A study on syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group in english and their vietnamese equivalents

From these above reasons, I have decided to choose the topic “A study on syntactic and semantic features of the GIVING verb group in English and their Vietnamese equivalents”.. Aims and

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA NHÓM ĐỘNG

TỪ GIVING TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG

TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

QUAN THI THANH HUYEN

Hanoi, 2018

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA NHÓM ĐỘNG

TỪ GIVING TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG

TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

QUAN THI THANH HUYEN

Supervisor: Dr NGUYEN THI VAN DONG

Hanoi, 2018

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I declare that this thesis, entitled ―A STUDY ON SEMANTIC AND

SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF GIVING VERB GROUP AND THEIR

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS‖, and the work presented in it is my own and

has been generated by me as the result of my own research

I confirm that when I quoted from the work of others, the source was always given and no part of this work has been published before submission

Hanoi, 2018

QuanThi Thanh Huyen

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong

Date:………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the whole process of conducting this study for her MA thesis, the writer has received the support as well as encouragement from a number of people Thus, it will probably be an unacceptable mistake if this invaluable contribution to the accomplishment of this thesis is not mentioned

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong, with their patience in providing constant and careful guidance, advice as well as useful corrections and suggestions

Secondly, my special thanks also go to all the lecturers in the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, Hanoi Open University for their very useful and interesting lectures which have laid the foundation for my thesis

Last but not least, my sincere thanks are delivered to my beloved family and friends, whose unlimited love and support enabled me to complete this paper

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SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FEATURES OF

ENGLISH GIVING VERB GROUP AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS IN TERMS OF SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

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REFERENCE

APPENDIX

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

group

15

English verbs in the giving verb group

36

equivalents in terms of semantic features

62

in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

62

Vietnamese literary works

61

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ABSTRACT

Nowadays, English is regarded as the language of modernization and technological advancement all over the world Learning English is also problematic for foreign learners because they are affected by their mother tongue during the process of studying grammar, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, etc This thesis aims at

dealing with investigating syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group

and their Vietnamese equivalents The data quoted from the eight bilingual English

and Vietnamese literary works prove that the verb give is the most frequency use, and the verb donate is the least frequency use In addition, the giving verbs can be

translated with a variety of meaning in Vietnamese The findings of this study are the valuable knowledge for translators and teachers as well as The results of the

study show that the six English verbs belonging to the giving verb group are give,

lend, pay, present, donate, and exchange Semantically, the six verbs in the giving

verb group mostly mean transferring possession of some Gift from Donor to a

Recipient However; the translators should use different words in Vietnamese

depending on the different position (higher or lower) of the Donor and the Recipient These initial findings of the analysis may lead to implications for language teaching, translation as well as some suggestions for further research

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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, English is regarded as the language of modernization and technological advancement all over the world Learning English is also problematic for non-native speakers in general and foreign learners in particular because they are affected by their mother tongue during the process of studying grammar, vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation, etc

On the grammatical aspect, knowledge of parts of speech helps English learners make sentences accurately One of the most important parts of speech in sentences is the verb Verbs have always been one of the most complex parts of speech, which have most widely used and consequently, have played an important

role in any language system so far Among English verbs, the verb give is one of the

commonest words and is used in many different ways

There have been a lot of researchers conducting investigations into the

giving verb group in both English and Vietnamese

In English, Newman has two research works ―Give: a Cognitive Linguistic Study‖ and ―Figurative Giving‖ In his two studies, he explores the verb give under the cognitive perspective

In Vietnamese, Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977) discusses about the verb group of

giving and lists out the verb give including ban, phát, biếu, bố thí, bồi thường, bù,

cấp, cho, cấp phát, dành, dâng, giao, gửi, nhường, phú, thí, etc Lâm Quang Đông

(2008) has a study on the constructions of denotative meaning in sentences having

verbs give and receive These above works study the giving verb in English or Vietnamese separately, and the relation between the verb give in English and

Vietnamese is not mentioned to

From these above reasons, I have decided to choose the topic “A study on

syntactic and semantic features of the GIVING verb group in English and their Vietnamese equivalents” This study appeared as a result of difficulties that the

author faces in daily teaching related to the usage of the giving verb group The

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problem is that how to make sentences having the verb give, lend, pay, present,

donate, exchange, and in which patterns are used In addition, translators are

confused when choosing these verbs to make sentences in English and translating it into Vietnamese

Therefore, this thesis aims at filling these gaps Hopefully, examining the

giving verb group in English and its equivalents in Vietnamese is supposed to help

language teaching, and translating more effectively

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study is expected to provide Vietnamese teachers and translators with a

description of syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group in English

and their Vietnamese equivalents

Objectives of the study are as follows:

- To identify syntactic and semantic features of giving verb group in English

- To find out the differences and similarities between English giving verb

group and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantics features

-To give some possible suggestions for teaching and translating the giving

verb group in English and Vietnamese

- What are the feature similarities and differences of the giving verb group in

English and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntax and semantics?

- What are possible suggestions for teaching and translating the giving verb

group in English and Vietnamese?

