Contrastive analysis of negative in English and Vietnamese

Negative Sentence 1 Contrastive Analysis Comparison of Negative Sentence in English and Vietnamese University of education Supervisor Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ Name Nguyễn Lê Ngọc Hà Class 5BT 05 Negative Senten.

Comparison of Negative Sentence

in English and Vietnamese

University of education

Supervisor: Nguyễn Ngọc Vũ

Name: Nguyễn Lê Ngọc Hà

Class: 5BT.05

Introduction

Any language in the world also serves the demand of

communication of human beings However, each language has its origin, characteristics and values As an example, English and Vietnamese are two different languages in many aspects Among these aspects, we all know that grammatical feature is the basic matter and the most important one that we should pay attention to during learning English as a second language In my opinion, in learning English grammar, negation causes many troubles to learners in distinguishing it with negation in Vietnamese

as well as using it in true way because of differences between two

languages However, in some cases, there are also similarities between them Because of importance of using negation in real life, I would like to research about rules of forming and using negative sentences in English and Vietnamese so that readers have a general look about negative

sentences of English as well as of Vietnamese I hope that knowledge of negative sentence will help me in teaching English in the future

In my topic, I will present the definition of negative sentence and some basic kinds of negative sentence in English Then, through

presenting all characteristics of forming and using English negative

sentence into details, I will give comparison with Vietnamese negative sentence and some examples to illustrate the theory that I mentioned

Finally, I will express my ideas of using English negation in teaching as the most important aim in my research

Definition of negative sentence

Until now, in many research papers, linguists have various views of definition of negative sentence One of them thinks that negative sentence

is one in which negative adverbs (không, chẳng, chớ, đừng, chưa…) are placed after verbs or adjectives to reflect the negation Another linguist states that there are six kinds of negative sentences, which include

negative sentences are formed by single negative words (không, chưa, chẳng, chả,…) and formed by negative phrases ( không phải là, chưa phải

là, không đời nào, không bao giờ, chẳng đời nào…) Actually, there is not the accurate and exact definition of negative sentence but we all can

understand that a negative sentence (or statement) states that something

is not true or incorrect

Formation and use of negative sentences in English and Vietnamese

According the linguist, Lê Quang Thiêm, there are many ways of classifying negative sentence Among of them, by basing on the methods and means of constructing a negation, negative sentence in English can

be classified into four types:

1 Auxiliary negation

2 Noun phrase negation

3 Adverb negation

4 Morphological negation

We will gradually analyze them with examples and make a

comparison with negation in Vietnamese to clarify differences as well as similarities of negative sentence between two languages

Firstly, with auxiliary negation, English and Vietnamese have the same rule of forming a negation in sentence In English, in order to form a negative sentence, “not” is placed after an auxiliary verb or “be” in the positive one

In the following table of an article, the author gave a review of

negation in English sentence with some examples Among examples, some use the contracted forms more used in informal writing and speech, and some others use the full forms

contracted forms

Examples

Present Simple

do+not = don’t does+not = doesn’t

I do not play

She doesn’t play Past Simple did+not = didn’t I didn’t play

Present Progressive

am + not = am not (*no amn’t)

is+not = isn’t are+not = aren't

I am not playing

Past Progressive

was+not = wasn’t were+not = weren’t

I wasn’t playing

They were not playing

Present Perfect

have+not = haven’t has+not = hasn’t

You haven’t played She has not played

Present Perfect

have+not+been

= haven’t been

I have not been playing

Progressive

has+not+been

= hasn’t been

She hasn’t been playing

Past Perfect had+not = hadn’t You hadn’t played Past Perfect

Progressive

had+not+been

= hadn’t been

She hadn’t been playing

Future Simple will+not = won’t I won’t play

Future Perfect

will+not+have

= won’t have

He will not have played

Conditional

Perfect

would+not+have She wouldn’t have

played

cannot (formal) should+not = shouldn’t

I can’t play

I cannot play

We shouldn’t play

Similarly, in Vietnamese, we have the word “không” placed before the main verb to mark a negation in sentence Because it said that there is

no tense in Vietnamese sentences so making a negation will be easier than in English, there are not auxiliary verbs added

“Cô ấy rất đẹp” (affirmative) (She is very beautiful)

“Cô ấy không đẹp” (negative) (She is not beautiful)

“Gia đình tôi mua một ngôi nhà ở vùng quê” (affirmative) (My family buys a house in the countryside)

