Luận văn an investigation into the linearity to simple sentence in english and vietnamese

Many Vietnamese leamers especially beginners and intermediale learners carmot avoid making common mistakes in placing elements at the right position in the statement of simple sentence..

VIETNAM NATIONAT, UNTVERSHY, HANOE TNIVERSITY Ò TANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYÊN THỊ THU QUỲNH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LINEARITY TO

SIMPLE SENTENCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIEN CUU VE TRAT TU TUYEN TINH CUA CAU DON TRONG

TIENG ANILDOI CHIEU VOI TIENG VIET

M A MINOR TITESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

HANOI, 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST —- GRADUATE STUDIES

wiles

NGUYEN THT THU QUYNH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LINEARITY TO

SIMPLE SENTENCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

TIENG ANII DOI CIIEU VOI TIENG VIET

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Nguyén Huong Giang, MA

HANOL 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study beeteeese ree teveneeeee es

3 Scops of the study

4, Method of the study

PART 2: DEVLOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

1.1 What is linearity?

1.2 Whatis a simple sentence?

1.3 Classifications of simple sentences according to

their communicative purpose

13.1 Statement 13.2 Question 1.3.3 Command 1.3.4, Exclamation Chapter 2: Linearity in the English affirmative statement

2 1 Elements and patterns of the English simple sentence

2 2, Traditional positions of these five elements in English

2 3 Inversion in Affirmative statement

2.3.1 Subject — verb inversion

2.3.1.1 Auxiliary verbs before Subject

2.3.1.2 Main verb before Subject

2 3 2 Subject - Object Inversion

iv

2 3 3 Subject - Conrplement Inversion -

2 3 4 Subject- Adverbial Inversion

Chapter 3: Linearity in the Vietnamese affirmative statement

3 1 Elements and pallens of the Vielnarnesc affirmative slaterent,

3 3 Inversion in Vietnamese affirmative statement

3.3.1 Verb before subjects

3.3.2 Complement af the beginning

3.3.3 Object before Subject and Verb

3.3.4 Adverbial at the beginning

Chapter 4:

Coutrastive analysis of linearity in English and Victnamese affirmative statement 4.1 Similaritics

4.1.4 Elements and structure of affixmative statement

4.1.2 Inversion in the emphasized sentence

4.2 Differences

4.2.1 Verb Phưase

42.2 Transformational relation

4.2.3 Inversion

Chapter 5: Tmplicalin for teaching and learning English

5.1 ‘Typical mistakes made by Vietnamese leamers

SYMBOL AND ABBREYLATLONS

Veennp 2x tans Complex transitive Verb

Veus Ditransitive Verb

Viner, Intransitive Verb

Vmonern; Momotransitive Verb

Jn the English language, the position of clements is cssential to the meaning of a sentence in general and the meaning of a simple sentence in particular A change in element position may bring aboul a fundamental change in meaning

Like in Victnarnese and some other languages, in English, Hincarity in a simple sentence plays an important role We can depend on it to find out whether it is a statement (affirmative

or negative ong), a question, a command or an exclamation Thus an all — round understanding

of clement position in the simple sentence also contributes a grcat deal to the study of language both theoretically and practically

Many Vietnamese leamers (especially beginners and intermediale learners) carmot avoid making common mistakes in placing elements at the right position in the statement of simple sentence

The position of sentence slements in English and Vietnamese are not the same partly because different languages use different lingual and cultural habits,

For the above — mentioned reasons, research on lineatity in sentence should be given special altenlion by those who use Tiglish as a foreign language, especially by not ony all of

us, who are working as teachers of English, but also our students who are learning English as a compulsory subject

2 Aims of the study

Jn the Investigation into the Linearity to simple sentence in English and Vietnamese as

an M.A thesis, the author has the following aims:

~ lo find put the similarities and differences of the linearity in Engtish and Vietnamese affiinative statement

~to help Vietnamese leamers avoid some common mistakes in using English

In order Lo realize these aims, the study supports (o answer the following research questions

1

1 WRhaLis linearity oŸ snlenee?

2, What are similarities and differences of the linearity in English and Vietnamese affirmative statement?

