Luận văn the common two word verbs denoting material and mental processes in english and their vietnamese equivalents

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES BUI THI DIEU QUYEN THE COMMON TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

BUI THI DIEU QUYEN

THE COMMON TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND

MENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS

(CAC DONG TU HAI THANH TO PHO BIEN QUI CHIEU TIEN TRINH

VAT CHAT VA TINH ‘THAN TRONG TIENG ANH VA NGHIA TIENG

VIET TUONG DUONG)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 6022 15

HA NƠI - 2010

‘VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

'BÙI THỊ DIỆU QUYỀN

THE COMMON TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND

MENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

HA NOI - 2010

TABLES OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Aims of the study

3 Scope of the study

4 Method of the study

Design of the study

ĐARTB: DEVELOPMENT¿-soiseoicsicotiLrcdddddddododdddaaoardaaaao 1E CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

LL Two word verbs

1.1.1 Definition of PVs and PreVs

1.1.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs and PreVs 2.1.2.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PreVe

CHAPTER 3; ENGLISH TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL AND

MENTAL PROCESSES AND VIETNAMSESE EQUIVALENTS 31

2, Suggestions for teaching and leaming two-word verbs

3, Suggests for further studies

Abbreviations

BE British English

AE American English

PV Phrasal verb

Prev Prepositional verb

s Obligatory separable phrasal verbs

ins Inseparable phrasal verbs

‘Trans ‘Transitive

Intrans Intransitive

NP Noun phrase

LSWE Longman Spoken and Written English

LOCNESS — Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays

BNC British National Corpus

List of tables

Table 1: PVs and PreVs dissimilarities "

‘Table 2: Number of two-word verbs and meanings in three sources of dictionary 7 Table 3: Table 3: Frequent two-word verbs in studies of Gardiner & Davies (2007), Lin

(2003), Waibel (2002), and Biber (1999) 18

PART A: INTRODUCTION

"There is another kind of composition more frequent

im our language than perhaps im any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest difficulty."

~~-Samuel Johnson Preface, Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

1, Rationale of the stndy

The two-word verbs, including phrasal verbs (PVs) and prepositional verbs (PreVs), are an interesting linguistic phenomenon in the English language Many English teachers have realized the importance of this multiword knowledge in helping their Jeamers use English more fluently and naturally Paradoxically, these structures are never easy for non-native leamers to acquire, mostly because the semantic, grammatical and

stylistic peculiarities that they possess

The meanings of a two-word verb are not always likely guessed from its individuals, Many non-native speakers of English must, therefore, memorize them to be able to understand and use them in the right context, However, thousands of two-word verbs and many more times of their meanings make the massive leaming unfiuitful Consequently, pages are spent to find out which PVs to teach and in what sequences For example, Dilin-Liu (2003) suggests 302 items to be most frequently used idioms, with 104

of them are PVs Gardner and Davies (2007) propose a smaller number ~ 100 frequent PVs, Which the authors claim to be a manageable number to deal with The problem is two-word

‘verbs are very polysemous, and corresponding with 100 frequent PVs proposed by Gardner and Davies,- (2067), Ít is not 100 but up to S59 potential meanings (5.6 meanings per PV

‘on average) leamers have to deal with.—From-thie-view,-the-sunber100-is-gatting tees manageable

What-ifif we focus on senses that are used more often than the others?-Se, the load

of leaming English two-word verbs would be reduced This is also what this current study

is aiming at Biber et al (1999) suggest that we classify multiword verbs according to their

10

core meaning called semantic domains: activity verbs, communication verbs, mental verbs, causative verbs, verbs of simple occurrence, verbs of existence or relationship, and aspectual verbs Halliday (198:

same nature Instead of ‘semantic domains; Halliday has term ‘processes’ (See section 1.2.1 for types of processes); and what Biber (1999) names ‘activity verb" is labeled

‘material process’ This study uses Halliday’s terms for their clarity and systematic nature;

004) approaches the matter with different term but the

and attends to material and mental processes since they are considered most common by

both Halliday (1985;, 2004) and Biber (1999)

2 Aims of the study

‘The primary aims of this paper are’

1 to study English two-word verbs, specifically distinguish two kinds of two- word verbs: PVs and PreVs;

to study English processes, focusing on material and mental processes;

3 to investigate some common English two-word verbs denoting material and mental processes and find their Vietnamese equivalents;

4-to-engnestsomerecomniendationsforteachina—and_leamnina tweavord verbs:

3 Scope of the study

As far as structural aspects of two-word verbs are concemed, the current study

includes both PV (transitive and intransitive) and PreVs ‘Phrasal-prepositional verbs"

‘would be beyond the scope of this paper

‘Two-word verbs are rich in both number and meanings For example, in Oxford Phrasal verbs Dictionary, 6000 common British and American PVs are recorded; the verb go" solely has 31 two-word verbs with 209 different meanings So, we are not ambitious

to cover all of them, Although some verbs have no single correct classification or have multiple meanings belonging to different semantic domains, Biber (1999) affirms that activity verbs and mental verbs are of most common Among the 12 most common lexical verbs that all occur over 1000 times per million words in the LSWE Corpns (Biber et al, 1999: 373), six are activity verbs (get, go, make, come, take, give), five are mental verbs

"