“Gia đình tôi không mua ngôi nhà nào ở vùng quê” (negative) (My family does not buy any house in the countryside)

Moreover, in Vietnamese, instead of using the word “không”, people can use the other single words such as “chẳng”, “chả”… or phrases such

as “ không có”, “đâu phải”, “đâu có”,” chẳng phải”, “không hề”, “nào có”,

“có…đâu”, etc to express the negation in negative sentences For

example, we can say that “Tôi chẳng phải dân vùng này”, “Tôi đâu phải dân vùng này”or “Tôi không phải dân vùng này.” All of them have a same meaning, which means I am not a resident in this region However, it does not mean that these words can always be replaced to each other in any cases It also depends on the context, the social relationship between the speaker and the listeners (formal or informal), and the aims of the

speakers For instance, a girl can say “Bố mẹ tớ chẳng có ở nhà” to her friend but she have to say “Bố mẹ cháu không có ở nhà” to an elder

person although they have the same meaning (My parents are not at

home) In the first sentence, the speaker and listener are the same age so she can say informally while she have to say formally to the listener who is older than her to express respect In some cases, when someone asks you

“Bạn có muốn ăn chút gì không?” (Do you want any thing to eat?), it will be polite to say “Tôi không đói” rather than “Tôi chẳng đói” (I am not hungry)

In fact, in Vietnamese, with the same meaning, these words such as

“không có”, “không phải”, “không” etc are usually used in formal context or

in written language while “chẳng”, “chả”, “đâu có”, “không hề”, “chẳng hề”,

“chẳng phải”, “có…đâu” etc are often found in daily language or in close relationships

According to Lê Quang Thiêm, in another aspect, the words “không”,

“chẳng”…are used in negation of an action, a progress, a characteristic “Nhiệm vụ chẳng hoàn thành.” (The mission did not succeed.)

“Cô ấy không đẹp như người ta đồn đại” (She is not as beautiful as people said about.)

On the other hand, “không”, chẳng”, “đâu có”, “không hề” going with

“là” is a negation of a relation or a characteristic

“Nghèo khó đâu phải là tội lỗi.”

“Người lãnh đạo không phải là một vị thánh.”

Secondly, general English sentences can also be changed into

negative form by the determiner “no” placed before a noun to reflect

negation in the sentence, which is called noun phrase negation

“No one came to her birthday party yesterday.” means “Everyone did not came to her birthday party yesterday.”

“They sold no paint this week.” means “They did not sell any paints this week.”

“They will do no thing to help him.” mean “They won’t do any thing to help him.”

“There is no chance that I will buy a new car” means “There is not any change that I will buy a new car”

It is very popular to use such these sentences in both written and spoken English In many cases, it can help English learners avoid

complicated grammatical rules Moreover, it is also a way to express the importance of negation in the sentence For example, in the second

example, using “sold no paint” will lead the hearers to pay attention to the result “no paint was sold” than the action “did not sell” In addition, we can change noun phrase negation in which the word “no” is put at begin of sentence into another form of negative sentence For example, we can change the sentence “No one came to her birthday party yesterday” into

“There was no one coming to her birthday party.” This change will not make the meaning changed difficultly

Moreover, English also combines the word “no” with some indefinite pronouns to form negative words, such as “nothing”, “nobody”, “no one”,

“none” etc to contribute to forming the negation in sentences

“Nobody cares her.”

“Nothing is so terrible.”

“None of them died.”

When comparing to English negative noun phrase, noun phrase negation in Vietnamese is not popular However, it sometimes appears with the noun phrase as a subject only

“Không ai sợ hắn.” (No one fears him)

“Không rạp chiếu phim nào còn vé.” (No cinema still has tickets.)

“Không có mưa vào mùa này đâu.” (No rain falls that season)

Thirdly, in both two languages, to express a negation, people can also use some negative adverbs such as “never”, “hardly”, “barely”,

“scarcely”, “hardly”, “seldom”, “rarely” etc In English, negative adverb is divided clearly into two forms, including negative adverb go with “positive verbs” and negative adverb go with “to be” Therefore, we have two

following formations:

Subject + negative adverb + positive verb

Subject + to be + negative adverb

“She never comes to church.” (Bà ấy không bao giờ đến nhà thờ.) “John hardly studied at home.” (Tối qua John chẳng học gì cả.)

“We seldom meet to each other.” (Chúng tôi hiếm khi gặp nhau.)

