syntactic and semantic features of “play” in english and “chơi” in vietnamese

An investigation of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features is carried out in the present study.. The findings of the study are concerned with

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Nguyễn Duy Tân

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE

MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Nguyễn Duy Tân

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC

FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2020

DECLARATION BY AUTHOR

Except where reference has been made in the text, this thesis contains

no material previously published or written by another person

I, Nguyễn Duy Tân, hereby state that this thesis is the result of my ownresearch and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, beensubmitted for any degrees to any other universities or institutions

Author’s Signature

Nguyễn Duy Tân

Approved bySUPERVISOR

Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D.

Date:………

i

The completion of this thesis is credited to many people’s contributions and support I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all most sincerely, knowing that my thanks are never adequate.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep appreciation to Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph D., my supervisor, for his helpful and warm encouragement as well as his insightful comments on my work from the beginning to the end of the study.

In addition, I would like to thank all of the lecturers who gave me interesting lessons, dedication and advice during my study at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences.

I also offer my special thanks to my beloved pupils and friends whose support and encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished.

Last but not least, I must express my gratitude to my family It is their endless love and expectations that have motivated me to complete this thesis I

am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given me.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

DECLARATION BY AUTHOR……… i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… ii

ABSTRACT……… vi

LIST OF TABLES……… vii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION……… 1

1.1 Rationale……… 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study……… 2

1.3 Research questions……… 2

1.4 Scope of the study……… 3

1.5 Significance of the study……… 3

1.6 Methodology……… 4

1.6.1 Data collection……… 4

1.6.2 Research methods……… 4

1.6.3 Underlying theoretical frameworks……… 5

1.7 Structure of the study……… 9

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW……… 10

2.1 Words and word classes……… 10

2.1.1 Polysemy of words……… 10

2.1.2 Word classes……… 12

2.2 Review of the previous research works……… 17

2.3 Chapter summary……… 17

Chapter 3: SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE……… 19

3.1 Syntactic features of “play” in English……… 19

3.1.1 “Play” as a verb……… 19

iii

3.1.2 “Play” as a noun……… 27

3.2 Syntactic features of “chơi” in Vietnamese……… 29

3.2.1 “Chơi” as a verb……… 29

3.2.2 “Chơi” as an adverb……… 31

3.3 A comparison between “play” in English and “chơi” in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features……… 31

3.3.1 Syntactic features found in both languages……… 31

3.3.2 Syntactic features unique to English……… 32

3.3.3 Syntactic features unique to Vietnamese……… 33

3.4 Chapter summary……… 34

Chapter 4: SEMANTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE……… 36

4.1 Semantic features of “play” in English……… 36

4.1.1 “Play” as a verb……… 36

4.1.2 “Play” as a noun……… 42

4.2 Semantic features of “chơi” in Vietnamese……… 44

4.2.1 “Chơi” as a verb……… 44

4.2.2 “Chơi” as an adverb……… 47

4.3 A comparison between “play” in English and “chơi” in Vietnamese in terms of semantic features ……… 47

4.3.1 Semantic features found in both languages……… 47

4.3.2 Semantic features unique to English……… 48

4.3.3 Semantic features unique to Vietnamese……… 51

4.4 Chapter summary……… 52

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION……… 54

5.1 Recapitulation……… 54

5.2 Concluding remarks……… 57

5.3 Implications……… 58

iv

5.3.1 For English teaching and learning……… 585.3.2 For translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa.……… 595.4 Limitations and suggestions for further studies……… 59

REFERENCES……… 61

v

An investigation of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of

syntactic and semantic features is carried out in the present study Descriptionand contrastive analysis are regarded as the main methods used in the presentthesis The findings of the study are concerned with the similarities and

differences between play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic

and semantic features In order to collect the data, a hand search approach of thedictionaries in both languages has been conducted, which helps to establish thenumber of meanings of each word

In the present study, the theoretical fameworks (theory of contrastiveanalysis; theory of syntax and semantics) are applied to both English andVietnamese Additionally, an overview of some theoretical background dealingwith the general concepts of syntax, semantics, words, polysemy of words andword classification is presented for the background of analyzing the syntactic

and semantic features of the two words, play in English and chơi in Vietnamese.

Our investigation reveals that play in English and chơi in Vietnamese may function as verbs The biggest difference between play in English and chơi in

Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features lies in the verbal forms and the ordinate possibility of each in the clauses In terms of semantic features, thefindings of the study reveals that there are 11 meanings in common conveyed by

co-the two verbs, play in English and chơi in Vietnamese When working as a verb, play in English has more meanings than chơi in Vietnamese There are 21 meanings conveyed by play, unique to English whereas chơi has 7 meanings which are unique to Vietnamese Play in English may be a noun which has five main meanings, and chơi in Vietnamese can function as an adverb and has only

one meanings The thesis also presents the implications for English teaching andlearning as well as translation

vi

LIST OF TABLES

PageTable 3.1 Forms and functions of the verb “play” in English (adapted from Quirk & Greenbaum (1987))……… … 20

vii

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

It is a fact that language is an essential form of communication It allowspeople to convey and elaborate their perspective It means that language is thebridge to connect people all over the world Therefore, language is a subtle andcomplex instrument used to communicate an incredible number of differentthings Bloomfield (1933) states that “we could not understand the form of alanguage if we merely reduced all the complex forms to their ultimateconstituents” By this, he means that in order to account for the meaning of asentence, it is necessary to recognize how individual constituents (such wordsand morphemes) constitute more complex forms