(know, think, see, want, mean) Also by means of corpus, Biber proposes lists of the most common lexical verbs in each semantic domain, including all verbs that occur over 300

times per million words in at least one register (cf Biber et aly 1999; 367-369) In domain

of activity: material verbs, we see the notable common of “make, go, give, come, put”, and

“take”, while “see, think, know, want, feel, like” ate distinguished representatives of

mental verbs,

‘Therefore, having claimed to be the study of the common two-word verbs denoting material and mental processes in English though, in the frame of a small paper, we ouly focus on four outstanding representatives of material verbs: COME, GIVE, GO, MAKE {all are in the top 10 most prolific PVs of British National Corpus), and three of mental

‘ones: HEAR, SEE, THINK Moreover, only two-word verbs with idiomatic and semi-

idiomatic meanings used in material and mental processes are concentrated on

4 Method of the study

‘The study aims to find out, in the limitation of seven lexical verbs, “how many” aud “how often” two-word verbs belong to material and mental processes are-there are,

‘comparing with the other four processes Thus, quantitative research methods, which give much focus on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistics, appear to be

appropriate

5, Design of the study

This study is designed in three parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion The Introduction gives an overview of the study The Development consists of three

chapters: Chapter 1- - Theoretical Background, provides the fundamental concepts used in

the paper, Chapter 2 - Methodology, describes thoroughly the methodology acquired in the

study, Chapter 3 presents lists of two-word combinationcombinations of 8seven common

‘verbs belonging to material and mental processes with their particles/ prepositions and

their Vietnamese equivalents Finally, the Conclusion offers the review of the study with

its implication and application conceming teaching and leaning English two-word verbs in

general,

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

‘This chapter represents the issues of two-word verbs and Processes of Material and Mental in details Section 1.1 examines some aspects of PVs and PreVs such as their definitions and their semantic and syntactic aspects Particles—

PVs, are also defined and classified Section 1.2 looks into the matter

the vital component of

f process types with

the focus is on Material and Mental processes, their definition and characteristics

1.1 Two word verbs

Quirk et al (1972) clarify that multi-word verbs consist of PVs, PreVs, and phrasal- prepositional verbs Biber et al (1999: 403) add other multi-word verb constructions like V + noun phrase (+ preposition), V + prepositional phrase or V + V to complete the classification of four major kinds of multi-word combinations that comprise “relatively idiomatic units and function like single verbs”

In this study, we focus on multi-word verbs which comprise two elements Though

‘Taka (1960, cited Waibel 2007) and Meyer (1975, cited Waibel 2007) use tem “two-word er2" to mean PV, and Celce-Murcia et al, (1999) note that PVs are sometimes called two-

‘word verbs, both PVs and PreVs are taken into consideration when we refer to two-word verbs

1.1.1 Definition of PVs and PreVs

"ty is noted that the author mentions to prepositions, but particles There is possibilty that the so-call Pre¥’s

by mos of linguists ix defined by Dixon as PVS, or he uses the nanye PVs to refer to both

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Biber et al., et-al—(1999: 403)) assert: “PVs are multi-word units consisting of a

verb followed by an adverbial particle” which all have spatial or locative meanings and

“commonly used with extended meanings”

| Halliday (1985: 207; 2004: 351) seesees PVs as “lexical verbs which consist of

‘more than just the verb word itself", which can be verb + adverb, verb + preposition, and

‘verb + adverb + preposition, David (2002) seems to meet Halliday when this author insists

the existence of two definitions of PVs, the broad sense and the narrow sense The broad

sense includes both PreVs and PVs, spatial or figurative, transitive or intransitive while the

narrow sense excludes PreVs This study prefers looking at PV from its narrow sense

Before tuming to PreVs, i

is necessary to clarify that the term ‘phrasal verb” is not favored by all linguistics Said as Waibel (2007:_15), “the very name for this type of verb is controversial” For example, Fraser (1947) calls it “verb-particle combmation”, Zandvoort (1962) talks about it as “verd-adverb combination", Live (1965) “discontinuous verb", Lipka (1992) labels them

etc However, Me Arthur (1989: 38, cited Waibel, 2007:

‘verb-particle construchon”, Francis (1958) “separable verb",

5) notes that “the term ‘phrasal

‘verb’ appears ( ) to be the winning term”, and Rot (1988: 183, cited David, 2002: 112) remarks that the term PV is the most appropriate for verb-pasticle combinations because “it expresses the linguistic essence of this lexical-grammar collocation, and it has its terminological parallels in the location ‘phrasal prepositions’” And the term familiar with both teachers and students is also used in this study,

not to see PreV as a subtype of PV or an independent kind of verb from PV This study

‘would like to look at PreV as an independent item that existexists parallel with PV

is whether or

4

1.1.13 Particles

1.1.1.3.1 Definition and classification

‘The term ‘particle’ refers to a word that has a grammatical function but does not fit

into the main parts of speech like noun, verb, or adverb, ete (Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, 1985) The exact status of the particle is still being debated; scholars are being divided on whether it is an adverb, preposition, postpositional prefix, special part

of speech, ete Encyclopedia Wikipedia (2010) provides seven types of word serving as

particle: ‘Articles’ (tie), 'Infinitival' (fo), ‘Preposition’ (in, on), ‘Adverbial particles’ (off down), ‘Interjections‘(oh, wow), ‘Sentence connectors’ (so, well), Tags (_ did they?) and

