The Challenge in a Conceptual Change: Vietnamese Verbs with Tense Markers or Aspect Markers?

18 th Annual COTSEAL Conference, July 18-19, 2008 University of Wisconsin - Madison The Challenge in a Conceptual Change: Vietnamese Verbs with Tense Markers or Aspect Markers?. Outlin

18 th Annual COTSEAL Conference, July 18-19, 2008

University of Wisconsin - Madison

The Challenge in a Conceptual

Change: Vietnamese Verbs with Tense

Markers or Aspect Markers?

Tammie M Tran University of California, Irvine

Outline L1 L2L3

General Introduction

Vietnamese word order

Vietnamese verbs

Position of the verb in the sentence

The most important distinction between Vietnamese verbs and the verbs in other languages

Verbs – Concept

Grammatical meaning

Syntactic meaning

Lexical and semantic meaning

Temporal reference forms

Outline (2) L1 L2L3

Any Possibility?/Challenge in a Change – Tense Marker or Aspect Marker in Viet Language

Comparative analysis of distinctions of Vietnamese

verbs and verbs in other languages

Basic features of tense markers and aspect markers

Tense marker or aspect marker?

Unavailable qualities in Vietnamese tense markers

The qualities of aspect in Vietnamese markers ‘đã, đang, sắp, sẽ, etc.’

Conclusions and pedagogical implications

English

Subject - Verb - Object

Vietnamese

Subject - Verb - Object

Word Order

Position

Most important distinction – No

conjugation/no agreement (in terms of subject, gender, number, case)

I study my Vietnamese lesson.

Tôi học bài tiếng Việt.

She studies her Vietnamese lesson

Cô ấy học bài tiếng Việt

Vietnamese Verbs

Grammatical meaning

Predicate

Form - Ø (invaried)

Temporal reference

Tense

Aspect

Mood

Voice

Vietnamese Verbs –

Concepts

Vietnamese Verbs –

Concepts (2)

1.Tense

2.Aspect

3.Voice Indicative

4.Mood Imperative

Subjunctive

1.Thì 2.Thức 3.Dạng/Thể

4.Cách

* Thể + - ?

+ - ?

Syntactical meaning

Verb - vi + vt

vt

vi

Auxiliary verb

Vietnamese Verbs –

Concepts (3)

Lexical and semantic meaning

Verbs of action

State verbs

(Auxilary verbs)

Causative verbs

Verbs of existence, appearance, disappearance Verbs of feeling or perception

Verbs of wish, desire, wants

Vietnamese Verbs –

Concepts (4)

Temporal reference forms

expressed by

Particles accompanied with verbs

Chúng tôi đã gặp nhau hôm qua.

We met each other yesterday.

Adverbial phrases of time

Chúng tôi gặp nhau hôm qua / Hôm qua chúng tôi gặp nhau.

We met each other yesterday.

Grammatical/pragmatic context

-Vietnamese Verbs –

Concepts (5)

Grammatical/pragmatic context

Anh về bao giờ?/Bao giờ anh về?

When did you come back?/

When will you come back?

Biết em buông mối chỉ hồng

Tiếc anh đi chậm nên đứng ngoài phòng bơ vơ.

Know that you let loose the pink thread for marriage tie Regret I was slow and stood lonely outside

Vietnamese Verbs –

Concepts (6)

Vietnamese Verbs - Differences

Position

Conjugation/agreement

Temporal expressions

Chúng tôi đã gặp nhau hôm qua

We met each other yesterday.

Chúng tôi gặp nhau hôm qua

We met each other yesterday.

Tense or Aspect Marker ?

Tense or Aspect Marker ? (2)

•Tense

•Sohn (1995) (p24)

‘Tense is

obligatory in

Korean’

•Aspect

•Sohn (1995) (p24)

‘Aspect is optional

in Korean’

Tense or Aspect Marker ? (3)

•English

•Tense – P, Pr, F

•Aspect – Perf, Imperf.,

Progressive, (Simple) •Russian

•Tense – P, Pr, F (Anderson, 2006)

•Tense + Aspect

P, Pr + Perf, Imperf.,

Prospective (Jakobson,

1957+Anderson,2007)

L5

L3 L2

L4 L1

Tense or Aspect Marker ? (4)

•Korean

•Soga (1983)

–ru and –ta affixes –

noncompleted &

completed

aspectual markers

•Chinese

•McEnery and Xiao (2003)

‘Romance languages, French & Spanish:

Tense – important (tense languages)

Chinese:

Aspect – more important (aspect language)’

Vietnamese – Tense?

No mandatory

No conjugation

No S-V agreement (in terms of gender, number, case)

Tense or Aspect Marker ? (5)

He is talking to his students.

Tense - is - Pr

Aspect – be + ing - Progressive

Aspect? Perfective Chúng tôi gặp nhau hôm qua.

Chúng tôi đã gặp nhau hôm qua

Đã, đang, sắp, sẽ

-Tense or Aspect Marker ? (6)

Aspects/

Tenses Perfective Imperfective

Perfect Perfect +

progressive Simple Progressive

Past Past

perfect Past perfectprogressive Simplepast Past progressive

Present Present

perfect Present perfect

progressive

Simple present Present progressive

Future Future

perfect Future perfect

progressive

Simple future Future progressive

Aspect -> Perfective Imperfective

Just completed Completed Progress- ive Inceptive About to

take place

Prospect-ive Yet to take place

Vietnamese 

 English

Conclusions & Pedagogical

Implications

Thank you & Comments are welcomed

-Tense/tense markers?

-Time frame?

-Aspect/aspect markers?

-Pedagogical

implications

 Mai sau, dù có bao giờ

Đốt lò hương ấy, so tơ phím này:

Sometime, if ever you tune this lute,

Or light that incense vessel, look outdoors:

(Translated by Huynh (1987))

Tiếc anh đi chậm nên đứng ngoài phòng bơ vơ

(Know that you let loose the pink thread for

marriage tie

Regret I was slow and stayed lonely outside)

Discussions

Tense ?/Time frame ? Aspect ?

 Tối qua, khi tôi đang ăn cơm thì điện thoại reo.

 Yesterday evening, when I was having dinner, the phone rang.

 Đến cuối năm sau (thì) tôi đã hoàn tất dự án này rồi.

year

 Đến cuối năm sau (thì) tôi mới hoàn tất dự án này rồi.

year.

Discussions (2)

Tense ?/Time frame ? Aspect ?