Wilkins (1972, p.11) emphasizes the importance of vocabulary, and hewrites: “without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary,nothing can be conveyed” Furthermore, Pyles and Algeo (1970) suppose that

“when we first think about language, we think about words It is words that wearrange together to make sentences, conversation and discourse of all kinds” Infact, vocabulary is the decisive element that links the four skills of speaking,reading, listening and writing all together In order to communicate well in aforeign language, we should acquire a great number of words and know how touse them accurately Nevertheless, vocabulary of both English and Vietnamesehas its own features that could raise difficulties for language teachers andlearners and makes both teaching and learning English still far from beingsatisfaction In the process of teaching English, it is recognized that even a

simple word like play also makes students confused much due to its syntactic and semantic features and its Vietnamese equivalent In English, the word play

can combined with other words to form phrases, clauses and sentences in alanguage Therefore, it is necessary that the teachers of English acquire adequateknowledge of the word order and the relationships between words In term ofsemantic features, it has both denotaion and connotaion meanings that learners

of English have to base on the context In Vietnamese, the word chơi is not only

a verb which indicates a physical activity only but also other kinds of wordimplying different meanings in real life communication

As a teacher of English, I find that learners may know a lot of Englishlexical items by learning vocabulary word-lists by heart but they do not knowhow to use them in appropriate contexts The difficulties that Vietnameselearners may meet are not only in semantic features but also in syntactic forms

as well

For the reasons above, the thesis entitled “Syntactic and Semantic Features of "Play" in English and "Chơi" in Vietnamese” is chosen for my study.

The study is carried out in the hope to have a good knowledge of the two words,

to deal with specific teaching and learning predicaments, and to help the authorsuccessfully accomplish the challenging tasks Moreover, the author also hopesthat this attempt will help Vietnamese learners of English have a better

understanding of the word play in English and then use it in daily learning and

communication effectively

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The aim of the study is clarifying the features of play in English and chơi

in Vietnamese to help the learners to learn and use these words corectly andeffectively

In order to achieve the aim, the study is expected to reach the followingobjectives:

- To investigate the syntactic features of play in English and chơi in

What are the similarites and differences between play in English and chơi

in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features?

1.4 Scope of the study

The present study investigates the syntactic and semantic features of play

in English and chơi in Vietnamese The description and the analysis of the

features of the two words are from recently published dictionaries All theauthors of these works affirm that all the forms and meanings of these words arecurrent and used, or undersood by most native speakers

1.5 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the findings of the study, to some extent, prove that thetheoretical frameworks (the theory of contrastive analysis and the theory ofsyntax and sematics) are effective in studying languages in general and words inparticular The two words are quite popular; therefore, the investigation is highlyreliable in terms of theoretical frameworks suggested

Practically, for language teaching (both English and Vietnamese), the studyfacilitates learners’ communication because language is for communication, andwords are an indispensable part of expressions The work will provide assistance

to English-speaking learners of Vietnamese and Vietnamese learners of English

to distinguish the uses of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese The work will

also enable learners to tell when the two words are similar and different, which

is likely to be useful for their study Language teachers will be aided to helptheir learners reach this communicative goal For translation, knowledge ofwords from this work will help translators find closest equivalents to theexpressions in the source language

1.6 Methodology

1.6.1 Data Collection

It is a matter of fact that we can make comparison of languages in variousways We may start from categories of traditional grammar, phrases, a wholevocabulary or a collection of texts (Dirven & Verspoor, 2004, p 250) with anyappropriate database and procedures The usage-based or empirically based(Bybee, 2009) foundation of cognitive grammar suggests that real linguisticexamples taken from genuine usage-data should form the basis for linguisticanalysis and theory construction (Langlotz, 2006; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, &Svartvik, 1985)

Accordingly, the recent development of linguistics has witnessed the rise

of corpus-linguistics, which bases linguistic analyses on large computer-aidedcorpora of both spoken and written language (Kemmer & Barlow, 2000) Cross-linguistic corpus studies require comparable corpora While there is a widerange of corpora, such as the Bank of English (owned by Collins COBUILD) or

the British National Corpus for English (BNC), for the analysis of English, no

such corpora are readily available for Vietnamese We deliberately use standardreference works; granted, this choice limits the scope of this study, thedictionaries are a significant part of public discourse and dictionary entries are,

by their nature, extracted from their natural context (Deignan, 2005) They arethus representative of the way in which a speech community constructs itscultural models through language – in this case the way in which the Englishand Vietnamese cultures conceptualize or encode the emotions in question

The data for the present study comes from standard current dictionaries inboth English and Vietnamese, which are valuable tools for the scientific study oflanguages due to their “objective and readily verifiable reference”

1.6.2 Research Methods

Due to the main aims and objectives of the study, description andcontrastive exploitation would be mainly carried out throughout the process

Also, the thesis makes use of the English language as the target and theVietnamese one as the source language (the base language).