*Conjunetions’ (and, of, nor), However, dictionaries like Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2006) or MacMillan Phrasal Verbs Plus (2005) just consider adverbs and prepositions to be particle; and some scholars (e.g Celce-Murcia, 1999,: Quirk et al 1985) even narrow term particles to adverbs’ In this study, particles are also

seen in its adverbial nature and some differences between particles and prepositions will be

noted in section 1.1.1.3.3

1.1.1.3.2 Characteristics of particles

Particles are typically found in PVs where most of them are place adjucts or can

function as such (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973), Particles form cohesive units with verbs and

normally cannot be separated from the verb by another adverb, Moreover, they play an important role in complementation by completing the meaning of the head-phrase, and creating a dominant conceptual meaning for PVs

Particles have pragmatic meaning and obviously have impact on the meaning of the

‘verb they follows even if the meanings of the verb are not necessary destroyed or lost Briton (1988: 4, cited David, 2002: 127) claims that the addition of a particle to a verb produces the following three meanings: perfective meaning (drink up, calm down, watt out,

|! While Ceice-Muresa (1299) explams the author's selection isto show the close association of particle with the verb, and to distinguish t from preposition 2s well as other adverbs, other scholars who consider solely adverbs to be particles argue, “particles are commonly treated either as adverbs or else asigned toa special class’ because of thew distinct behaviour, especially thew variable postion and the lack of an object of their

| own @angacker, 1987-243, cited David, 2002 135),

is

die off put over), ingressive meaning (doce off, go away, set out), or continuativeliterative

meaning (drive on, hammer away) (See aspectual PVs, section 1.1.2.1)

1.1.1.3.3 Particles vs, prepositions

Particles look like prepositions and actually have some common features with prepositions Both of them are invariable in form, ie they do not change their form in accordance with words they accompany Particles can sometimes be considered a special

type of prepositions’, but they are still distinctive terms, Certain syntactic features separate

them from each other A great deal of differences is about their position, the sentence constituents they are linked to*, and their fimction’, ete Moreover, particles usually affect the meanings of their proceeding verbs while prepositions usually do not and even independent of them (See section 1.1.2.3.1)

‘To separate adverbial particles from prepositions, objects might be helpfil As

| Swan (1980: 95, cited David, 2002; 115) points out, prepositions must have objects while adverbs particle need not Celee-Murcia (1999: 429) proposes syntactic tests (adopted from

| O'Dowd, 1994: 19) to set apart particles and prepositions Accordingly,

Only prepositions allow:

© Adverb insertion (e.g We turned quickly off the road, but not we timed quickly off the light)

© Phrase fronting (e.g, Cp the hull John ran, mot Up the bill Sohn ran) + Wh-fronting (e.g About what does he write?, not Up what does he write?)

Only particles in separable PVs allow:

© Passivization (e.g The light was turned off, not The road was turned onit)

© Verb substitution (e.g The light was extinguished (= turned off)

+ NP insertion (e.g We turned the light off, not We turned the road off)

+ atany words can be used both as adverbs and prepositions except back and away Whey are only advert,

| while other words lke from and cur can only be treated as prepositions David, 2002 115-116)

“A prepostion denotes a semantic relationship between two entes as to place, te, mtrument or cause ete

| (Quure et al-, 1972) while a particle is part of the verb # averbual particles function as adverbs and modify the preceding verb

16

1.1.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs and PreVs

2.1.2.1 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs

Regarding syntactical aspects of PVs, PVs" subcategories and PVs" separation need

to be dealt with In MacMillan Phrasal Verb Plus by Rundell and Fox (2005), PVs are divided into three types: transitive, intransitive, and those which is both transitive and intransitive But it seems to be simpler to set PVs into intransitive and transitive like the

‘way Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), Biber et al (1999), or Celce-Murcia et al (1999) do; noting that some combinations can have “dual fimetion” (Celce-Mureia et al., 1999: 427),

Íe, they can be either transitive or intransitive, with or without a difference of meaning

| (Quitk & Greenbaum, 1973), Most ofthe challenge is assumed to fall into transitive PVs because of its peculiar syntactic characteristic, its separability As Celce-Murcia (1999)

puts it, in spite of being part of the PV, particle does not have to be adjacent with it Listed here are three subcategories of separation:

* The largest, most productive category is optional separable PV, where

particle can stand either before of after direct object except when the direct object is a pronoun’,

Eg, puiton=wear: Anne put on her coat and went out

or Anne put her coat on and went out

+ The smaller category is inseparable phrasal verb In this kind, the particle

is forced to follow right after the verb’

Exg [came on (= encounter) this beautiful vase im the attic

+ Sometimes, the separation is obligatory and we will name this obligatory separable PV In this kind, the particles are always separated’

Eg, put through = test: We put the machines through a series of teste

Tete direct object is nota pronoun ori is a long and complicate noun phrase, it would prefer the postion

|_ after the particle or as Celce-Murcia, 1999 435) putt, “the conventional position for new, discourse salient snformation’ The insertion of comple noun phrase betwen verb and the particle i believed to mterrugt the gopative unt ofthe vert and partie and mae dific to understand

|? Celce-bures (1999) said this phenomenon is because whal we are calling a particle is actually a

prepostion and thus would naturally go before ts object

‘The obligatory separation is presumed to avoid the ambiguity with the inseparable phrasal verbs, which

| have the sanse fs but different meaning (Celce-Murcia etal, 1999)

1?