3 What ara eornmen mistakes in linearity made by Vietnamese learners?

3 Scope of the study

According to communicative purpose, there are four kinds of simple sentence ‘They are slalemerl, question, commend and exclamation, Rach kind of simple sentsnce has two forms affixmative and negative However in my study, I only focus on the linearity in aflirmative

‘Vietnamese affirmative statement Last but not least, in chapter 5, the implication in teaching and learning English of the study will bs montioned,

4 Method of the study

Contrastive analysis is the main linguistic method applied in my study in which the linearity in affirmative statement in English and Vietnamese is considered its objective Reading English Grammar books and Victnamese books is camicd out to get as mmch knowledge of the subject as possible Most of examples are taken from books widely used in English and Vietnam Morcaver in my study fnake contra

c analysis io find oul similaritics

and differences in the lineanty in the afiirmative statement between two languages

PART 2: DEVLOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

1 1 What is linearfty?

According to R A Jacobs (1995, p 80}, English Syntax, Linearity iy dhal sentences are

produced and received in a linear sequence

Tis undeniable that no one can utter simullancously all the words of a sentence Nor

could such an utterance be understood Hence, sentences are produced and received in a linear

sequence the principle of the linearity of language signs was established by Ferdinand de

Saussure A linguistic sign, as Saussure states, consists of two sides: signifie (ie the thing

significd) and significant (the thing singnifics) The significant of languag: sign bears lincarity

feature When language signs are put into communication, they come out successively forming

a sequence The occurrence of language signs is governed by the characteristic of time which is

one way by nature As a result, words are spoken (or written) and heard (or read) in a time

sequence from early to later, a sequence represented in the English writing system by a

mọi

ion of wrilten forms Gort tefl to ight There is « standard order for subject, verb and

object, In the English, we have an example:

Cassius sees Brutus

Ss Vv oO The subject of the sentence, Cassius, precedes the verb sees, while the object, Brats,

follows the verb Numbers of other languages fallow the same order Subject — Verb — Objeot (abbreviaied as SVO) We could try to switch around the subjeel and the object, converting the

SVO order into OVS, as in this example:

Bút if we diđ, English speakers wotld identif Bruwss as the subject The order would

still be SVO, but the meanings would be different

Also, according lo Jacobs, other languages may use different orderings The vange of

possible orderings of these words or phrases is known as the werd order parameter In many languages, word order is less crucial than it is in English because, as in Latin, there is greater

reliance on suffixes and other ways of making senlence constituents Word order therefore appears to be a setting on a yet more general parameter of fimction marking But in no language is ward order totally insignificant

Hence, linearily is the basic properly of sentence structure I determines the location of

sentence constituents and the syntactic relationship between those constituents Changing the

position of sentence constituents will result in changing in meaning

1 2 What is a simple sentence?

Definition of simple sentence

‘Warriner 1.E (1997: 26) presented: “Simple sentence is a sentence that has one subject

and onc verb”, However, this definition is insufficicnt because in a sentenec there may be one

or more subject and a verb or, in tum, one subject with one or more verbs

lig Mary and her boyfriend are doctors

She came and sat down next to me

Quirk, R and S, Greenbaum (1990: 166): “A simple sentence is the sentence that

consists of only ane clause”

sonlones unil is the simpte

simple sentence normally has one finite verb St has a subject and a predicate” It is possible to

make sure that the last definition by L.G Alexander is considered the most sufficient and

satisfying one

Type of the simple sentence: Structurally, there arc usually two main types of the

simple sentence:

~ G) complete simple ssnten

(Also called two member sentences)

- (ii) Special simple sentence is the sentence that has only subject or a verb, sometimes,

is the sontenes that has onc subject and one pred

w

Tn form of communicative purposes, there are four kinds af simple sertence: slalernent, question, command and exclamation Each kind has two forms affirmative and negative However, in my study, ! only focus on the affirmative statement

1.3 Classifications af simple sentences according ta their communicative purpose

According to Quirk R (1990: 190), the sentence may be divided into four major syntactic classes whose use correlates with different communication functions ‘They are statement (declarative

1.3.1 A Statement/ A Declarative sentence

A Statement or a declarative sentence is a scntonec that makes a statement in which the

subject is always present and generally precedes the verb

Ig John will speak to the boss today The declarative sentence is used more frequently than all of the types TL always

followed by a stop ()

There are two forms of statement, affirmative and negative Affirmative statement is a

statement that affirms a proposition, without nogative wards

E.g.: She is talking to her mother

Negative slaleront is a slalernent which contains 1

tive words such as nef, rare, seldom, never, hardly, etc

Eg She is not talking to her mother

1.3.2 A Question/ An interrogative sentence:

An interrogative sentence is the sentence that asks a question

Eg How many students are there in your class?