Descriptive method is used to describe in details the syntactic and

semantic features of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese.

Contrastive analysis will be used to identify the similarities and

differences between play in English and chơi in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic

and semantic features

1.6.3 Underlying theoretical frameworks

We will apply a select range of theories to the investigation of the

syntactic and semantic features of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese: the

theory of contrastive analysis and the theory of syntax and semantics

i) Theory of contrastive analysis

According to Krzeszowski (1990 p 35), ‘No exact or reliable exploration

of facts can be conducted without a theoretical background, providing concepts,hypotheses, and theories which enable the investigator to describe the relevantfacts and to account for them in terms of significant generalizations’ (cited inNguyễn Văn Trào, 2009, p 12)

In the present inquiry, the theories of contrastive linguistics of König andGast (2008) and Chaturvedi (1973) are applied to the investigation of the

syntactic and semantic features of play in English and chơi in Vietnamese.

König and Gast (2008) suppose that contrastive linguistics is a branch ofcomparative linguistics that is concerned with pairs of languages which are

‘socio-culturally linked’ According to these authors, two languages can be said

to be socio-culturally linked when (i) they are used by a considerable number ofbi- or multilingual speakers, and/or (ii) a substantial amount of ‘linguisticoutput’ (text, discourse) is translated from one language into the other Englishand Vietnamese are socio-cultural linked because they satisfy both criteria givenabove

Contrastive linguistics invariably requires a socio-cultural link betweenthe languages investigated, but that it is not restricted to pair wise language

comparison Contrastive linguistics thus aims to arrive at results that carry thepotential of being used for practical purposes, e.g in foreign language teachingand translation As it provides the descriptive basis for such applications, itsresearch programme can also be summarized as ‘comparison with a purpose’.

‘Comparison’ in the present study is understood as the identification ofsimilarities and differences between two or more categories along a specific (setof) dimension(s) (König and Gast 2008) We mean that the categories comparedmust be of the same type, i.e there has to be a set of properties that they have incommon in both languages

In order to carry out a contrastive study, Chaturvedi (1973) suggests someguiding principles as follows:

(i) to analyse the mother tongue and the target language independentlyand completely; (ii) to compare the two languages item-wise-item at alllevels of their structure; (iii) to arrive at the categories of a) similarfeatures, b) partially similar features, c) dissimilar features - for the targetlanguage; and (iv) to arrive at principles of text preparation, test framingand target language teaching in general

The contrastive analysis emphasises the influence of the mother tongue inlearning a second language and translation This type of study will provide anobjective and scientific base for second language teaching as well as translation.For knowing the significantly similar structural and semantic properties in bothlanguages, the first step to be adopted is that both languages should be analysedindependently After the independent analysis, to sort out the different features

of the two languages, comparison of the two languages is necessary From thisanalysis it is easy to make out that at different levels of structural and semanticproperties of these two languages there are some features quite similar and somequite dissimilar

ii) Theory of syntax and semantics

Theory of syntax

Syntax is a set of rules in language It dictates how words from differentparts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought.According to Dixon (1991), syntax deals with the way in which words arecombined together Syntax is understood to be the 7 theory of the structure ofsentences in a language This view has its direct antecedents in the theory ofimmediate constituents, in which the function of syntax is to mediate betweenthe observed forms of a sentence and its meaning Bloomfield (1933), he states

“we could not understand the form of a language if we merely reduced all thecomplex forms to their ultimate constituents” He argued that in order to accountfor the meaning of a sentence, it is necessary to recognize how individualconstituents such words and morphemes constitute more complex forms

Syntax is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways inwhich words are combined to form phrases, clauses and sentences in a language.Syntax, which is a subfield of grammar, focuses on the word order of a languageand the relationships between words In other words, morphology deals withword formation out of morphemes whereas syntax deals with phrase andsentence formation out of words Syntax structures are analyzable intosequences of syntactic categories or syntactic classes, these being established onthe basic of the syntactic relationships and linguistic items have with other items

in a construction Every language has a limited number of syntactic relations.Subject and object are probably universal of syntactic relations, which apply toevery language However, just as the criteria for the major words class noun andverb differ from language to language, so do the ways in which syntacticrelations are marked

Theory of semantics

Semantics is a branch of linguistics which relates with meaning.Semanticsis considered as a study of meaning in language It deals with theexpression oflinguistic objects such as word, phrases and sentences It does not

pay attention tothe syntactical arrangement or pronounciation of linguisticobject As states by Katz (1972, p 1), “Semantics is the study of linguisticmeaning It is concered withwhat sentence and other linguistics object express,not with the arrangement withtheir syntactic parts or with their pronounciation.”Semantics has long been an object of study within the philosophy It issaid thatthe term semantics itself was introduced into English at the end of the19thcentury There are some term semantics in various defenition by some expert,they are: Palmer (1976, p 1) states “Semantics is the technical term used to refer

to study of meaning.” Hornby (1972, p 789) has defined “Semantics is branch

of linguistics concerned with studying the meaning of words andsentences.”