1.4 Methods of the study

The study is planned to describe and analyze some syntactic and semantic

features of the giving verb group in English as well as their Vietnamese equivalents

The descriptive method is exploited to search for the syntactic and semantics

features of the six verbs of the giving verb group in English

Besides, the contrastive analysis method is useful to uncover the Vietnamese equivalents of these six English verbs In particular, the data collected from English and Vietnamese literary works will be used to analyze in order to reveal the equivalents in the two languages

In addition, the statistical technique is also utilized This technique helps to collect, summarize, analyze and interpret the variable numerical data from the total

number of examples to give the frequency the six giving verbs

The verbs are analyzed in detail beginning with give followed by lend, pay,

present, donate, exchange Each of these verbs is described in a separate section,

and the analysis was conducted with a view to discovering such aspects of each verb as its syntactic, semantics performed by each of these verbs The analysis is believed to contribute to a deeper understanding of the six English verbs The componential analysis will be applied to analyze the data

1.5 Scope of the study

In this study, the major point is to focus on the English giving verb group in

terms of syntax and semantics English is considered as source language, meanwhile

Vietnamese is target language So, the syntactic and semantic features of the giving

verb group in English are compared with their Vietnamese equivalents

On this base, some suggestions for Vietnamese teachers and translators are

proposed to support their using the giving verb group more effective

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study will provide a comprehensive and overall knowledge

about the syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group in English

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Moreover, the similarities and differences between this verb groups in English and

in Vietnamese are very helpful in contrasting two languages

Practically, the study will help teachers and translators to be able to master some suggestions and hints in teaching and translating this verb group effectively

because the giving verb group consists of many verbs and make people confused

when its syntactic and semantic features are under many unknowns

1.7 Design of the study

This thesis consists of five main parts:

Chapter 1 is the introduction which gives the reasons why this topic: ―The

syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group in English and their

Vietnamese equivalents‖ has been chosen for the study as well as its aims and objectives, scope, significance and organization of the study

Chapter 2 is the literature review It presents an overview of the previous

studies related to the giving verb group both in English and Vietnamese and a

review of theoretical background that can be considered as a foundation for conducting the whole study

Chapter 3 mentions to the methodology of the study which describes in detail all research governing orientations and research methods

Chapter 4 is the finding and discussion in which the similarities and

differences on the syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group in

English in terms of their sentence patterns and sentence elements are mentioned Then the comparison with their Vietnamese equivalents is also given in accordance

with some possible suggestions for teaching English and translating the giving verb

group from English into Vietnamese

Chapter 5 deals with the conclusion which summarizes the whole content of the study, then gives some recommendations and suggestions for a further study

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Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

English verbs have been the subject of several studies by linguists because they not only play an important role in a sentence but also present particularly interesting syntactic and semantic characteristics In particular, even if that are often considered as being a coherent semantic class, we can find verbs displaying different semantic features and syntactic behavior

In English, Dixon (1991) has a study on semantic types of words and grammatical word classes Bases on semantic roles, he classifies verbs into two sort primary and secondary sort As stated in the ―A New Approach to English Grammar

on Semantic Principles‖, he mentions the primary –A verbs including 10 verb

groups Among this verb group, he claims there are six verbs: give, lend, pay,

present, donate, exchange in the giving verb group The study of Dixon mentions

to the verb groups based on the semantic relations but not syntactic relations Newman (1996) describes a detailed semantic account of words denoting giving and then examines how these words function in clause structures He also gives general

remarks on give verbs, introduces forms denoting giving across a number of

languages Moreover, he states a detailed cognitive-semantic analysis of lexical

items denoting give The two linguists exploit the verb give on the semantic aspects

without concerning to their syntactic relations

In Vietnamese, Lâm Quang Đông (2008) mentions to the constructions of denotative meaning in sentences having verbs give and receive His particular concern is to understand what meaning the verb give and receive express in different sentence patterns In addition, Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977) examines the Vietnamese verbs on the grammatical features in his study As he also gives a list of give and deliver verb group including ban, phát, biếu, bố thí, dồi thường, bù, cấp, cho, cấp phát, dành, dâng, đưa, đút lót, đền, giao, gửi, nhường, hối lộ, phát, phú, nộp, tặng, thí, trả…However, his study still does not mention to the semantic

features of the giving verbs yet

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There also have been many researches that focus on giving verb groups Trần

Thị Ánh Diệp (2016) investigated Vietnamese translated variants of verbs of giving and receiving in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K Rowling In order

to facilitate the translator in the process of translation, especially at word level, her study is carried out at the endeavor of exploring the English verbs of giving and receiving and their corresponding variants Đào Thị Hồng Hạnh (2017) studies the sentences having verbs give and receive in comparison between Vietnamese and Japanese In her thesis, she concentrates on describing the verb on their layers of meaning or denotative meanings

In brief, these above works all study on the giving verb group in their

semantic features or on their denotative meanings, there is not any researches on the

giving verb group in both syntactic and semantic features in comparison between

English and Vietnamese equivalents as well From these reasons, I have decided to

have a study on syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group in English

and Vietnamese equivalents, with the hope that this research can partly facilitate teachers, and translators to be more awarded of the meanings and sentence patterns

including the giving verb group

2.2 Theoretical background

2.2.1 Theory of syntax

Syntax is defined as a set of rules in language It dictates how words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought According to Dixon (1991), syntax deals with the way in which words are combined together Verbs have different grammatical properties from language to language but there is always a major class verb, which includes word referring to motion, rest, and attention, giving and speaking