An inlerrogalive sentence is always followed by a question mark (2), In interrogative,

part of the verbs always come before the subject, Questions are marked by one or more of

these three criteria:

+ the place of operator immediately in front of the subject

E.g Wil John speak to the boss today?

~ the initial position of an intesrogative or “Wh” element

Big Who will you speak to?

4

+ Rising intonation:

Eg You will speak to the boss?

According to Quirk R (1990) the interrogative sentences can be divided into three

clas:

s according Lo Ihe type of answer they expect

+ Yes/No Questions: are those that expect only aftinmation or rejection of what hhas been asked:

Eg: Have you finished the hook?

+ Wh — Questions: are those that expect a reply supplying an item of information applied by wh — word

E.g.: What is your name?

How old are you?

Alternative Questions: are those that expect the reply as one of two or more

options presented in question

Eg: Would you like to go for a walk or stay at home?

Do you like tea or coffee?

1.3.3 A Cammand/ an Imperative sentence:

A command! an imperative sentence is a sentence that gives a command or makes a

requesl, Commands have ia over! gramnatical subj

Ep Speak to the boss today

An imperative sentence may be followed by a fall stop or an exclamation mark

, and whose verb is in the imparalive

- Ordinary requests take a full stop () Command and strong requests take an exclamation mark (!)

- The subject of @ sentence that is a command or a request is the word “you”, understood bul not expressad

1.3.4 An Exclamation/ An exclamatory sentence:

An exclamatory sentence is a sentence that expresses strong feeling it exclaims spcskcrs/ witers" cmotion

Eg What anoise they are making!

How beautifid she was!

She was beauitfil!

Chapter 2: Linearity in the English affirmative statement

2 1 Elements and patterns of the English affirmative statement

According to traditional grammarians, the simple sentence has two majar parts: Subject

and Predicaled

Eg She is listening to nusic

As for modem grammarians, Quirk R.ct al, (1990: 35 — 40, 53), a scntence may have

five units called elements of sentence structure: Subject, Verb Phrase, Complement, Object and

Adverbial, here ablreviated as: S, V,C,0, A

Predicate may consist of Verb Phrase, Complement, Objeets or Adverbial

All the elements of sentence are realized by phrases, Subject and Object are both

realized by noun phrase (NP)

Eg That picture is beoutifid

Complement dlerment (C) is expressed nol only by Noun phrase (NP) bul alse by

Adjective phrase (AdjP)

Lig: My mother is anurse

Cứ)

That picture is beautifid

C (AdjP)

Adverbial element (A) is realized by Adverbial phrase (AP) and preposition phrase

(@P) Eg: Iput the plate on the table

AP)

He sings heautifidly

ACP)

R Quirk and Greenbaum, 1990, and Biber Detal, 1999, there are seven clause types or

seven sentence patterns:

Somebody caught the ball

SSP) Voonp'extions QIẬP) — ApneŒetKP)

SUN?) Veotopiextrans Oa (NP) Ce (AdiP) She gives me expressive presents

The child laughed Sa} Vinrens

* The patterns SV, SVA, SVOO can be extended by the addition of various optional adverbs (hence optionality of Adverbials)

SVA:

In America SVOO: >8 (A)

2 2 Traditional positions of these five elements in English

Subject is usually at the beginning in ordinary affirmative sentence

Eg Marv ofien goes to school by bus

Generally, in all seven simple sentence pattems, subject always stand the beginning of the sentence before the verb It is the person, place, thing, quality or idea that you want to mention when you farm a sentence

2.2.2 Position of Verb Phrase

“Verb phrase is the basic part of the sentence predicate It affects directly in meaning of the sentence

Eg:she Hues in Hanoi

There are various ways to classify verbs Verb is divided into two kind based on the meaning and function of it: Lexical verbs and Auxiliary verbs