Lyons (1977, p 1) defines “Semantics is generally defined as the studyofmeaning.” Siregar (1992, p 2) states “Semantics is the study of the meaning

of words, phrases, or sentences in the language or semantics is the study ofmeaning inlanguage.”Semantics has developed and becaome worthy study.There are two factors that make semantics become important and worthy study.First, meaning is strictlyconnected with communication A certain meaning can

be delivered throughcommuncation plays an important role in human life.Second, the process ofhuman attempts to comprehend the nature of meaninginvolves the mental ability by the use of reasoning and perception As stated byLeech (1989, p ix), “Semantics is central to the study of communication; and ascommunication becomes more and more crucial factor in social organization, theneed tounderstand it becomes more and more pressing Semantics is also at thecentre ofthe study of the himan mind-thought process, cognition andconceptualization.” Ridwan (1997, p 45) in Saleh (2008) states that there aresome terms ofsemantics, such as semasiology, semology, semiotics, sememis,and semics.Beside having some terms, semantics also has some close relationswith somedisciplines, such as philosophy, psychology, anthropology andsosiology.Philosophy is closely related to semantics because the nature of theworldand truth which become the contemplation of philosophy is represented

trough themeaning of language Philosophy has a close relation with semanticsnamely philosophical semantics Philosophical semantics examines the relationbetweenlinguistic expressions and phenomena in the world to which they referand considers the conditions under which such expressions can be said to be trueorfalse and the factors which affect the interpretation of language used Hornby(1995, p 935) said that psychology is the science or study the maindand how itfunction It is closely related with semantics because such psychologyelement ascognition, thought and reason cannot be separated in the process of planning,organizing and uderstanding the meaning through linguistic codes.The otherterms which also have a close relation with semantics aresosiology andanthropology Hornby (1995, p 1128) says “Sosiology is thescientific study ofthe nature and development of the society and social behaviour.” It hassomething to with semantics to identify a certain expressions orutterances whichindicates the identities or characteristics of particular group or person ofcommunity And at the last anthropology is the study of human raceespecially ofits origin, development, customs and beliefs It needs semantics because analysis

of meanig in a language can provide the cultural classification ofthe languageusers

1.7 Structure of the study

In addition to the references, the thesis is composed of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature review;

Chapter 3: Syntactic features of “play” in English and “chơi” in

Vietnamese;

Chapter 4: Semantic features of “play” in English and “chơi” in

Vietnamese;

Chapter 5: Conclusion

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Words and word classes

We think of words as the basic units of language When a baby begins tospeak, the way the excited mother reports what has happened is: ‘Tommy hassaid his first word!’ We would be surprised at a mother who described littleTommy’s first utterance as a sentence Sentences come later, we are inclined tofeel, when words are strung together meaningfully That is not to say that asentence must always consist of more than one word One-word commands such

as ‘Go!’ or ‘Sit!’, although they crop up relatively seldom in everydayconversation or reading, are not in any way odd or un-English Nevertheless,learning to talk in early childhood seems to be a matter of putting wordstogether, not of taking sentences apart The following sections will discuss thethe polysemy of words and their classes

“To understand a sentence we must know much more than the analysis of thissentence on each linguistic level We must also know the reference and meaning

of the morphemes and words of which it is composed, naturally, grammarcannot be expected to be of much help here These notions form the subjectmatter for semantics” (Chomsky, 2002)

According to Cruse (2000), within the study of meaning there are manyareas of interest, the main ones are the following:

(1) Grammatical semantics: studies aspects of meaning closely related tosyntax;

(2) Logical semantics: studies the “relations between natural language andformal logical systems such as the propositional and predicate calculi”;

(3) Linguistic pragmatics: which (for present purposes) can be simplydefined as the branch of linguistics that studies the way that context influencesmeaning;

(4) Lexical semantics: studies the meaning of ‘content’ words

The idea of a word containing multiple meanings dates back to the stoics,who observed that “a single concept can be expressed by several different words(synonymy) and that conversely, one word can carry different meanings(polysemy)” (Ravin and Leacock, 2000) But the first time the term “polysemy”appeared was in Michel Bréal’s Essai de Sémantique (1897), later on translatedinto English under the name of Semantics: Studies in the Science of Meaning(1900), from which the following excerpt, containing the newly coined term, istaken:

“The new meaning of a word, whatever it may be, does not make an end

of the old They exist alongside of one another The same term can beemployed alternately in the strict or in the metaphorical sense, in the

restricted or in the expanded sense, in the abstract or in the concrete sense

In proportion as a new signification is given to a word, it appears to

multiply and produce fresh examples, similar in form, but differing invalue We shall call this phenomenon of multiplication Polysemia1”

This definition could nowadays be thought of as obsolete, but it was of avital importance in order to set the principles that govern the study of polysemy

in present days From 1900 onwards, many studies have been carried outconcerning lexical ambiguity, but it seems that decades of psycholinguisticresearch have focused on homonymy comprehension rather than polysemycomprehension (Klepousniotou et al., 2008) This fact is curious as polysemy ismuch more frequent in language than homonymy, in fact, according to Lee(1990), 93 of the 100 most frequent words in English text are polysemous Thislittle attention towards polysemy, in terms of research, could have been due to

“the predominance of generative grammar with its focus on the sentence as thecentral unit of meaning However, with the emergence of the cognitive grammarduring the 1980s polysemy emerged on the research agenda as a key topic inlexical semantics” (Falkum & Vicente, 2015).