Linda Thomas(1993) states that languages are by nature extremely complex and describing a language, any language is not an easy task Syntax seeks to describe the way words fit together to form sentences or utterances

Syntax or sentence structure concerns with the way words combine together

in a language to form sentences Every language has a limited number of syntactic

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relations Subject and object are probably universal of syntactic relations, which apply to every language However, just as the criteria for the major words class noun and verb differ from language to language, so do the ways in which syntactic relations are marked

2.2.2 Theory of semantics

Semantics defined in ―The study of language‖ by George Yule is the study

of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences In semantic analysis, there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on what a speaker might want the words to mean on a particular occasion Also, linguistic semantics deals with the conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences of a language

According to David Crystal (2008) expresses his study as follow: Semantics

is a branch of linguistics devoted to the study of meaning in language In particular,

the approach called structural semantics applies the principles of structural linguistics to the study of meaning through the notion of semantics relations between lexical items (such as synonymy and antonymic) In generative grammar, the semantic component is a major area of the organization of a grammar, which assigns a semantic representation to a sentence and analyses lexical items of semantics features

In the preface of ―Linguistic semantics: An introduction‖, John Lyons

(1995) defines that ―semantics is the study of meaning in language‖ It is systematically encoded in the vocabulary and grammar of natural languages This definition of linguistic semantics, as far as it goes, is relatively uncontroversial But

it is also almost wholly uninformative unless and until one goes on to say, first, what one means by ―meaning‖ and, second, what exactly is meant by ―encoded‖ in this context He also explains that those who draw a terminological distinction between ―semantics‖ and ―pragmatics‖ and take narrower view of meaning than he does will see his book as introduction to a broader field of linguistic semantics and pragmatics

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2.2.3 Overview of English verbs

2.2.3.1 Definition of the English verb

The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2010) defines verb is a word which occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, number and mood, and refers to an action or state

For example:

He opened the door

Jane loves Tom

Alexander (1988) also gives the definition of English verb as a word (run) or

a phrase (run out of) which expresses the existence of a state (love, seem) or the doing of an action (take, play).He gives two terms of verbs: verbs are used to

express distinctions in time (past, present, future) through tense (often with adverbials of time or frequency); auxiliary verbs are used with full verbs to give

other information about actions and states For example, he may be used with the

present participle of a full verb to say that an action was going on ('in progress') at a

particular time (For example: was swimming); have may be used with the past participle of a full verb to say that an action is completed (For example: have

finished)

As stated by Dixon (1991), the definition of English verb is ―A verb is the

center of a clause‖ A verb refers to some activity and there must be a number of

participants who have roles in that activity as: Sinbad carried the old man; or it may refer to a state, and there must be a participant to experience the state as: My leg

aches

A set of verbs is grouped together as one semantic type partly because

they require the same set of participant roles All giving verbs require a Donor, a

Gift and a Recipient, as in:

John gave a bouquet to Mary

Jane lent the Saab to Bill

The Women‟s Institutes supplied the soldiers with socks

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(R.M.W Dixon, 1991: 9) According to David Crystal (2008), verb is a term used in the grammatical

classification of words, to refer to a class traditionally defined as ‗doing‘ or ‗action‘

words The formal definition of a verb refers to an element which can display morphological contrasts of tense, aspect, voice, mood, person and number Functionally, it is the element which, single or in combination with other verbs as a

‗verb phrase‘, is used as the minimal predicate of a sentence, co-occurring with a

subject (E.g she/wrote) If the predicate contains other elements (E.g object,

complement, adverbial), then it is the verb which more than any other is the unit

which influences the choice and extent of these elements; (E.g the verb put takes both an object and a locative adverbial, as in he put the book on the

table.) In many grammatical theories, accordingly, the verb is considered the

most important element in sentence structure

2.2.3.2 English verb classification

There are many different classifications of an English verb depending on

different categories According to Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written

English (2002), verbs are classified as follows:

Verbs perform two major functions in clauses: main verbs and auxiliary verbs Main verbs are the central element in a clause and autarky verbs qualify the meaning of the main verb In addition, verb forms can be grouped into three major classes according to their ability to function as main verbs or auxiliary verbs: Lexical verbs (run, eat, think) function only as main verbs, primary verbs (be, have, and do) can function as both auxiliary and main verbs, and modal verbs (can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must) function only as auxiliary verbs

In ―A new approach to English grammar on semantics principles‖, Dixon

states that verbs fall into two board subclasses-those that require only one role

(intransitive verb) and those which require two or more roles (transitive verbs)

There is considerable difference between intransitive subject and transitive subject

In term of the function within the verb phrase, Quirk et al (1985) states that

verbs are divided into open class of full verbs (or lexical verbs such as leave), and

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closed classes (be, have, do) of primary verbs and of modal auxiliary verbs (will,

might) Of these three classes, the full verbs can act only as main verbs, the modal

auxiliaries can act only as auxiliary verbs, and the primary verbs can act either as main verbs or as auxiliary verbs