From semantical-semantic view, we see three important aspects: the polysemy,

productivity, and idiomaticity

Like single-word verbs, PVs are polysemous in that one form of PVs can have

various meaning, and simultaneously, one meaning can also be expressed by more than

one form Additionally, English continually generates new PVs" as well as new meanings

of existed PVs Celce-Murcia (1999: 431) describes PV as “a highly productive lexical

category in English-(434).", while Bolinger (1974: xi, cited Celce-Murcia, 1999)

comments the phenomenon as “an outpouring of lexical creativeness that supasses

anything else in our language”, Explaining the popularity of PVs in English, Bolinger

(1971: xii, cited Stephens, 2008) said,

"They are words The everyday inventor is not required to reach for elements

such as roots and affixes that have no reality for him, Tt takes only a rough familiarity with other uses of head and affto make them available for head off,

virtually self-suggesting when the occasion for them comes up, which is not

true of leaned formations like éntercept'(sii}"_

Yet it seems impossible to know exactly which verb will joint with which particle

to form a new PV There usually needs a semantic coordination between verbs and

particles In other words, verbs limit their choice of adverbial partiele by their semantic

content Nevertheless, it does not mean PVs cannot be systematized Supported by the idea

that the semantic of PVs is not as “arbitrary” as itis often held to be (Smclair, Moon et al-

1939, cited David, 2002), Celce-Murcia (1999) claims the existence of some systemeticity

in how meaning is represented in PVs; and to understand that systematicity, we familiarize

ourselves with three semantic categories of PVs: literal, aspectual, and idiomatic (See

Quirk et al-., 1972, Celce-Murcia et al- 1999)

+ Literal PVs: comprise a verb and a directional prepos

fimetion syntactically like verb-particle constructions, except that particle keeps its

"Me Arthur and Atkins (1974: 6 cited David, 2002, 126) claim 6 types of verbs that can be phrasalzed,

‘including af verbs of mavement (go, come); b/ verbs of invitation and ordering (invite, let)! the so-called

‘ernpty verb’, verbs of mdefinite meaning (get, make); &/ vesbs formed with or without the suffix -en, from

sample monosyllabic adjectives (brighten); e! verbs Formed unchanged frocn simple, usually manosylabie

nouns with such paraphrase pattems as chalk yp mare up with chal, f/ a random scattering of two-syllable

‘verbs of Latin origin, with which some kand of direction or emphasis is required (measure (ip), level (aff

18

prepositional meaning and the result is a PV whose meaning is fully compositional (e.g sit down)

* Aspectual PVs'®: certain particles can add consistent aspectual meaning to

the verb without changing the origin meaning of that verb Thus, the meaning of the whole is neither literal nor idiomatic AsKor Celee-Murcia

(1999: 432-433), four main types of aspectual PVs are distinguished:

= Inceptive PVs (signal a beginning state): take off, set out, start up

= Continuative: (show that the action continues) Activity verbs + on/

along (come along, keep on), away (sleep away), around (mess around),

through ( think through)

= Iterative PVs (activity verbs + over show repetition ); thunk over

= Completive PVs (show complete action with up out, off and down):

wear out, mix up, cut off, check over, ete

* Idiomatic PVs: are those that we cannot infer their meaning from their=

components'' For instance, in the sentence J hope you will get over your operation quickly, the literal meaning of ‘get over’, in sense of “to clims

over st to get to the other side’ no longer applies to explain the subject's

enduring an operation

2.1.2.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PreVs

Syntactically, PreVs always has its preposition followed by a nominal object (Biber

et al 1999), They, however, do not coincide with inseparable transitive PVs because the

‘object still follows the preposition when it is a pronoun, Moreover, the verb can have its

‘own object which usually precedes the preposition Two structural pattems for PreVs are:

Eg, I'venever ever thought about [it] +

"Some authors suggest grouping PV based onthe particle instead ofthe verb clement as we usually do We

thunk ts applicable fr aspectal PVs only Moreover, aspectnl particles do not go with every verb Certain

agpectual particles co-occur wath ceta verbs That is why we have fade cut but do not accep fae 1p

1" The meaning of this kind is believed to have relation with underlying logic of the language and cultural

traditions Langecker (1991, cited David, 2002) defend that the vast majority PVs rly al least m parton the

"Men er agpecual meaning he parucle and thus they can help to figure out figurative meaning

19

+ V+NP + preposition + NP Egg, He blames all faults on me Linguists, such as Quirk & Greenbaum (1973), Biber et al, (1999), tend to agree that there are two ways to approach PreVs: the first one is that PreVs can be treated as a single lexical verb followed by a prepositional phrase fimctioning as an adverbial Arguments supporting this view are based on the fact that we can insert another adverbial

between the verb and the preposition In the second approach, both the verb and the preposition are seen as a single unit followed by a noun phrase which acts as the object of

‘V+ preposition Supporters of this idea count on the fact that the combination verb plus preposition fimctions asa single semantic unit that has idiomatic meaning and, therefore, is replaceable by a simple transitive verb

Semantically, PreVs are also polysemous, idiomatic and productive

1.1.2.3 Comparison of PVs and PreVs

1.1.2.3.1 Similarities

As already pointed out, PVs and PreVs are both varied in their idiomaticity Their

meanings range from literal to idiomatic Therefore, the two can be substituted by a single-

word verb (¢.g PreV ‘looked after’ in She looked after her son can be replaced by single word ‘tendled")

1.1.2.3.2 Dissimilarities

According to Quirk et al (1972), the differences between PVs and PreVs are

regarding to stress, adverb insertion and pasticle/ preposition position Lamont (2005) agrees they are syntactic tests’? to clear away our confusion about PVs or PreVs, and emphasize knowledge of such tests is “indispensable” for anyone studying phrasal verbs

‘These are generalized in the following table:

"The rationale fer many of these tests is the fact that a preposition makes a natural unt with the NP object, that follows it, whereas a particle makes a natural unit with the verb that precedes it (Celce-Murcia ot al 1999430)

‘Table 1: PVs and PreVs dissimilarities

5 = ‘The stress ison the verb, not Spoken stress Stress is on the particles

‘on the preposition Adverb cannot enter between veb-|PreVs allow msenion oF Advesb insettion! ron particle combinations It must be placed | adverb into verb-preposition | intervention

Before the verb or at the end ‘combination

Particle/ preposition | Particle of transitive PVs ean move | Preposition cannot move movement cither before or after the direct object | after its object,

‘Puticle can stand before of afler the NP 5

Preposition mst precede following the verb (except when the | thenoun phrase

noun phrase following the verb is a personal pronoun)

Position Paiticle cmmot be placed before a R

Preposition em relative pronoun

Particle cannot precede a relative pronoun or the interrogative word at the | Preposition ean beginning of a Wh-question

Pronoun-object Particle must go after pronoun Pieposition nimst precede

1.2 Process types

1.2.1 Overview of process types

As Martin et al (1997: 102) says, “Process type is the resource for sorting out

human experiences ofall kinds into a small nuniber of types These differ both with respect

to the Process itself and the number and kind of participants involved.”

In the view of Halliday (1985; 2004) and systemic-fimetional linguists such as

Bloor, T & Bloor, M (1995), Martin et al, (1997), there are 6 types of process in English: Matenal, Mental, Relational, Behavioural Existential; and Verbal,

'Thistest, however, is restricted with profioun, gerund and unhelpful with stransitive PVs as there iso

‘complementary noun prise to fact

ate movement

Material processes denote doings and happenings They represent our ‘outer

‘experiences’: those we pick up from the life when we do or observe other people do things,

or See things happen

Mental processes involve conscious processing They express our ‘inner experience’, of our consciousness of the world around us Members of metal processes include perception, cognition and affection

Rolational processes are processes of being which denote our logical link between the new to the old experiences They have two different modes: attribution and identification

Behavioural procesoze construe (mental and verbal) behaviour Like the active vetsion of verbal and mental processes, they represent the acting out of processes of

consciousness (like laughing), and physiological states (like sleeping) They have

similarities to both material and mental processes Like mental processes, one of theit participants must be human consciousness (in mental we call it ‘Senser’ while in

behavioural, it is known as ‘Behaver’) They resemble material processes in: (i) they prefer

present-in-present tense, and (ii) they cannot occur with a reported clause in a projecting

clause complex

Existential processes are concerned with existence - things recognized to be, to exist, or to happen They appear like the relational processes in that they constme a paticipant which involves a process of being, But what separates them is that existential processes have only one participant

Verbal processes, which stand between mental and relational processes, cover saying of different modes (asking, commanding, offering, stating) and semiotic processes that are not necessary verbal (showing, indicating), They symbolize relationships

constructed in human consciousness and enacted in the form of language like saying and

meaning ‘Sayer’ can be human or human-like speaker or any other symbolic source

Among the six processes, material, mental and relational are primary, behavioural, existential, and verbal are said to be secondary processes which lie on the border of the three major ones However, Halliday (2004: 171) said: “there is no priority or domination

of one kind of process over another” For this reason, he used a circle but not a line to

demonstrate the relation among types of process in English (see Halliday, 2004: 172, fig

5.2), In that figure, process types are represented as a semiotic space with different regions

representing different types The regions have core areas and these represent prototypical

‘members of the process types, but the regions are continuous, shading into one another

‘That is why Halliday (2004: 172) asserts: “the process types are fitzzy categories”, which

base on ‘the principle of systemic indeterminacy’

Now we have a general picture of six processes in English systemic- functional grammar As mentioned above, material and mental processes are among basic processes and account the largest proportion in 6 processes They are also subject investigated in this paper and will be looked closely in the next sections,

1.2.2 Material processes

Material processes cover doings and happenings Prototypically, these are concrete changes in the material world that can be perceived But such concrete material processes have also come to serve as a model for construing our experience of change in abstract phenomena, For instance, the verb ‘fall’ realizing material processes can construe motion

in space as in Lixie fell down and hurt her knee or motion in an abstract, space of measurement ai in London share process fell sharply yesterday

‘Typical verbs realizing material processes are: happen, create, make, set up, give gat, ete, (See Halliday, 2004: 187- 189, table 5(5))

Material processes have participants of ‘Actor’, ‘Goal’, ‘Range’, and ‘Beneficiary’,

“the functions assumed by the participants in any clause are determined by the type of process that involved”, noted Halliday (2004: 1997)

* ‘Actor’ is the Who” doing the action

* ‘Goal’ is the ‘What’ brought to existence by the doing (build the house) or impacted by the doing (fix the car)