According to Cruse (2000) polysemy can be divided into two differenttypes: linear and non-linear Linear polysemy accounts for a specialization-generalization relation between senses and, in turn, is divided into four types:autohyponymy, automeronymy, autosuperordination and autoholonymy.Metaphorical and metonymous polysemy are thought to belong to the non-linearcategory In order to obtain a more in-depth description of these terms, a fulldescription will be given below

Even though Cruse’s theory on Polysemy types is the most accepted one,there are many other linguists who have made their own hypothesis Amongthese linguists we find Andreas Blank, who gives an alternative to Cruse’sclassification, in his article Polysemy in the Lexicon, providing seven differentpolysemy types based on the origins of polysemous words Blank agrees withCruse in that he also considers metonymic and metaphorical polysemy but, inhis theory, there are five more types: co-hyponymous, taxonomic, auto-converse, antiphrastic and auto-antonymic

2.1.2 Word classes

Word classes are among the very few grammatical concepts that havecontinuously played a central role in grammatical theory and grammar writingthroughout the two and a half millenia of documented linguistic enquiry in theWestern world Their critical position is due to the fact that they provide centralbuilding blocks for the architecture of grammars and of lexical entries indictionaries Grammatical rules are stated in terms of word classes and there is amutual dependency between the grammatical rule system and the word classsystem Word classes are thus a typical interface phenomenon and their pivotalrole is reflected in the fact that there are a number of different terms used to

refer to them These include, in particular, syntactic or grammatical categories,

lexical categories, and the traditional term parts of speech These terms

highlight different aspects of grammatical word classification (morphology,syntax, semantics, pragmatics/discourse) Some authors hold that they refer tosubstantially different classifications, while others consider them largelysynonymous It is common to distinguish between major word classes(comprising nouns, verbs, adjectives, and sometimes also adverbs andadpositions) and minor word classes The latter include, on the one hand, somesmallish, closed word classes which are internally tightly structured such aspronouns, demonstratives and articles, and conjunctions On the other hand, theyinclude interjections and ideophones, which are often seen to be at theboundaries of the language system Items that do not fit any of the other

categories are often lumped together under the term particles Other large-scale

classifications are open versus closed classes and content versus function words(lexical versus functional categories in some contemporary frameworks) Theseroughly match the major/minor divide, but they draw the boundary somewhatdifferently Major controversies pertain to the ways word classes can and should

be identified and to their universality and variability

Classifications can be based on syntactic (distributional), morphological,semantic, or pragmatic criteria The resulting classifications often fail tocorrelate, with authors being divided as to how to deal with the incongruities.Some opt for a single (type of) criterion, others make use of a combination ofcriteria, and a third group argues that classifications on each level (or at least themorphological and syntactic levels) have to be considered separately and that thequestion of how the classifications fit across levels is subject to cross-linguisticvariation A further issue pertains to the further subclassification of major wordclasses, an issue not covered in this entry, as there is practically no literature thatdiscusses it specifically from the point of view of word classification Nouns, forexample, may belong to different declension classes, may obey differentnumber-marking regularities in accordance with their semantics (mass, count,collections, etc.), and so on

Traditionally, words can be classified as follows:

(1) The verb

A group of words cannot be described as a sentence or a clause unless atleast one of the words is a verb In some ways, we can describe it as the mostimportant part of speech because it is the 'action' word that tells the listener or

reader what is happening in the sentence Verbs can be “action” words like run, initiate, judge, throw, but they can also denote less active notions and have more

to do with mental processes and perceptions, like see, know, think and so on.

(2) The noun

A noun is a word which is used to denote a person (traffic warden, woman, Prime Minister, pianist etc.), a concrete or abstract entity (binoculars, fork, field, truth, incoherence etc.) or a place (office, garden, railway station).

These are all common nouns; there are also proper nouns which are the names

of a specific person, place, event etc., usually starting with a capital letter, for

example, York , John, Christmas, Saturday.

A noun can be extended to a noun phrase In the example phrases givenbelow, the noun (in the first example) and the noun phrase (in the remainingexamples) is in bold Note how much the noun phrase can be extended byadding extra information each time

Dogs can be vicious.

Some dogs can be vicious.

Some of the dogs can be vicious.

Some of the bigger dogs can be vicious.

Some of the bigger dogs in the dog pound can be vicious.