In term of sentence patterns, Quirk et al (1985) classify verbs into two types:

intensive verbs and extensive verbs

a Intensive verbs

Intensive verbs are also called copular verbs, and they are usually followed

by a noun, or a noun phrase, and adjective or prepositional phrase Intensive verbs are used to describe the subject It means that the focus is on one thing, the subject only Intensive verbs appear in the structure ―S V C‖ or ―S V A‖ Words or phrases, which are followed by an intensive verb work as the subject compliment and they apply to the subject, not the verb Let‘s consider the following examples:

Your dinner seems ready (SVC)

My office is in the next building (SVA)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721)

b Extensive verbs

Extensive verbs are most other verbs, they do not have subject compliment Extensive verbs are used to say what the subject is doing It covers a wider area; it takes the information away from the subject Words or phrases, which are followed

by an extensive verb work as the verb‘s object They apply to the verb, not the

subject as in He stayed very quiet (Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 55)

Extensive verbs include three small types: monotransitive, complex transitive and ditransitive

Ditransitive verbs are verbs which take a subject and two objects or have the structure ―SVOO‖ According to certain linguistic considerations, these objectives may be called direct, indirect objectives, or primary and secondary objectives as in the following examples:

I must send my parents an anniversary card (SVOO)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721)

Most students have found her reasonably helpful (SVOC)

You can put the dish on the table (SVOA)

2.2.4 Overview of the Vietnamese verbs

Up to now, there has been a vast amount of research on the linguistic field in Vietnamese grammar and parts of speech Vietnamese is an isolating and analytic language in which grammatical meanings are shown chiefly through word order and function words (grammatical words) Also, Vietnamese words have the same forms

in different positions in sentences As a result, several grammatical structures are similar in form-organization but different in grammatical meanings

E.g.: Tôi đi làm bằng xe máy (I go to work by motorbike.)

Hôm qua tôi đi làm bằng xe máy

(Yesterday, I went to work by motorbike.)

In contrast with verbs in English, verbs in Vietnamese do not have the concord with other parts of speech In other words, they are not affected by number, gender, mood, voice and tense In Vietnamese, a sentence refers to the basic time of the context - that is the time which has been made clear in the context up to that point In addition, when playing function as central component of a verb phrase, verb can combine with other modal auxiliary components before it to indicate scope

of the action or activity such as „cũng‟,„đều‟, „cứ‟, etc to indicate continuation like

„còn‟, „vẫn‟, etc.; to indicate tense, aspect such as „sắp‟, „đang‟, „sẽ‟, „đã‟, etc.; to

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refer to negative meaning, for example: ‗chƣa‘, ‗không‘, ‗chẳng‘, etc.; to indicate

advice or prohibit such as: „hãy‟, „đừng‟, „chớ‟, and so on However, as Cao Xuân

Hạo suggested, such auxiliary components, especially „sắp‟, „đang‟, „sẽ,,„đã‟ should

be used with great care because in some cases these auxiliaries do not at all indicate

the tense For instances, a soldier reunited with his family for five days, and the next

day when he had to come back to his military unit His wife said to him: ―Ngày mai

anh đã đi rồi à?‖, ―đã‖ here does not indicate tense; it just helps to show regret

Obviously, in Vietnamese, context holds the key factor to define tense of the verbs

2.2.4.1 Definition of Vietnamese verb

According to Lê Biên (1990:70), and Diệp Quang Ban (2001:21),

Vietnemese verbs are substantives referring to progress, forms of movements They

may be activities (1), states (2), changing progress (3), and movement (4), etc

For example: (1) Cô ấy đọc sách / Anh ấy viết thƣ

(2) Nó nhớnhà./ Em hiểu bác mà

(3) GS Ngô Bảo Châu đã trở thành nhà bác học nổi tiếng thế

giới

(4) Bạn tôi đi thành phố Hồ Chí Minh rồi

2.2.4.2 Vietnamese verb classification

With regards to linguistics, there have been many different ways to classify

verbs in each language by different authors However, the classification of the verbs

by Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung will be applied in this thesis The two

linguisticians study and classify Vietnamese verbs into two kinds: Independent

verbs (động từ độc lập) and dependent verbs (động từ không độc lập) The

independent verbs are verbs followed by a direct object (thing or person that

receives the action of the verb) The independent verbs can not stand alone to

complete the meaning of the sentences including these verbs

For example: Lan đưa tôi cuốn sách Tôi yêu Hà Nội In contrast, dependent

verbs stand alone in a sentence without any help verbs For example: Trời mưa, Cô

ấy hát, etc However, some verbs can be both dependent verbs and independent

verbs depending the way they are used The verb break, for instance, sometimes

Dependent

verb

By Adjunct followed

viết, đánh, đi, nói, nghe Action yêu, ghét,thích, mê …

thấy, cảm thấy

State

By notional words followed

ngồi, đứng, nằm, lăn … ngủ, thức, cười … cằn nhằn, hậm hực … đánh, trồng, học … cho, tặng, gửi, lấy

Action (notional words needn‘t

be required/ intransitive verbs)

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Dependent

verb

By notional words followed

sai, bảo, khiến …

ra, vào, lên, xuống …

đi, chạy, bò, lăn

kéo, đẩy, xô

action (notional words are usually required / monotransitive verbs or ditransitive verbs)