+ ‘Range’ or ‘Scope’ is a participant specifying the scope of happening and is the only one being out of the influence of the performance of the process It (Thus prnciple has influence over sux processes Tt says that “the world of our experience is highly

indeterminate” and the grammar describe i the system of process types in the same way, Thus, ne and the same tert may offer alterative models of wht would appear tobe the same domain of experience

construing, for example, the doman of emotion both as a process in a mental clause, and asa participant in a

| relational one” Galluy, 2004)

typically occurs in “transi (Actor)

fe processes where there is solely one participant

+ ‘Beneficiay’ ix the ‘Whom' getting benefit from the doing It has two subtypes: the ‘Recipient’- marked by preposition fo and signs the transfer of existing goods; and the ‘Client’ marked by preposition for, indicates a provision of service

Eg (1) She gave a teapot to hie aunt,

Ador Goal - Beneficiary (recipient) (2) She made a.cup of tea for me

said to represent happeaing and is named intransitive material clause If the process

extends to another participant, say, the "Goal’, the process represents a doing and is known

‘as transitive material clause For example, ‘Oi! ts coming down in price’ is intransitive

material processes with intransitive PV ‘come down’; ‘Mary put on her coat” is transitive

clanse with the phrasal verb ‘put on” serving as transitive process, Furthermore, ifthere is

*Goal’, the represent may have 2 forms: operative (active) and receptive (passive),

Eg (1) Thelion caught the tourist

Actor Process: active Goal

(2) The tourist was caueht Goal Process: passive Actor the lion

About the subtypes of doings and happening, Halliday (2004) clarifies transformative and creative In the former, the goal does exist before the process besins and is transformed in the course of the unfolding This subtype is often indicated by the paiticle of a PV (use ux, turn down), or has separate element representing the outcome as

i She painted the house red, where red serves as attribute specifying the resultant state of the goal, Creative subtype, om the other hand, has the outcome brought into existence by the doing,

E.g, (1) She painted @ portrait of the artist (is ‘creative’ since the outcome is

the creation of the portrait)

(2) She painted the house red, (is ‘transformative’ since the outcome is the

transformation of the colour of the house) All types of processes change form though time and so do material processes However, process types are varied in ways of unfolding, Material processes prefer

‘present-in-present’ (or present continuous) (¢.2 1s gorg) to simple present (¢.2 c

1.2.3 Mental processes

Mental processes construe sensing and concemed with the world inside our mind

"Think, know, hear, look, see, feel, like” ave typical verbs which can be served as mental processes

“Mental processes involve participants of ‘Senser’ and ‘Phenomenon’ Seuser is the one that senses, feels, thinks, wants or perceives which is always human o human-like It

is said to be bom with consciousness, hence, i is often substituted by pronoun /te/ she

rather than it, Besides, creatures like pets or domestic animals and entities can be personified to be human or treated as conscious

‘Phenomenon’ is the participant being sensed Unlike ‘Senser’, ‘Phenomenon’

covers a wide range of units It can be things (any kind of entity created by consciousness

stich as a conscious being, and object, a substance, an institution, or an abstraction), macro- things (acts) like getting up early, and meta-things (faets) like the information that people

ah travel fo outer space

Mental processes differentiate mental processes of perception, cognition, and emotion with their distinctive features A perceptive verb is often accompanied by a modal

verb (eg can feel, can see) Verbs like ‘remember’, ‘remind’ or ‘think’ often indicate

cognitive mental processes and are able to begin another clause or a set of clause ax the

content of them (J think that, J 2member that ), Meanwhile, property owned by mental

clanse construing emotions is that the verb serving as process are gradable in lexical and grammar (detest loathe hate- dislike- like- love) In general, all subtypes follow the

principle of indeternination in that different types of sensing can shade into each other

Therefore, “7 see" not only means ‘! perceive visually’ but also is interpreted as 7 understand

When the clause refers to present time, the tense of the verb realizing mental process is the simple present rather than the ‘present-in-present’, (2.2 see the stars, not 7

am seeing the stars)

1.2.4 Material vs mental processes

Halliday et al (2004: 201- 207) suggests three criteria to distinguish material processes from mental processes, including: the participants, the tense of process or verb

serving as process, and the substitute of verb

* Pauticipants: the two typical participants of material are ‘Actor’ and ‘Goal’

whereas the two distinctive participant roles for mental are ‘Senser’ and

‘Phenomenon’ Moreover, if ‘Senser’ is highly constrained, there is no

limitation for what can act as ‘Phenomenon’ of mental processes Meanwhile, all patticipants in material processes must be a ‘thing’ (person, object, snibstance, abstraction)

* Tense: material processes are present-in-present unmarked while mental processes tend to use simple present tense!’

© Substitution: material processes can be substitute by verb do, whereas mental

processes do not allow this,

‘This chapter has already supplied the key concepts acquired in the study: two-word

‘verbs and process types, in respect of how they are defined, their characteristics and how to

separate them from one another The next chapter represents the details of how the research is implemented,

"© Both tenses are still used with these two processes, but in those cases, they will erry special interpretation

‘The sunpie tense with a material process is general or habitual, while te present-n-present tense wth a

|_ mental process is rather highly condition kind ofinceptive aspect (See Halliday, 1985, 2004)

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

‘This chapter covers issues regarding to data collection instrument, corpus chosen, data analyses, as well as two-word verbs” selection and extraction

2.4 Data collection instrument

‘The stndy used three sources of dictionaries on PVs to collect data of English two- word verbs: (1) Chambers of Dictionary of Phrasal Verb

(2) Oxford Phrasal Verbs Dictionary for Leamets of English (3) MacMillan Phrasal Verbs Plus

‘These dictionaries contain thousands of (BE and AE) PVs with clear explanations, corpus-baxed examples, make them easy to use and to be stimulus for natural-sounding English The third source even claims to have original extra features that help to make it an ideal reference to help leamers lose their fear of PVs and start using them with confidence

The study also employed WordNet 3.0 (Miller, 2003) to recognize distinctive

‘senses of the same word forms Type ‘make out, for instance, WordNet results 10 different

senses (fo recognice, tsnie, compreliend, manage, complete, try to establish, etc), from which we choose the appropriate ones

2.2 Corpus choice

The following are lists of frequent PVs (2 AE corpus-based and 2 BE corpus-

based) put forth by different authors They are sources that were accessible at the time of conducting this research

* Liu (2003) analyzed three spoken A-E corpora to establish the author’ lists of the most frequently used idioms Only idioms and semi-literal or non-literal PVs are chosen Selected items must have at least 2 occurences in all three corpora combined (i.e., 2

tokens per million words)

~ Professional (Corpus of Spoken Professional American English (Barlow, 2000)

consists of speeches at professional meetings and white house press conferences

~ Misease (Michiean corpus of Aeademic Spoken English (Simpson, Briggs Ovens, & Swales, 2002)) comprises academic speech events (lectures, colloquia)

~ Media (Spoken American media English (Liu, 2002)) involves speakers with diverse social and educational background

* Waibel uses LOCNESS, which consists of essays by American university students from Marquette University, Indiana Universit

* Gardner & Davies analyses BNC, which contains about 4000 samples (both

spoken and written) from the widest possible range of linguistic productions

at Indianapolis

© Biber analyses LSWE Corpus and includes all PVe and PreVs that occur over 40

times! millions word in at least 1 register

2.3 Data Analyses

First, all two-word verbs and their potential meanings were counted, The grammar

pattem in Oxford Phrasal verbs Dictionary is used to decide whether a two-vord verb is

PV or PreV With sources of dictionaries, together with the help of Wordnet 3.0, the raw

number of two-word combinations with seven selected verbs is set out as followed:

‘Table 2: Number of two-word verbs and meanings in three sources of dictionary

Verbs Chambers Dictionary “MacMillan Phrasal ‘Oxford Phrasal verbs:

of Phrasal verbs verbs Plus: Dictionary

Note; 32 —152; 32 combinations and 152 meanings In which,

(24/8) (13626) 24 PVs (with 126 meanings) and 8 PreV’s (with 26 mesnings) The three sources differ somewhat in the numbers of two-word verbs and their

meanings as we ean see in table 3, Some figures are approximate, Total is not the sum of

PVs and PreVs Ifa two-word verb can be both PV and PreV (come off go off, ete), it is counted one form, For example, 31 two-word verbs with Come are recorded, but it is not the sum of 22 PVs and 17 PreVs Furthemiore, if there ig more than one fonn for a meaning due to the difference between AE and BE, eg come around/ come about or

come round, it is also counted one form,

Second, the long lists of frequently used idioms and PVs are filtered to PVs and

PreVs concemed in the following table

Tables:

rrequent two-word verbs in studies of Gardner & Davies (2007), Lin (2003),

‘Wael 2002), and Biber (1999)

Professional | Meln | Maeme | LOCNESS BNC PVs PreVs Came sbout | Come about | Came across | Come about | Came about | Came on

come across | comeacrass | comety | come across | comeback | come over

comety | cameby | comeup | came along | comealong | come

come cn | come cn | comecn | come around | come round | along

cameup | comeup |eemeef | come by ‘come on

came forth | come m come im come down come off | come off omeout | come out come up come up come togethér | come over Grew come through Gwe wp | Greup | gvewway |Gweup Gem Gwevp | Gweto

sive away Goon giveaway — | give out

gothraigh | givein sive back Goon Goon gowith — | Goon Goa Goahed | Go for

gotirough | gothrough | gover | gottrough | gottrough |gosf | go through gowith — | goahesd | go for goback goback

goover | gover | gouter |jos gout

go ter 0 for godovn goover

goater | goof goby go down

goup gom Makeup Make up Makeup | Makeup | Make for

make out | make oot make from

‘Think out ‘Think of

think about Hear of

From the table, the first thing to see is that two-word verbs realizing mental

processes are not as common as material ones There is even no two-word verb with ‘See

in the list of these authors (the other two are recorded with small proportion) Second, there

is coincidence in the lists of two-word verbs despite the differences in criteria of selecting

them For instance, up to 4-5 out of 6 lists have come up, come about, come on, give up 20

on, make up, ¢0 through, go off, etc) The biggest difference may lie in the number of two- word verbs that the authors consider frequent Waibel suggests number 14 for common two-word verbs with ‘Go’, while Liu gives 9 and Biber says 4 Thence, we decide not to count on any single list of frequent PVs, but search all of two-word verbs relating to

concemed verbs in dictionaries on hand Though, comparing with the numbers in table 2,

‘we understand that these authors really got achievement in reducing the workload from

leamers* mind,

Last, Vietnamese equivalents are taken from English- Vietnamese dictionaries

about PVs and idioms Meanings of PVs or PreVs that are not available in these

dictionaries will be translated All examples are also from different sources of dictionaries

