.1. Most antonyms are adjectives 14 III.2. Most adjectives antonyms appear in pairs 15 3 III.3. Antonyms have an important role in the stock of English set expressions 15 III.4. Polysemantic words have different antonyms 15 III.5. Antonymic pairs are set expressions 15 III.6. Using for stylistic purposes 16 III.7. "Marked" and "unmarked" of adjective antonyms 16 IV. Classification of English adjective antonyms 17 IV.1. Root word antonyms 18 IV.1.1. Gradable antonyms 18 IV.1.2. Complimentary antonyms 20 IV1.3. Conversive antonyms 22 IV.2 . Derivationalantonyms 4 23 V. The sources of English adjective antonyms 25 V.1. Adding the prefix "un" 25 V.2. Adding the prefix "in" 25 V.3. Adding the prefix "im" 25 V.4. Adding the prefix "il" 26 V.5. Adding the prefix "ir" 26 V.6. Adding the prefix "dis" 26 Chapter two:Antonyms of adjectives in Vietnamese I. Criteria of adjective antonyms in Vietnamese 27 I.1. The criterion of combination 27 5 I.2. The criterion of interchangeability 27 I.3. The criterion of contrast association 28 I.4. Other criteria 28 II. Definition of adjective antonyms in Vietnamese 29 III. Characteristic features 30 IV. Classification of adjective antonyms in English 35 IV.1. Lexical antonyms 35 IV.1.1. Complementary antonyms 35 IV.1.2. Gradable antonyms 35 IV.2.Contextual antonyms ……………………………………………… 36 V. The sources of adjective antonyms in Vietnamese 38 6 V.1 Forming by complete different forms 38 V.2 Forming by using antonymous morphemes 38 V.3 Forming by using alliteration 38 Chapter three:A contrast analysis between English adjective antonyms and Vietnamese equivalents I. Similarities 39 II. Differences 41 III. Some suggestions for teaching and learning adjective antonyms in English for Vietnamese students and some practical exercises 42 Part Three: Conclusion 48 References 50 7 Part three: Conclusion……………………………….48 acknowledgements First of all, I would like to express my deep thanks to the head of the foreign languages department who awarded me an opportunity to do this thesis To complete my thesis, I have received a great help from my teachers, my friends and my relatives. Without their help I could not have finished my study Therefore, I indeed want to thank for my relatives'encouragement. I also thank to my friends who were very kind to give me useful ideas and lend me a lot of useful documents I also express my gratitude to my teachers in foreign language department who have helped me a lot since the moment I entered Vinh university and have given me many useful suggestions and documents for my study Especially, I want to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Le Cong Thin, who has given me a great help and support throughout this study. 8 Part one: Introduction I. The reasons for choosing the topic Vocabulary is very important in learning English. It is said that without grammar you convey a little but without vocabulary you convey nothing. In English vocabulary, there are so many kinds such as synonyms, antonyms, homonyms Like synonyms and homonyms, antonyms appear a lot in English as well as other languages. It has both lexical and stylistic functions. Not every but most of words have their antonyms. So, studying antonyms will help us to understand more about the words, semantic field, especially, it will enrich our stock of vocabulary. We also know that antonyms are controversial and there are many problems about it. It is difficult for students to distinguish the kinds of antonyms clearly. Therefore, they can not use it exactly Moreover, some words that are not antonyms at all, for example, "voi","chuét". They are different kinds of animals. But stylistically, in special contexts, they are antonyms Example: "§Çu voi ®u«i chuét" "Lªn voi xuèng chã" or some words have opposite meanings but they are not antonyms 9 E.g.: "This river is narrow but deep" or"§Õ quèc Mü giµu nhng kh«ng m¹nh" Because of these problems, I find difficult to understand deeply and to use antonyms correctly Furthermore, I will be a teacher of English in the near future. It is necessary for me to know the difficulties facing learners when they learn antonyms. One of them is the differences between English and Vietnamese. So, contrasting antonyms between English and Vietnamese will help students to learn vocabulary more easily. I hope that this study will contribute a small part in teaching and learning antonyms and avoiding some usual errors. Being a student of the English department, I myself feel interested in studying antonyms in English and Vietnamese. From these reasons, I decided to choose this topic for my graduation thesis. II. The aims of the study - Giving a systematic presentation of antonyms in English and their equivalent realizations in Vietnamese. - Making a contrast between English and Vietnamese, and then finding the differences and similarities between two languages. - Helping Vietnamese learners to surmount the difficulties relating to antonyms in their process of learning. III. Scope of the study Antonyms consist of many kinds basing on parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives . but in this thesis, I will study only antonyms of adjectives. IV. Methods of the study 10