Table 2.1: Verb classification in Vietnamese Grammar

Source: Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung (1992:100)

2.3 Theoretical framework

2.3.1 Overview of the giving verb group in English

Regarding to verb classes, Quirk et al (1985:53) state that there are three main verb classes Quirk et al claim that intranstitive verbs are followed by no obligatory element, and occur in type SV Transitive verbs are followed by an object, and occur in types SVO, SVOO, SVOC, and SVOA respectively Colpular verbs are followed by a Subject complement or Adverbial, and occur in types SVC and SVA In a general sense, the term transitive is often applied to all verbs which required an object, including those of clause types SVOO, SVOC, and SVOA The patterns below give a further classification The transitive verbs can be classified in

to smaller classes as monotransitive verbs, ditransitive verbs, or complex transitive verbs

TRANSITIVE VERBS

Monotransitive verbs occur in type SVO

Ditransitive verbs occur in type SVOO Complex transitive verbs occur in type SVOC

and SVOA

In a sentence (a simple sentence or multiple sentence), a verb belongs to the giving

verb group can be followed by a direct object and indirect object or by no obligatory

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element One verb can be intransitive verb or transitive verb in different sentences Different verb classes require different complementation (Od, Oi, Cs, Co, A) to complete the meaning of the verb, or no complementation

Through investigating the six English verbs in the dictionary, the author has the classification of these verbs as below:

No Verb Intransitive Transitive

Table 2.2: The classification of the six English verbs in the giving verb group

The five English verbs in the giving verb group can be intransitive verbs or

transitive verbs depending on the sentence pattern which they join There is only

verb lend which is always transitive verb Therefore, this verb is followed by

objects

Semantically, Angela Downing and Philip Locke (2002:90), state that there

are two main types of ditransitive complementation: the basic type, in which an Indirect Object is followed by a Direct Object, and another, in which a Direct Object is followed by a prepositional Object They also classify give verbs into the

verbs of transfer For example: I gave her a present This is the basic ditransitive

pattern Three-place verbs like give have a subject and two Objects, representing the

transfer of goods or information from one person to another

(He showed his driving license to the policeman.)

As the examples show, the indirect Object has a prepositional counterpart,

the give type with to, and the prepositional functions as a prepositional object

E.g.: I gave a present to her

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On the semantic aspect, Dixon (1991:86) states that giving verb group has three core roles appear in two kinds of constructions with alternative roles being mapped onto transitive object

E.g.:

(a) Mary sent a present to the doctor

Donor gift recipient

(b) Mary sent the doctor a present

Donor recipient gift

In the three semantic roles, the subject – transitive subject is Donor, the two other objects are Gift and Recipient, and the verb is transitive verb which must have NPs (not complement clauses)

2.3.2 Overview of the giving verb group in Vietnamese

According to Lê Biên (1999), the Vietnamese giving verbs are independent

verbs which can not be used to make a full sentence itself without any other help

verbs He also gives the structure of the giving verbs in sentences

A – V-A2-A1 or A – V-A1-A2

(A are nouns or pronouns, V is verb, and A1 is thing or people that is influenced, A1 is things which is given or received)

E.g.:

Em tặng cô bó hoa A – V-A2-A1

Em tặng bó hoa cho cô A – V-A1-A2

In this structure, it requires at least one complement, and the other can be

omitted He gives the list of giving verbs such as tặng, cho, biếu, cấp, phát, trả,

nộp, đền, dâng

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According to Lâm Quang Đông (2008), he studies the Vietnamese giving verb group in the constructions of sentences and the constructions denotative meaning He states eight kinds of sentence structures in both active and passive voice

1 NP1+ V trao/ tặng + NP2 + NP3

Example 1: She gave me all her life

Cô ấy trao cho tôi cả cuộc đời

2 NP1 + V trao/ tặng + NP3 cho +NP2

(use preposition to is used) Example 2: He handed the bag to me

Anh ta đưa cái túi cho tôi

Example 3: The girl was presented with a million roses by the artist

Cô gái được tặng triệu bông hồng bởi chàng họa sỹ

Example 4: Meggie got a letter from Like

Meggie nhận được một lá thue của Luke

Example 5: Bill got a letter

Bill nhận được một bức thư

Example 7: The book was given to me by mistake

Cuốn sách được đưa nhầm cho tôi

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In term of the meaning of the giving verb group, Lâm Quang Đông (2008:110) states the giving verb group in Vietnamese has four layers of meaning

1 Control - possession relation

In Vietnamese, the meaning of the giving verb group mainly is the change the right of control and possession from the owners to others

X khiến Y có Z

2 Spatial-Dynamic relation

In this kind of meaning, the movement of the things from givers to receivers

is mentioned The space between from givers to receivers varies differently

X khiến Z tới Y

3 The meaning of human interest

This layer of meaning shows who receive benefits from the giving or

receiving action

X làm cho Y phải chịu đựng Z

4 The meaning of power

This layer of meaning shows the relationship between the givers and receivers in the aspects of age, positions, and relationship in their family and

in the social The upward relationship is the relationship between the lower positions in comparison with the the higher positions of givers of receivers

In this occasion, the giving verb hiến, cúng, biếu (donate, devote) are used

In contrast, the downward relationship is the relationship between the higher positions in comparison with the the lower positions of givers of receivers

The giving verb phú, ban (bestow, endow) are used

He also mentions to three participants to make a full sentence with the

giving verb group as below:

đối thể (theme), tạo thể (complement), công cụ (instrument)

syntactic and semantic features of the giving verbs in English

Moreover, the definition of the verb and classification of verb are pointed out

in details Finally, theoretical background is given briefly reviewed what has been found and discussed the related studies by describing their approaches and key findings, but then identify weaknesses in the approach and limitations in the findings

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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter introduces the subjects which are objective entities analyzed, instruments, techniques used to collect data and find out the results of the research, and procedures which are steps of processing the research In addition, statistical analyses are mentioned to demonstrate the process used for analysis of data

3.1 Subjects

The research takes the six English verbs in the giving verb group as follows:

give, lend, pay, present, donate, exchange as the subjects to study These verbs are

studied on their usages and meanings to sum up their general syntactic and semantic features

3.2 Instrumentation

The sources which the six English verbs are investigated are from many official English documents The most important documents used to quote examples are the 8 bilingual English and Vietnamese literary works on bookstores and libraries in Vietnam

The names of these 8 bilingual English and Vietnamese literary works are listed in the corpora, and the contrastive translation between English and Vietnamese are mentioned in the appendix

Next, a large amount of dictionaries in both English and Vietnamese or

bilingual dictionaries are considered such as: Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary (2015); NTC’s Pocket Dictionary of Words and Phrases (2002); Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics (1987); Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary with Vietnamese translation (2014); English- Vietnamese dictionary (2014) Additionally, there are numerous

theoretical books about syntax and semantic in English, English verbs, Vietnamese

verbs are referred such as A New Approach to English Grammar on Semantic

Principles (1991); Semantic Structures (1990); English Verb Classes and

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Alternations: A preliminary investigation (1993); Động từ trong Tiếng việt (1977);

Từ loại tiếng Việt hiện đại (1999), and so on

3.3 Procedures

In order to accomplish the thesis, the study uses an authentic and realistic data which are 213 quotes and examples taken from bilingual English- Vietnamese novels, short stories Firstly, the 8 English and Vietnamese literary works are chosen at random The number of the works, the year of the works written, the length and the structure of each work are not considered

The examples having six English verbs are quoted, analyzed and used as the chief source for the qualitative evidence

When analyzing data, the syntactic features of the six English giving verbs

and their Vietnamese equivalents are presented through clear and understandable examples firstly

Then the semantic features of the six English verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents are presented in turn

After that the frequency or percentage in using of the six English giving

verbs are investigated

After presenting the syntactic and semantic features of English giving verb

group and their Vietnamese equivalents, the discussions of findings are carried out

in order to find out the differences and similarities of each matter mentioned to state

the differences and similarities in English and Vietnamese giving verb group

Some solutions for teaching English, translating from English into

Vietnamese the giving verb group are suggested For the language teaching, the teachers have to instruct students the giving verb group in both syntactic and

semantic features Syntactically, teachers should give students some basic

knowledge on the giving verb group from the sentence elements to sentence patterns in detail Based on the understanding on the semantic features of the giving

verb group, a translator will have more choices in choosing the equivalent words in their translating

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3.4 Statistical analysis

Based on the scan versions of English and Vietnamese literary works, the researcher will use find and count tool in the PDF software in orders to get

sentences occurring the verbs give, lend, pay, present, donate, exchange The find

tools give out total 213 sentences and the analyzing the syntactic and semantic

features of six verbs are carried out Finally, the author can obtain the syntactic and semantic features of these six verbs and the occurrence frequency of each verb as well as

Order Bilingual English and Vietnamese literary

works Number of examples

Total 213

Table 3.1: Total data for the research references

and quoted sources

3.5 Summary

To sum up, in this chapter, the author provides readers with the context of the study, subjects of the study, instruments, procedures, statistical analysis Research governing orientations and research methods are two important elements

to help the author to do the study The methods are used in this study include

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descriptive and contrastive analysis methods The data are collected from the Bilingual English and Vietnamese literary works because their popularities These data is of high importance for chapter four and chapter five, in which the author answers the research questions and withdraw conclusion for the whole study

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Chapter 4

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FEATURES OF

ENGLISH GIVING VERB GROUP AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS IN TERMS OF SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

In this chapter, the syntactic and semantic features of the giving verb group

in English as well as in Vietnamese are mentioned separately After, the comparison between the syntactic and semantics feature are invested to give the implications for

teaching, translating the giving verb group in both English and Vietnamese

4.1 Syntactic features of English giving verb group in terms of sentence

elements and sentence patterns

4.1.1 In terms of sentence elements

4.1.1.1 Subject (S) element

According to Quirk et al (1985:719), elements such as subject and verb are constituents of sentences and also of clauses within sentences He states that the subject is the most important in that it is the element that is most often present

It is also the element for which we can find the greatest number of characteristic features Relating to the form of subject, the subject is normally a noun phrase or a nominal clause Mentioning to the position of subject, the subject normally occurs before the verb in declarative clauses, clauses, and after the operator in yes-no interrogative clauses Syntactically, a subject is obligatory in finite clauses except in imperative clauses, where it is normally absent but implies

Through investigating the 213 sentences having the giving verb group in 8

bilingual English and Vietnamese literary works , there is only 1 sentence ( 0,5% )

that the giving verb appears in a noun phrase at the position of a subject

(1) Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my

reaction

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(Trong phản ứng ấy, tôi chỉ chừa có Gatsby, người được lấy tên đặt cho cuốn sách này.)

A subject is obligatory in finite clauses except in imperative clauses, where it

is normally absent but implied There are 18 sentences (8,5%) that the subject is omitted or implied

(1) Must be in the Lord‘s plan to give us challenges

(Hẳn phải là kế hoạch của Chúa để ngăn chặn một điều gì đó tồi tệ hơn xảy ra.) (2) Don't give yourself airs!

(Đừng vênh váo nữa con.)

(3) ―Give your evidence,‖ said the King; 'and don't be nervous, or I'll have you

executed on the spot

(Hãy đưa ra bằng chứng đi và đừng có sợ run lên như thế, nếu không ta sẽ

hành quyết.)

(4) ―Give your evidence,‖ the King repeated angrily, or I'll have you executed,

whether you're ervous or not

(Hãy đưa ra bằng chứng đi Nếu không ta sẽ cho hành quyết ngươi bất kể

ngươi có run sợ hay không.)

(5) ―Give your evidence,‖ said the King

(Hãy trình bằng chứng của ngươi ra - Vua ra lệnh.)

(6) "Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight," he added

(Nào giúp tớ một tay trước lúc chú mày phới!)

(7) Yeah? Give her to me, boy

(Thật sao, cho tao đi mày.)

(8) Listen Give her my regards, willya?

(Này, chuyển giúp tao lời chào nhé?)

(9) All right, give it back to me, then

(Được, được, thế thì trả bài luận lại đây)

(10) Listen Give her my compliments

(Nghe này, anh chuyển hộ lời chào của tôi đến cô ấy nhé.)

(11) Give her my compliments Okay?

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(Nghe này, hãy chuyển lời chào của tôi đến cô ấy nhé.)

(12) Give mother a kiss

(Hôn mẹ nào.)

(13) Just give me two bucks, is all

(Đưa anh hai đô thôi.)

(14) Give her good care, and she‘ll get well

(Ráng chăm sóc thì cô ấy sẽ khỏi.)

(15) Make him pay for the line, he thought

(Bắt nó trả sợi dây, lão nghĩ.)

(16) Make him pay for it

(Bắt nó trả sợi dây.)

(17) Now give it back," the little girl said timidly

(Bây giờ thì trả cho cháu đây, cô bé rụt rè đòi.)

(18) Give a poor man a smoke, sir," he said

(Ông chủ ơi cho kẻ khó này xin điếu thuốc với nào.)

4.1.1.2 Verb (V) element

According to the previous study, verbs belonging to the giving verb group in

English can be both intransitive and transitive verbs In case of being intransitive verbs, these verbs are elements in the SV, SVC, SVA sentence patterns In case of being intransitive verbs, these verbs can appear as monotransitive verbs, ditransitive verbs, or complex transitive verbs in the SVOO, SVOC, SVOA sentence patterns

The verb give is found as intransitive, monotransitive, ditransitive, and complex transitive verbs The verb lend is found only as ditransitive verbs In addition, the verb pay occurs as intransitive, monotransitive, ditransitive, and complex transitive verbs The verb present plays roles as monotransitive, and ditransitive verbs The verb donate appears as only ditransitive verbs The verb

exchange is in the roles of monotransitive, ditransitive verbs

As investigating on 8 bilingual English and Vietnamese literary works with

213 verbs in sentences, the six verbs in the giving verb group appears as follow

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percentage The number of intransitive verbs are 11( 5,2%), monotransitive verbs are 42 ( 19,7%), ditransitive verbs are 139 ( 65,3 % ), and complex transitive verbs are 21 ( 9,8 %)

Frequency of the six giving verbs

in terms of sentence elements

Examples of intransitive verb:

(1) As he was fighting back his tears and sniffling, Margaret had already given in

to hers and sat weeping on the couch, unable to speak

(Trong lúc nó đang cố gắng ngăn những giọt nước mắt và tiếng sụt sịt, Margaret

đã đầu hàng những giọt nước mắt của mình và ngồi khóc trên ghế sofa, không

thốt nên lời.)

(2) Men were not and when same of the filaments would catch on a line and rest there slimy and purple while the old man was working a fish, he would have welts and sores on his arms and hands of the sort that poison ivy or poison oak

can give

(Ông lão đã chạm phải làm cả cánh tay lẫn bàn tay nhức nhối như thể khi chạm phải một dây trường xuân độc hay loài sồi độc.)

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(3) The tall door topped by a murky fanlight was usually locked, but the latch fit

the mortise loosely and when pressed hard, the door would give, buckle and

open

(Tấm cửa cao lắp kính mờ ở phía trên lúc nào cũng đóng im ỉm, nhưng then cửa

lại cài hờ hờ, chỉ cần đẩy tay vào là nó kênh lên và bật ra.)

(4) They saw Charles turn and make one step to run back, and then a whole section

of ice give way and dogs and humans disappear

(Họ nhìn thấy Sác quay ngoắt lại và cố dấn thêm 1 bước để chạy trở lui, rồi thì

toàn bộ cả 1 mảng băng lớn tụt hẳn xuống, lũ chó và người biến mất.)

(5) He would give in, and the clerk, having filled his basket with wellmade,

excellent toys, would leave, laughing up his sleeve

(Anh hết muốn tranh cãi với người lái buôn, và y cuối cùng đã mua được rẻ Y

cho những đồ chơi chắc chắn, tuyệt đẹp ấy vào làn rồi ra về, tủm tỉm cười.) (6) Jamie never wanted to ask people straight out for the money, she wanted them

to give voluntarily.)

(Jamie chưa bao giờ trực tiếp hỏi xin tiền, con bé muốn mọi người tự nguyện

đóng góp.)

(7) Even ministers had bills to pay

(Ngay cả các mục sư cũng có những hóa đơn cần chi trả.)

(8) Make him pay for it

(Bắt nó trả sợi dây.)

(9) Make him pay for the line, he thought

(Bắt nó trả sợi dây, lão nghĩ.)

(10) Think they'll make ya pay for em?

(Thế chắc bọn chúng bắt mày chịu cả tiền vé chứ gì?)

Examples of monotransitive verb:

(1) Just then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the

bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself and given some line

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(Đúng lúc ấy, bất thình lình con cá giật mạnh, kéo lão ngã sấp xuống mũi

thuyền và suýt lôi lão xuống biển nếu lão không gồng hết sức níu giữ và nới thêm dây.)

(2) If he was called to give the answer, he would almost always give the right one,

and he‘d turn his head from side to side with a smug look on his face, as if proving how superior his intellect was when pared with those of the other peons

in the room

(Mà nếu có bị gọi bất chợt, hầu như lúc nào nó cũng trả lời đúng, và nó sẽ quay

bên này bên kia với vẻ mặt tự mãn, như thể chứng mình trí tuệ siêu việt của mình khi só sánh với những đứa khác trong lớp.)

(3) She was wearing the sweater I‘d given her, just like she‘d promised

(Như đã hứa, con bé mặc chiếc áo len tôi tặng.)

(4) But what I can do is to let another share in the joy that she has always given me

(Nhưng điều tôi có thể làm là để một người khác cùng chia sẻ niềm vui mà con

bé đã luôn mang đến cho tôi.)

(5) ―Give your evidence,‖ said the King; 'and don't be nervous, or I'll have you

executed on the spot

(Hãy đưa ra bằng chứng đi và đừng có sợ run lên như thế, nếu không ta sẽ

hành quyết.)

(6) I took their check off them, but they wouldn't let me pay it

(Tôi giành lấy hai tấm phiếu ghi tiền, nhưng họ nhất định không chịu để tôi trả.)

(7) I insisted on paying the check

(Tôi một mực đòi trả tiền.)

(8) He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who

could not pay the price of a professional

(Lão kiếm sống bằng nghề làm người mẫu cho các họa sĩ trẻ trong khu thuộc

địa vì các họa sĩ trẻ này không đủ tiền mướn các người mẫu chuyên nghiệp.)

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Examples of ditransitive verb:

(1) I can‘t say that I was happy about hearing from her, and for a second I

wondered who had given her my phone number before I realized it was

probably in the church records

(Không thể nói tôi vui mừng khi nghe thấy giọng con bé, và trong một giây tôi

tự hỏi ai đã cho con bé số điện thoại nhà tôi nhưng rồi tôi kịp nhận ra có thể nó

tìm được trong danh sách ở nhà thờ.)

(2) Miss Garber had given him the role because he‘d been the only one who offered

to do it, but eventhen it was obvious she didn‘t want him either

(Cô Garber giao vai diễn cho Eddie chỉ vì nó là đứa duy nhất đề nghị được làm

việc này, nhưng thậm chí như thế, người ta vẫn thấy rõ là cô Garber cũng không muốn nó nhận vai.)

(3) Jamie had given me her Bible

(Jamie tặng tôi cuốn Kinh thánh của mình.)

(4) The doctors have given me some medicine for the pain, and it seems to help a

little

(Các bác sĩ cho mình thuốc giảm đau, vậy nên cũng đỡ hơn một chút.)

(5) I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas

(Cứ mỗi dịp lễ giáng sinh, mình sẽ mua cho chúng một đôi giày

(6) I'll give him sixpence

(Tôi sẽ cho anh ta 6 xu.)

(7) I'll give you a thousand for him, sir, a thousand, sir twelve hundred, sir."

(Tôi xin nộp ngài 1000, ngài để nó cho tôi thưa ngài, 1000, thưa ngài, 1200,

thưa ngài.)

(8) We all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive

(Chúng tôi tất cả phải đứng lên hoan hô lão.)

(9) All right, Katspaugh, don‘t pay him a penny till he shuts his mouth

(Được rồi, Katspaugh này, đừng có mà trả cho hắn dù chỉ một xu chừng nào

hắn chưa câm cái mồm.)

(10) They'd pay me a salary and all for it