2.4, The selection and extraction of two-word verbs

Many linguists regarded only idiomatic verb-particle combinations as ‘proper’

PVs'® Dixon (1991) excluded literal meaning from his definition about PVs Longman dictionary of contemporary English (2006: 974) even emphasizes “If a verb still keeps its ordinary meaning, even though it is followed by several different prepositions, it is not a phrasal verb” However, McArthur (cited Stephens, 2008) assesses this is the “holistic or semantic view”, which focuses mainly on the meaning of the verb combination, In his

treatment of PVs, he states that PVs cover both the literal and figurative/idiomatic uses Waibel (2007: 63) also argues that “a clear-cut differentiation between what is literal and

what is idiomatic or figurative is in many cases unfeasible ( ) in part due to the

polysemous meanings PVs which often fade into one another’ Admitting both literal and

figurative meaning as the property of PVs and PreVs though, this study attends to idiomatic/ semi-idiomatic meaning of PVs and PreVs; because it is proved to cause biggest

™ combinations where each element retains its distinctive meaning are sen as fiee combinations” (Quiet

| al, 1985,, Biber etal 1995)

30

challenge to ESL/EFL leamers'’ (see Liao & Fukuya, 2004; David, 2002) In addition,

meanings appearing in all sources or in one source are both taken into account, but those

which do not belong to material and mental processes was removed

So, this chapter has described method of doing this research, in terms of tools used

to collect data, way to analyze data, and criteria of selecting data The next chapter will display the results of the study specifically

"The commonly accepted reason is thatthe figurative uses are deeply rooted mn cultoral traditions which are also tightly linked with what is believed about the physical world itself In most cases, this ‘rather opaque meaning’ cause problems for leamers David, 2002131), There are also studies proving that second language leamers struggle more with figurative PVs thaa literal PVs (Liso & Fulauya, 2004)

31

CHAPTER3: ENGLISH TWO-WORD VERBS DENOTING

MATERIAL AND MENTAL PROCESSES AND VIETNAMSESE

EQUIVALENTS

“This is the analytical, data-based part of the present study, the quantit

of linguistic data, The aim of this chapter is to present and diseuss quantitative results from

tw

broken down into its different semantic constituents and quantified as “happen, appear’, and ‘improve’, ste, Several researchers say the quantification by semantic criteria is not feasible and that there are too many cases in which the meaning of a twoaword verb deviates from one of the various dictionary meanings and where a clear-cut semantic differentiation is not possible They quantify PVs as independent of inherent semantic differences, so that they can set up the list of frequently used two-word verbs In the present study, two-word verbs are quantified according to their semantic criteria,

‘The semantic analysis of some common English two- word verbs will be reported in this chapter As stated in previous sections, the study concentrates on PVs and PreVs of

‘Come, Give, Go Make’ and Hear, See, Think’ They are among the 12 most common lexical verbs that all oceur over 1000 times per million words in the LSWE Corpus (Biber

et al, 1999), and fisted in categories of 20 lexical verbs combines with eight adverbial particles to account for more than one half of the $18, 923 PV occurrences identified in the megacorpus (Gardner & David, 2007), The first four are lexical verbs belonging to material processes The remains are lexical verbs realizing mental processes However, two-word verbs of a lexical verb, e.g “Come can still denoting both processes, e.g “Come

around”: ‘déx chot” (material process), and "đối 3 (mental process) Therefore, it would be

80 complicated to arrange two-word verbs of all chosen verbs and their meanings in one

process af a time Instead, two-word verbs of seven selected verbs are displayed in seven separate tables, aud put into separate columns named material processes and mental

processes which mn parallel" This makes it easier to see and compare material processes

‘and mental processes at the same time

3.1 COME,

“The single-word verb ‘Come can go with 32 particles/ prepositions and create 32

PVs and PreVs with hundreds meanings Among them, 26 (15 PVs and 11 PreVs) have

‘meanings that denote material and/ or mental processes Three two-word verbs ‘come

across’, ‘come by’ ‘come off” can be either PV or PreV with differences in sense

> PVs come about, come across, come along, come around! round,

come away, come by, come down, come forward, come in, come off, come on, come out, come over, come through, come

„

> PreVs come affer, come across, come at, come before; come by, come

for, come into, come off, come to, come under, come upon

It emerges fiom the Appendix 1 that, of the 26 two-word verbs with Come’, 100% denote material processes In other words, all combinations of ‘Come’ with 26 particles /prepositions bear meanings that belong to material processes, There are 10 cases in which

‘one two-word verb can realize both material and mental procestes: 7 PVs (come cow come forwad, come out, come aver, come through, come up) and 3 PreVs (come at, come

to, come upon), Not any ease constrnes only mental processes

Verbs with very general meanings can become very specialized, collocational ad idiomatic as soon as they form a relationship with other lexemes, and PVs are an excellent case in point (Altenberg & Granger 2001: 174, cited Waibel 2007), When a single word

‘verb stich as Comic” enters into a relation with another lexeme such as the pasticle ‘down’,

it produces a set of meaning as the following examples:

1 Oil is coming down in price (rt gis)

The entire list of vonve cerrinon two-word verbs deriving from "Conte, "Gnie', Go’, ‘Make’, ‘Heat’

"See", and “Think’ can be found m Appendaces