(3) The adverb

The traditional approach to adverbs has been to assign mainly those words

which are made from adjectives by the addition of the ending – ly (quickly, hopelessly), plus certain other words which are difficult to classify, like not, just and soon Their main function is to qualify the action of the verb in

the clause in some way, but they can also be used to add more information to an

adjective or other adverb e.g awfully good, incredibly slowly The class of

adverbs is very wide-ranging in form and is used to add comments to many ofthe other word classes

(4) The preposition

Prepositions allow us to talk about the way in which two parts of a

sentence are related to each other They include words like in, on, under, beside, through, inside, before, opposite More often than not, these relationships are to

do with either time or space, but other types of relationship, such as possession,cause and effect and method can be expressed by using prepositions The wordsthemselves are generally short and simple but some prepositions are multi-word

units; for example, out of, by means of, in spite of, instead of, up to etc Unless

they are part of a verb (get in, pick up, switch off), prepositions are always

followed by a phrase containing a noun – at school, in the summer, over the moon and so on.

(5) The adjective

An adjective gives the reader or speaker extra information about a noun ordelimits it in some way It can occur in two positions in a phrase:

- before the noun as in clear water, beautiful beaches, a terrible

decision The adjectives in these examples are said to be attributive,

- following any form of the verb be (e.g am, is, was, been) and similar verbs (seem, appear, become) as in the water became clear, the

beaches are beautiful These adjectives are in predicative position.

(6) The pronoun

Pronouns are usually treated as a special sub-class of nouns This isbecause they stand in for a noun or group of nouns They are limited in number

and belong to what is called a closed set, that is, a group of words to which new

members are, for practical purposes, not allowed Some examples of pronouns

are: I, you, he, she, our, its, something, anyone and so on Thus, instead of

saying, Bill’s arrived Bill’s in the lounge, we prefer Bill’s arrived He’s in the

lounge Or a person called for you; better would be someone called for you.

There are several other words which fall into this class; for example (the) one(s),

when used to replace dishes in the example: pass me the dishes - the ones on the

top shelf.

(7) The conjunction

It would be very unusual for anyone to either speak or write completely insimple sentences; instead we tend to use a mixture of simple, compound andcomplex sentences One way to create longer, more complicated sentences is touse conjunctions As we have already noted in the section on types of clause,conjunctions serve to connect two or more clauses, phrases or words together tomake longer constructions In the following examples, the conjunction is inbold:

The coffee was strong, but sweet.

We can go to the match or watch it on TV.

She has a dog and two cats.

When I arrived home, they had already eaten.

I had to stop driving because the rain was so bad.

Can I have a word with you, if you’ve got the time?

Although he can’t swim, he goes sailing.

There are two types of conjunction The first is the coordinating

conjunction This type is always used to connect elements that share the samegrammatical status, that is, main clause to main clause, verb to verb, noun to

noun, adjective to adjective and so on The second type is the subordinating

conjunction, which most often joins two or more unequal clauses to one another.Typically a main clause will be connected to a subordinate clause as we saw inthe section on clause types the subordinate clause (which you will remembercannot stand on its own, but needs another more important clause to complete

the meaning) begins with a conjunction, here when, because, if and although.

2.2 Review of the previous research works

The abroad authors who have had great contributions to the issue ofsyntactic and semantic features in general are Quirk (et al.) (1985), Noel (1986),Jackendoff (1995), Chomsky (2002), Hugh (1941), Dixon (1991/2005), Hurford

& Heasley (1983) and many others Their contributions can be found in thebooks called “A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language” “AnalyzingSentences - An introduction to English Syntax”, “The Semantics of Syntax”,

“Syntactic Structures”, “Semantics: the nature of words and their meanings”, “Anew approach to English grammar, on semantic principles”, “Semantics –Acoursebook ”, respectively Others also dealt with syntax and semantics in somesub-titles of their books only

In Vietnamese, words have been recognized and explained systematically

in the studies of Vietnamese vocabulary by Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (1975/1985) Up

to now, there have been authors who mentions the issue in their Vietnamesegrammar books such as Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh, Nguyễn Thu Minh (2001) andDiệp Quang Ban (2005), etc Besides, a series of research works on Vietnamesesyntax from different theoretical perspectives have been carrieed out It should

be noticed the works by Đỗ Hữu Châu (1986), highlighting the relationshipbetween words and functions, words and semantics, words and structure Inanother direction, Võ Đại Quang (2005) focuses on syntax, semantics andpragmatics

There have been also several authors (Nguyễn Hùng Tiến (2010), Bùi ThịHoàng Anh (2015), Ngô Thị Phượng (2017), etc.) who pay attention to

individual words such as run, go, open, etc in English and chạy, đi, mở, etc in

Vietnamese These words are investigated from several perspectives; however,the main aspects the author focus on are the syntactic and semantic features.Basing on the features found, the similarities and differences between Englishand Vietnamese are given in terms ò the subjects studied

2.3 Chapter summary

In this chapter, the literature review includes a review of theoretical

background and the previous studies An overview of some theoreticalbackground dealing with the general concepts of syntax, semantics, words,polysemy of words and word classification is presented for background of

analyzing the syntactic and semantic features of the two words play in English and chơi in Vietnamese In terms of previous research works, the studies by

oversea and Vietnamese authors are given to briefly review what has been foundand discussed to find out the gap of the study

Chapter 3 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF “PLAY” IN ENGLISH

AND “CHƠI” IN VIETNAMESE 3.1 Syntactic features of “play” in English

3.1.1 “Play” as a verb

i) Verbal forms of “play”

Play is a lexical verb which has five forms: the BASE, the S-FORM, the PAST, the -ING PARTICIPLE, and the -ED PARTICIPLE Examples of these

forms and an indication of their functions are given in Table 3.1 In addition,

play, a regular lexical verb, has the same -ed inflection for both the past tense and the -ed participle.