Through the examples above, we can find some similarities to

Vietnamese Actually, Vietnamese are acquainted with using these

negative adverbs and we find a lot of them in real life as well as written language such as “hiếm khi”, “không mấy khi”, “hiếm hoi lắm”, “hầu như không”, “chẳng mấy khi” etc With using them, the negation seems to be less “negative” and make issue less serious to give more comfort to the listeners For example, if you want to make a complaint about your

younger brother to your mother that he does not do the homework, you may say, “Con không bao giờ thấy em ấy làm bài tập về nhà cả.” (I have never seen him doing the homework.) or “Con hiếm khi thấy em ấy làm bài tập về nhà.” (I seldom see him doing the homework.) Apparently, these two sentences are not different from each other between in English and in Vietnamese However, they are not same meaning in both languages Specifically, in English, when using the above sentence with negative adverb “seldom” (hiếm khi), we can infer that the brother has done the housework but it is very rare However, in contrast with English, in

Vietnamese, “hiếm khi” means “never” Therefore, when someone says that sentence, Vietnamese will conclude that the boy actually does not do anything, Although that is just a small point, it can causes Vietnamese learners have troubles in learning English Therefore, we should focus on

it

Finally, Morphological negation is an important aspect to mention to when we focus on negative sentences As we know, English has a system

of suffixes, prefixes added to adjective, adverb or verb to form the

opposition, which is called morphological negation Specifically, English has the negative prefixes un-, in-, and non- go with adjective For example,

we have “unhappy”, “insensitive”, and “nonpolitical” With adverbs, we

usually have the prefix un- For example, we have “unfortunately”,

“unluckily” etc Beside that, the common prefix to a verb to mark the

negation is dis- For example, we have “dislike”, “disaffirm”, and “disagree” Contrary to English, there is not any affix in Vietnamese grammar However, in real life, Vietnamese often use morphological negation such

as “vô ý thức” (unconscious) in contrast with “ý thức” (conscious), “vô trách nhiệm” (irresponsible) in contrast with “có trách nhiệm” (responsible), “vô hại” (harmless) with “có hại” (harmful), “vô ích” (useless) with “có ích”

(useful) etc However, the function of the word “vô” is not like the word

“không” or “chẳng” in Vietnamese because it belongs to Chinese Although

it is only placed before an adjective to form the opposite, not before a verb

or a noun, it is widely used in Vietnamese daily communication Therefore,

we can consider it as an element of Vietnamese language

Applying the theories of negative sentence to teaching English

Overall, negation in English and Vietnamese is the same However, Vietnamese students also encounter with problems of using negative

sentence in English because of differences between two languages

Especially, there are some especial points in formation and use of

negation in English and Vietnamese in particular Among them, I would like

to focus on double negative and negative question in English, which is

different from Vietnamese

The first point is double negative As a definition, double negative occurs when two forms of negation are used in the same clause (“Double negative,” n.d.)

In English, double negative resolving to a negative, which is not used in Standard English For example, we can say, "I do not want

nothing!” However, In Standard English, double negatives are usually understood to resolve to a positive For example, with the sentence “I do not want nothing!”, if there is very heavy stress on "do not" or a specific plaintive stress on "nothing," Standard English can utilize the form "I do not want nothing" as a way of emphasizing that the speaker would rather have

"something" than "nothing" at all ( “Double negative,” n.d.) Therefore, we have the following table:

Negative + Negative = Positive Negative + Positive = Negative

In Vietnamese, using double negative is simpler In our daily life, we often say that “Tôi không nói là bạn không đúng” (I do not say that you are not right) or “Không có ngày nào mà anh không nghĩ đến em” (There isn’t

a day when I do not think about you) The meanings of two examples

make us think that they are double negative but it is wrong because the two forms of negation are in different clauses Based on the above

definition of double negative, we do not find any grammatical structure of double negative in Vietnamese It means that there is no double negative

in Vietnamese

In English, double negation is widely used in written and spoken language even though it is sometimes considered as a mark of

uneducated speaker In fact, we have many examples of double negative

in poetry, music as well as other aspects of daily life Therefore, it is

necessary for teacher to pay attention to teaching double negative

The second one is negative question According to research papers, negative question is formed by placing the auxiliary before the subject, and the word “not” after the subject However, when contractions are used, the contracted form of not immediately follows the auxiliary The following are

examples of negative questions with and without contractions:

Without Contractions With Contractions

Was I not working? Wasn't I working?

Were they not working? Weren't they working?

(“English grammar,” n.d.)

Negative question is not a strange matter to Vietnamese students because in our language, we also have a equivalent structure For