Lexical verbs: make, speak, eat

Auxiliary verbs; thuy do, have, be

Modal verb: can, may, could, ete

Acourding to R, Quirk (1990), many English verbs have five forms: the BASE, the — S form, the PAST, the ING participle, and the ED participle, But imegular lexical verb forms vary form three (eg: put, puts, putting) to eight (eg: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, beer’) The modal auxiliaries are defective in not having infinitive (do may’), - ing participle (maying), -

cd participle (mayed

‘The position of modal auxiliaries: the modal auxiliary always stands before the main verb and afler the subject in the sentence

10

eg: My hrother can play the guitar

tn short, the usual order of verb is after subject and depends on the number and person

The object normally comes after the verb However, the object of an active simple

sentence oan be turned into the subject of a passive sentence:

lg: The dog bit me

+1 was bitien by the dog

There arc two types of object in sentenec: Direct Objcet (O4) and Indirect Object (O;)

Eg: She sent us some photographs

- The direct object is usually the concrete or abstract noun, but personal nown

Eg: She loves pop music

- Sometimes, 0; stands after ©, and separated by preposition to or for

1E

= With some separable hwo — word verbs, the Q, can come aller the bwo — word verb or between the verb and the preposition of adverb If O, of separable verb is pronoun, it must come between the verb and the preposition of adverb

The complement often follows the subject, verb phrase and object in the structure $ V

Object Complement (Co)

Eg: She made me angry

Adverbial usually adds information about the situation, such as the time of an action, or

its frequency, the place, the manner, the cause, the degree, etc An adverbial functions like an adverb which describes or adds to the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a clause

or a sentence

Eg: We will stay there

Adverbial of place The adverbial in a sentence can be an adverb phrasc, a noun phrase, a preposition

Some adverbials can only occur in fixed positions in the simple sentence pattem SVA, SVOA, but most advaibials arc mobile, they can appar at difference positions in the simple sentence

We ean distinguish three positions: initial, medial, and final position

- The initial position (before subject) with arder: (A) SV, (4) SVO; (A) SVOC

(A) is an optional element in the sentence

Eg: Nawrally, they ave walking (Quirk, p167)

- The medial position in the patterns: SA) Vị S(A) VO,

§(A)VOO, S(A)VOC; S(A) VOA

13

Eg: She — (kindly sent us some photography — (Quirk, pi67)

ines in lwo pallens SVA and SVOA,

After an intransitive verb: He speaks quickly

After any object: The git] is a student at a large university

After complement He makes me angry mary tunes

‘therefore, adverbial, both optional and obligatory element can appear at difference positions in the simple sentence

Tn conclusion, it is corlain that five clements have fixed positions in the shnple

sentence, subject stands at the beginning of sentence, just before verb Object has positions

fight after verb and subject in SVO, SVOA (there are two types of object: O, and Qu, O, precedes Oy in the pattern SV (04) Complement appears aftcr subject and verb in SVC or

after object in SVOC Adverbial can take the positions afier verb ar after object in SVA and

SVOA

2 3 Inversion in Alfirmative sLaLerenL

To invert something means to put something in the opposite posifion to the one it was

in before In the case of English granunar, this refers to the change of the word order of the sentenec, when the verb or an auxiliary comes before the subject The function of inversion is usually emphasis,

~ According to Douglas Bibier, Susan Conrad and Geoffrey Teceh, (amram Student Grammar 405) in inversion, the operator comes betore the subject

‘There are two main types of inversion:

— verb inversion or full inversion: the sub

(a) subject

(the subject is preceded by the entire verb phrase:

aud the verb change pasition

Eg.: Best of all would be to get ajob in Wellingham

Hộ

On the iop of the hill stoud an old oak rea

Fg: "Tlike dey wines." "So do E"

Hardly had I spread my sandwich when the pizca arrived

~ According to Swam (1980: 277), there are two kinds of inversion In more common

kind, an auxiliary verb comes before the subject, and the rest of the verb comes after If there is

no auxiliary, do, does, ot didis added

In other sort of inversion, the whote verb comes before the subject; do and did are not tscdl

Eg.: Round the corner came a milk yan

~ According to Eastwood (1994: $7) distinguishes between subject — verb inversion and

subject — auxiliary inversion:

Subject — verb inversion:

F.g On the door — step stood an old man

Frere is the news

Subject aweiliary inversion:

Bg: Isaw the man and so did Paul

The above — mentioned linguists togcther with others, have classified inversion in

Singlish into different kinds However, in my study, I divide inversion into Subject — Verb inversion, Subjecl — Objscl inversion, Subject — Complement inversion, and Subject —

Adverbial inversion Moreover, I especially focus on inversion in affirmative simple sentence 2.3.1, Subject — verb inversion

2 3.1.1 Auxillary verbs before Subject

Normally, verbs always stand after subjects in affirmative simple sentence, but there

are some exceptions, We put an auxiliary verb before the subject of a simple sentence in

several situations:

- Only + piher wards: Only by, only the

Eg: Onlythen did I understand — the problem

Only after a year did T begin to see the result of my work

+) Only by +NP+ Aux, V/ Modal V+S-V

lig: Only by hard work will we be able to accomplish this great task

subject — auxiliary inversion to tacan “also” This helps to

avoid unnecessary repetition in a parallel addition or a parallel response, In this way

used in affirmative sentence only

Eg -⁄4 We used to watch that on TV

B:Yes,so did +

Aux V s may

Eg: May all your wishes come true

Modal V Ss vo 2.3.1.2 Main verb hefare Subject

‘This inversion is limited as follows:

voth word

- The verb phrase consists of a sing!

Eg Down came the rain

Vv 8s

- The verb is a transitive verb of position (be, stand ) or a verb of motion (go,

come ) Moreover, this in version is virtually limited to a simple present or past tense single

- First came the ambulance Then came the police

AY § 4 VS -Here is the news

This inversion does not take place in sentence with a personal pronoun

Eg: - Away they go (not away go they)

L.g.: - For a long time, he refiused to talk to his wife, and kept her in ignorance

of his roubles, Equally strange was his behavior to his son

+ More tmportantis love

VS

2 3 2 Subject - Object Inversion

To emphasize Object of sentence, we can put this object before the subject

Eg: this Harry sid

In this sentence, Object This precedes Subject Hurry It is used to emaphasize the work

which Harry did rather than Harry who did the work

Ig: Toyou he told — his story

2 3 3 Subject - Complement Inversion

Complement before Verb and Subject: To attract reader's allention to meaning of complement, we put complement at the beginning of the sentence The pattern of aflinmative simple sentence is CS Vor CVS

Eg: Poor as he was

Rich as he — maybe

G (AđjP) 8 Vv

17

More important is

lave

8

2 3 4 Subject - Adverbial Inversion: Adverbial before subject and Verb

- Whon adverbial of place and manner al bogirming in the affirrnativ entenge, we invert

Adverbial inversion is often used in speech with “here”, “there” and other

short adverbs and adver’ particles such as away, down, in, off over, ete

Ea -Here comes the bus

Jn conclusion, besides seven English traditional simple sontenec patlems with order

SV, SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOO, SVOC, SVOA, in the English language, it is very frequent to appear some special changing positions of five elements called “inversion” Which element

dogs speakers want to place emphasis on (o attract Histoner’s altention, it will be on the first

position, This kind of changing is an important for people leamning English

19

20

Chapter 3: Linearity in the Vietnamese Affirmative Statement

3 1 Elements and patterns of the Victnamese Affirmative Statement

‘There are also five main elements in the Vietnamese simple sentence: Subject, Verb, Objects, Complement, and Adverbiat These elernents are realized by phrase

However, in Vietnamese language, according to Hoang Trong Phien, Ngit Phdp Tiếng Viét— Cau (2008), and Diep Quang Ban, Ngit Phap Tiéng Vids (2004), there are only five basic

patterns of simple sentence with following fixed orders:

+ Patterm 1: NP, + laf bang! tai+ NP2/ Verb

@ NP, i} là | NP:: (equivalent lo the paLlzrn SVC in English): TL indicales

-Céidonay bằng đựa — (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004)

Sap) bang Cam)

(ii) = NP, | tạ bởi đo L NP+: Rindieatss causing relation

Eg: -Vigendy dại — nó —— (Diệp Quang Ban,2004)

(iv) NPịt để ¡ Verb | NPs @s pallem SVO in English; NP; is Subject (8) and

NP, is Object (0)) It is used for intended relation