(1) base V play (a) all the present tense

except 3rd person singular:

I/you/we/they play football

(d) the bare infinitive: He

may play tennis in the sports

centre; and the to-infinitive:

He wants her to play football.

(2) -s form (3rd V-s plays 3rd person singular presentperson singular tense: He/she/it plays football

(3) past V-ed1 played past tense: He played in the

garden 20 minutes ago.

(4) -ing participle V-ing playing (a) progressive aspect (be +

V-ing): He is playing football

at the moment.

(b) in -ing participle clauses:

Playing cards, I found myself

good at this game.

(5) -ed participle V-ed2 played (a) perfective aspect (have +

tennis for 5 hours.

(b) passive voice (be +

V-ed2): Football is played here

every day.

(c) in -ed participle clauses:

Played by the two famous

teams, the match attracted a lot of audience.

Table 3.1 Forms and functions of the verb “play” in English

(adapted from Quirk & Greenbaum (1987))

ii) Syntactic functions of verb phrases containing “play”

A verb phrase containing play can occur as:

predicate: He played football with us yesterday

subject: Playing tennis is one of my hobbies object:

She wants to play football with the children

subject complement: My hobby is playing cards.

object complement: I found him playing cards with some strange men adjectival complement: She is busy playing with her little boy.

prepositional complement: She is interested in playing tennis.

appositive: His hobby, playing football, is exciting.

adverbial: He went to the sports centre to play tennis.

iii) Co-ordinate possibility of “play” in the clauses

Before the verb open, there can be a modal verb, an auxiliary verb, or an

adverb:

He can play football.

He is playing tennis.

He usually plays tennis with his friends.

There are some lexical verbs followed by play with the -ing or

to-infinitive forms:

We want to play football.

I tried playing cards.

In some cases, to play can be used after a clause functioning as an

adverbial of purpose:

I went to the sports centre to play tennis.

When play is used after a preposition, it stays in the -ing form:

After playing football, we went to the school canteen to have a drink

party.

After the verb play, there can be a noun or a noun phrase: play cards, play football, play an important role…

Education plays an important role in forming children’s personalities

That play followed by a preposition or an adverb makes fixed expressions

with special meanings:

play with…

The verb play can be found in compound words functioning as verbs such

as play-act.

He play-acted and I didn’t like it.

iv) “Play” in nominal clauses

That-clauses

That-clause containing play can occur as:

subject: I told him that I had played tennis the day before.

subject complement: The assumption is that they will play tennis in the

sports centre.

appositive: Your assumption, that they will play tennis in the sports

centre, is unfounded.

adjectival complement: I’m sure that they will play cards in their house

It cannot, however, occur as prepositional complement or as object

complement When the that-clause is object or complement (or delayed subject),the conjunction that is frequently omitted in informal use, leaving a “zero” that-clause:

I told him I had played cards the day before.

When the clause is subject and not extraposed, that cannot be omitted and

is usually expanded to the fact that, except in very formal English:

(The fact) they will play football in the stadium near my house makes

me

excited.

Wh-interrogative clauses

The dependent wh-interrogative clause occurs in the whole range of

functions available to the that-clause, and in addition can act as prepositional

complement:

subject: How he plays the piano is still a big question.

direct object: I can’t imagine how he played in a film.

subject complement: My question is how he will play at chess.

appositive: My question, why he played in that film, has not been

answered.

adjectival complement: I wasn’t certain how he played with love.

prepositional complement: It depends on when he will play football

again.

As regards meaning, these clauses resemble wh-questions in which they

leave a gap of unknown information, represented by the wh-element There is

also a grammatical similarity to wh-questions in that the wh-element is placed

first; indeed, apart from the absence of subject-operator inversion in thedependent clause, the structures of the two types of clause are in all respectparallel We have, in the wh-interrogative clause, the same choice between

initial and final preposition where the prepositional complement is the

wh-element

Yes-no interrogative clauses

The dependent yes-no interrogative clause is formed with if or whether:

Do you know if/whether he will play for the school team.

The dependent alternative question has if/whether…or:

I don’t know whether he will play for the school team.

Only whether can be directly followed by or not:

I don’t care whether or not he will play for the school team.

A clause beginning with whether cannot be made negative, except as the

second part of an alternative question:

I don’t care if she won’t play with love/whether she will play with love

or

not.

On the other hand, if cannnot introduce a subject clause:

Whether she will play for the school team or not doesn’t concern me.

Nominal relative clauses

The nominal relative clause, also introduced by a wh-element, can be:

subject: Whoever played in the garden will be punished.

direct object: I want to see whoever played tennis.

indirect object: She gave whoever played football a friendly smile.

subject complement: The problem is when she will play tennis again appositive: Let me know the time when he will play in that film.

prepositional complement: I am not interested in whoever will play for

the school team.

The nominal relative clause is much closer to noun phrase status thanother nominal clauses are It can normally be paraphrased by a noun phrasecontaining a postmodifying relative clause:

I am not interested in whoever will play for the school team (‘…the

person who will play for the school team’)

There is a difference between UNIVERSAL and DEFINITE meaning asexpressed by the wh-form of a relative clause

The form who is rarely used in present-day English in this nominalrelative function, being replaced in many contexts, for both universal and

definite meanings, by whoever:

Whoever played in the garden will be punished (‘The person/Anyone

who…’)

To-infinitive nominal clauses

The to-infinitive nominal clause can occur as:

subject: To play football here is impossible

direct object: He wants to play the piano.

subject complement: My wish is to play football for the school team appositive: My wish, to play football for the school team, will come true adjectival complement: I am happy to play with the children.

The subject of a to-infinitive clause is nominally preceded by for (which

is perhaps acting here more as a conjunction than as a preposition) The subject,when a pronoun, is in the objective case:

The idea is that we should play for the school team/for us to play for the

school team.

When the clause is a direct object, however, the for is omitted:

He wants me to play in that film (rather than: He wants for me to play in

that film).

Nominal -ing clauses

The nominal -ing clause, a PARTICIPLE CLAUSE, occurs in thefollowing positions:

subject: Playing football here is impossible.

direct object: The boy enjoys playing the piano.

subject complement: My wish is playing for the school team.

appositive: My wish, playing in a film, will come true.

prepositional complement: I am tired of playing all day with the children adjectival complement: I am busy playing in the film.

It is the commonest type of participle clause which has no subject that isillustrated above When a subject is required, there is sometimes a choice asfollows:

GENITIVE case in formal style:

I am not interested in his/John’s playing tennis.

OBJECTIVE or COMMON case (for personal pronouns or nouns,respectively) in informal style:

I am not interested in him/John playing tennis.

Bare infinitive and verbless clauses

The to of the infinitive is optionally omitted in a clause which supplies a predication corresponding to a use of the pro-verb do:

All I did was (to) play tennis.

When the infinitive clause is initial, to has to be omitted: Play tennis was

all I did.

v) “Play” in adverbial clauses

Adverbial clauses, like adverbials in general, are capable of occurring in afinal, initial, or medial position within the main clause (generally in that order offrequency, medial position being rather rare)

Clauses of time

Finite adverbial clauses of time are introduced by such subordinators as

after, before, since, until, when:

When I played in the garden, I saw a strange man.

The -ing clause maybe introduced by after, before, since, until when(ever), and while; -ed clauses by once, until, when(ever), and while; and verbless clauses by as soon as, once, when(ever), and while:

When playing in the garden, I heard a strange voice.

Clauses of place

Adverbial clauses of place are introduced by where or wherever:

Where he played tennis, there were a lot of audience.

Clauses of condition and concession

Whereas conditional clauses state the dependence of one circumstance orset of circumstances on another:

If you play for the school team, I’ll be your fan.

Although he played the piano well, she had no attention.

Clauses of reason or cause

Clauses of reason or cause are most commonly introduced by theconjunctions because, as, or since:

He is very busy because he is playing in a new film.

Clauses of circumstance

Clauses of circumstance express a fulfilled condition or (to put itdifferently) a relation between a premise (in the subordinate clause) and the

conclusion drawn from it (in the main clause) Because, since, and as can

convey this meaning, but in addition there is a special circumstantial compound

conjunction, seeing (that):

Seeing that she has played with his love, he is going to say “good bye”

to her.

Clauses of purpose

Clauses of purpose are adjuncts, usually infinitival, introduced by (in order) (for N) to, so as to:

He went to the sports centre to play tennis.

Finite clauses of purpose may be introduced by so that, so (informal), or

in order that (formal):

He went to the sports centre in order that/so that he could play

tennis Clauses of result

Result clauses (disjuncts, placed finally in superordinate clauses) arefactual rather than ‘putative’; hence they may contain an ordinary verb form

without a modal auxiliary They are introduced by so that, informally so:

He had practised hard for months, so (that) he could play well.

3.1.2 “Play” as a noun

Play is a noun which combines the characteristics of count and non-count nouns (a play, the play, some plays, full play…) When working as a regular count noun, play has two forms, singular and plural The singular form stays the same as play The plural form has -s suffix (some plays, two plays, the plays…).

The noun play can function as:

(a) subject:

The play began at three o’clock.

The play runs high.

(b) object:

They have watched the play for several times.

(c) complement:

What I want to mention is the new play.

And (d) complement in prepositional phrases:

They won the match by good play.

The children are at play.

In the noun phrases, play usually works as a head The elements found in

the noun phrases consist of pronouns and numerals, and of nouns with articles orother closed-system items that can occur before the noun head, such aspredeterminers

Play can be a component in a compound noun: