A contrastive study on english inversions and their vietnamese equivalents in literary works

THESIS A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON ENGLISH INVERSIONS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN LITERARY WORKS Nghiên cứu đối chiếu đảo ngữ trong tiếng Anh và tương đương tiếng Việt trong các tác

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON ENGLISH INVERSIONS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN LITERARY WORKS (Nghiên cứu đối chiếu đảo ngữ trong tiếng Anh và tương đương tiếng Việt trong các tác

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON ENGLISH INVERSIONS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN LITERARY WORKS

(Nghiên cứu đối chiếu đảo ngữ trong tiếng Anh và tương đương tiếng Việt trong các tác phẩm văn học)

HOÀNG THỊ THỦY

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông

Hanoi - 2019

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

“A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON ENGLISH INVERSIONS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN LITERARY WORKS” submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2019

Hoàng Thị Thủy

Approved by

SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am greatly indebted to all lecturers at Faculty of Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University for their knowledge, experience and enthusiasm in their lectures, from which I have acquired valuable knowledge and inspiration to fulfill this thesis

I would like to express my special thanks to my supervisor Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông (Hanoi Open University) for her invaluable guidance and instructive comments throughout this study

Finally, and the most, I owe my deep thanks to my family who gave me constant support, enormous encouragement, love and care during the course of my writing

Hanoi, 2019

Hoàng Thị Thủy

ABSTRACT

The title of the thesis is a study on English inversion and their Vietnamese equivalents This study is conducted in sentences in 11 selected English literary works and their Vietnamese equivalents to find out the similar and different inversion‘s features in terms of syntax and semantics To carry out the research, contrastive analysis method, modeling and opposition tactics are sorted to make an end of the results About the theory, the thesis clarifies the characteristics, the similarities and differences of inverted sentences in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntax and semantics In practice, the study contributes to the analysis, teaching English inversion structures into Vietnamese in literary works The thesis contributes to help learners master and use effectively the types of English and Vietnamese inversions to achieve certain communication purposes in communication The results of the contrastive analysis process will contribute to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning English and Vietnamese

Adverbial of position Adverbial of process Adverbial of reason Adverbial of time Linking Verb

―Be‖ as Predicator British English Complement Objective Complement Subject Complement Noun

Noun phrases Object

Operator Operator plus the enclitic ―not‖

Page Predicator Predicator denoting motion Predicator denoting position Clause element containing the Q-word Interrogative words

Subject The Subject of the first clause The Subject of the second clause Verb

* Square brackets [ ] around a number indicate the number of the reference

book listed in the references Eg: [6]

* When there are two numbers inside the square brackets separated by a semicolon, the former number indicates the ordinal number of the book listed in the

references and the latter indicates the pages Eg: [6; 9]

* Parentheses ( ) enclosing a number indicate the number of example used

* When there are two number inside the parentheses separated by a semicolon, the former number indicates the year of the book listed in the references

and the latter number indicates the pages Eg: (1984; 36)

* The symbol / is used to separate alternative words, phrases or terms

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAM ix

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Structure of the study 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Review of previous studies 5

2.1.1 International research works 5

2.1.2 Research works in Vietnamese 8

2.2 Review of theoretical background 12

2.2.1 Word order 12

2.2.2 English and Vietnamese as SVO Type Languages 13

2.2.3 English inversion 15

2.2.4 Sentence Elements 15

2.2.5 Operators 18

2.2.6 Definitions of English Inversion 20

2.2.7 Types of Sentences according to Communicative Functions 22

2.3 Summary 26

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Research approach 27

3.2 Methods of the study 27

3.3 Data collection and data analysis 29

3.4 Research corpus 29

3.5 Summary 30

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 31

4.1 SUBJECT – OPERATOR INVERSION 31

4.1.1 In Questions 31

4.1.1.1 In Yes/ No Questions 31

4.1.1.1.1 In Yes/No questions 31

4.1.1.1.2 In Negative Yes/No Questions 33

4.1.1.1.3 In Tag Questions 35

4.1.1.1.4 In Echo Tags 38

4.1.1.2 In Wh – Questions 40

4.1.1.3 In Alternative Questions 43

4.1.2 In Commands with Question tags 45

4.1.3 In Exclamations 46

4.1.4 In Statements 47

4.1.4.1 With an Initial Negative Adverbial 47

4.1.4.2 With Initial ―So‖ 51

4.1.4.3 With Initial ―Neither/ Nor‖ 52

4.1.4.4 Inversion as a Signal of Conditional clauses 54

4.2 SUBJECT – PREDICATOR INVERSION 55

4.2.1 In statements 56

4.2.1.1 With Intensive ―Be‖ as Predicator 56

4.2.1.1.1 With an Initial Complement 56

4.2.1.1.2 With an Initial Adverbial 57

4.2.1.1.3 With Initial ―Here‖ 58

4.2.1.2 With a Verb other than ―Be‖ as Predicator 59

4.2.1.2.1 With an Initial Adverbial 59

4.2.1.2.2 With initial ―Here‖ 60

4.2.2.3 With a Reporting Verb as Predicator 61

4.2.2 In Exclamations 61

4.2.3 In Formulae 62

4.3 The similarities and differences between English inversions and their Vietnamese equivalents 63

4.4 Summary 64

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 65

5.1 Recapitulation 65

5.2 Concluding remarks 65

5.3 Limitation 67

5.4 Suggestions for further study 68

REFERENCES 69

APPENDIX 73

LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAM

Table 1: The sentence types in the simple declarative form 17 Table 2: S-Op inversion in English Yes/No questions and its equivalent structures in Vietnamese 33 Table 3: S-Op inversion in English Negative Yes/No questions and their equivalent structures in Vietnamese 35 Table 4: S-Op inversion structures in English tag questions and their equivalents in Vietnamese 38 Table 5: S – Op inversion structures in English echo tags and their equivalents in Vietnamese 40 Table 6: S-Op inversion in English Wh-question structures and their Vietnamese equivalents 43 Table 7: S-Op inversion in English alternative question structures and their Vietnamese equivalents 45 Table 8: S-Op inversion structures in English commands with question tags and their equivalents in Vietnamese 46 Table 9: S-Op inversion structures in English Exclamation and their equivalents in Vietnamese 47 Table 10: S-Op inversion structures in English statements with Initial Negative Adverbial ―Never‖ and their equivalents in Vietnamese 49 Table 11: S-Op inversion structures in English statements with Initial Negative Adverbial ―No‖ and ―Not‖ and their equivalent structures in Vietnamese 51 Table 12: S -Op inversion with initial ―SO‖ and its equivalent structure in Vietnamese 52 Table 13: S-Op inversion with initial ―Neither/ Nor‖ and its equivalent structure in Vietnamese (containing negative words in Vietnamese sentences) 53 Table 14: S-Op inversion with initial ―Neither/ Nor‖ and its equivalent structure in Vietnamese (containing positive words, negative implication in Vietnamese sentences) 54

Table 15: S-Op inversion structures as signals of conditional clauses and their equivalents in Vietnamese 55 Table 16: S-BeP inversion with an initial complement and its equivalent structure in Vietnamese 57 Table 17: S-BeP inversion with an Initial Adverbial of Position in English statements and its equivalent structures in Vietnamese 58 Table 18: S-BeP inversion structure after ―Here‖ in English statement and its equivalent in Vietnamese 59 Table 19: S-Pposition inversion and its equivalent structures in Vietnamese 60 Table 20: S-P inversion with Initial ―Here‖ and its equivalents in Vietnamese 60 Table 21: S-P inversion structure with a Reporting verb as Predicator and its equivalent in Vietnamese 61 Table 22: S-P inversion structure in English Exclamations and their Vietnamese equivalents 62 Table 23: S-P inversion structure in English Formulae and their Vietnamese equivalents 63

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

English like any other languages is full of problems for the foreign learners

As L.G Alexander (1993) states what makes language difficult is not just words but the way words are combined to make sentences, for a sentence are a sum-total of words and this sum-total is greater than its parts Forseth Ron et al (1994) pointed out that the goal of foreign language learning is to communicate appropriately by means of the foreign language and that understanding the grammar of English can help learners to communicate appropriately since grammar is the support system of communication As a matter of fact, this goal can only be achieved by ―constant practice of existing forms with some rational explanations of the grammatical devices employed wherever this is possible‖ [5: vii]

The English language is graced with inversion – a linguistically – specified formal device integrated in the main syntactic classes of sentences Inversion allows the subject to appear after the operator as in (1) ―Why are you so masochistic?‖ [38; 18] or ―Never did I try hard to please.‖ [35; 66] the inverted order of Subject and Predicator is also found in sentences like ―At the bottom was a sunk fence‖ [11; 295], etc

Inversion is a fairly complex grammatical phenomenon that is researched by

a number of linguists It can be said that inversion is related to the movement of elements in a sentence Differences in word order will show differences in content Literary works always play vital roles in most people‘s spirit life Though the explosion of information and the revolution of high technology, especially the internet, reading literary works is still one of the oldest and most favorite ways of entertaining, learning and experiencing life as well as various other kinds of entertainment There are many ways the writers have been using to make the language become such a valuable and flexible means of transferring the ideas Sometimes, a simple way of forming a sentence or a bit strange order of words can make the ideas become so impressive and unforgettable Inversion is one of those

ways which create great effects for emphasizing ideas, characteristics of objects and making sentences more vivid, harmonious about sound in literary works

In practice of teaching English at Hanoi University of Industry, the author realizes that learners at the Faculty of Electronics Engineering Technology always have a need to explain the nature and function of linguistic structures, especially emphasized structures such as: noun clauses, relative clauses, conditional sentences

as well as inversions These types of sentences are very abundant in English and interested in studying by a lot of linguists with many different schools Besides,

they may produce incorrect sentences such as: “Never I had eaten a such delicious

meal like yours” instead of “Never had I eaten such delicious meal like yours” or

“Why you are so late?” This is probably because of transferring from the

Vietnamese pattern: ―Chưa bao giờ tôi ăn món ăn ngon như thế” or “Tại sao bạn

đến muộn thế?” These errors are concerned with the English inversion structures

In addition, mastering and using effectively the inversion structures will help learners diversify and enrich expressions for specific communication purposes

Therefore, in order to understand and use the expressions in inversions in teaching foreign language, I think it is necessary to study this topic I chose the

topic: “A contrastive study on English inversions and their Vietnamese

equivalents in literary works”

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims at analyzing English inversions in terms of syntax and semantics in some English literary works and their Vietnamese equivalents by exploiting the power of contrastive analysis in predicting the difficulties that students may encounter when learning English inversions

From this above aim, the study is planned to:

- Describe all the possible cases of English inversion structures in a contrastive analysis with the Vietnamese equivalents

- Discover the similarities and differences between the inversions in English and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntax and semantics through examples in English literary works and their Vietnamese equivalents

- Point out some difficulties that the students may encounter when learning English inversions and some suggestions for teaching inversions in English

1.4 Methods of the study

As the research is undertaken with the aim of analyzing English inversions in English literary works, the contrastive analysis will be employed Particularly, English inversions in some English literary works and their Vietnamese equivalents are put into comparison in terms of syntax and semantics In this way, the use of inversions in these works will be extensively analyzed while the Vietnamese equivalents are correspondingly reviewed

In addition, modeling and opposition tactics are used to analyze views, concepts related to the research topic

1.5 Scope of the study

Due to the scope of a Master thesis, as well as the limitations of time and the researcher‘s knowledge, the scope of the study will be limited

Inversions are selected and quoted in 11 English – American literary works:

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Othello, Jane Eyre, Nobody’s boy, The gift of the Magi, Love of life, The last leaf, The old man and the sea, Twilight, New moon, Eclipse, respectively in the year of release And their Vietnamese equivalents are Hamlet, hoàng tử Đan Mạch, Ôtenlô, Jên Erơ, Không gia đình, Món quà Giáng sinh, Tình yêu cuộc sống, Chiếc lá cuối cùng, Ông già và biển cả, Chạng vạng, Trăng non, Nhật thực respectively

Besides, inversions are analyzed in terms of syntax and semantics

1.6 Significance of the study

In practice, the study contributes to the analysis, teaching English inversion structures into Vietnamese in literary works The thesis contributes to help learners master and use effectively the types of English and Vietnamese inversions to achieve certain communication purposes in verbal communication The results of the contrastive analysis process will contribute to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning English and Vietnamese

1.7 Structure of the study

The study will be organized into 5 following chapters:

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION outlines the rationale, the aims and objectives,

the research questions, the method, the scope, the significance and the structure of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW provides the review of previous studies in

the world as well as in Vietnam, provides the theoretical background on word order, English and Vietnamese as SVO type languages, English inversions, sentences elements, operators, definitions of English inversion, types of sentences according

to Communicative Functions This chapter is focused on identifying the features of English inversions

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY mentions to the methodology of the study which

describes in detail all research governing orientations and research methods

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS present and describe cases of

English inversions in contrastive analysis with the Vietnamese equivalents in English literary works with their equivalents in Vietnamese, consider the similarities and differences between English inversions and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntax and semantics

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION presents recapitulation of the study, concluding

remarks which deals with some difficulties that the students may encounter and some suggestions for teaching inversions in English, limitation of the study, closing with the suggestions for further study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies

2.1.1 International research works

In the project ―Inversion in Present – Day English‖ by Hans H Hartvigson and Leif Kvistgaard Jakcobsen (1974), the phenomenon of inversions in English seems to be the first time to be studied and represented one of the modern inversion research works However, this work mainly lists English inversion cases and focuses on the presentation of the structure of inversions According to the authors, there are two factors involved in the inversion process: the first is the complexity on syntactic, the number of syllables or the formal weight; The second is "information content" or "news value" of elements, also called "notional weight" ―Formal weight" and "notional weight" are often combined in most cases of full inversions

in English language Therefore, the full inversion can be interpreted as: the subject

is moved down to the end of the sentence because it has a complex material length and a large notification rate; while another factor is reversed to the top position because of the low notification rate and this factor is "the known" for listeners / readers

The study of English inversions is mentioned in the work of Green (1982) with the definition of "narrative sentence structures in which the subject follows part or all of the verb elements"

According to Penhallurick John (1984), the "Full - Verb Inversion in English" study, the full inversion which is a phenomenon is based on the discourse

to introduce new information Therefore, the subject often appears after the verb and the subject often brings new information, the information that the speaker said does not appear in the subconscious of the listener at the time of speaking According to him, the prelude to the full inversion is often an adverb of a position

or direction, the verb of this sentence is usually a verb of existence or appearance in context Placing the old information before new information will facilitate to process the information of the listener or reader

When discussing auxiliary inversion, in the article "The Semantics of Auxiliary Inversion in English", John Penhallurick (1987) suggested that the motive

of the auxiliary inversion phenomenon is in the semantic aspect rather than in the structure The form and scope of auxiliary inversion in English is examined, and it

is suggested that auxiliary inversion is a word order form, signaling that some uncertainty attaches in some way to the predicate This meaning is shown to be semantically appropriate for all of the contexts (conditional clauses, questions, initial negatives, ‗other openers‘ and wishes) in which inversion appears The importance of discourse context is stressed However, this concept has no solid linguistic basis

However, the view of Birner Betty (1995) suggests that inversions may still occur when the subject does not carry new information For example:

Yes, this is no ordinary general election “Evan is a Democrat; Daley is a Democrat Different Democrats have different points of view about the City of Chicago and its politics,” Jackson noted “The war between forces within the party continues, and within our coalition.” Standing in the middle of it all is Jesse Jackson (Birner.B.J, 1995)

Betty Birner viewed full inversion anomaly as a functional structure for organizes information Compared to the conveniently corresponding order, the inversion structure has a difference in how to convey information in sentences The inverted element in the beginning of the sentence often carries the old information

in the discourse, the information has been evoked in the discourse, and the latter has brought new information in the discourse However, it is not always the beginning

of the sentence that carries the old information and the end of the sentence also brings new information to the listener / reader B Birner relied on the sequencing of the information positions of the sentence elements and the last element when he thought that an appropriate anagram would satisfy one of the following four information order sequences:

Discourse – old, Discourse – new

Discourse – new, Discourse – new

Discourse – old, Discourse – old

Discourse – old, Discourse – new

The order (Discourse - old, Discourse - new) appears most commonly Betty Birner concluded: The element that is reversed to the beginning of the inverted sentences usually does not bring newer information in the discourse, compared to the element that is placed at the end of the sentence

Another view of full inversion is shown in "Inversion in Modern English: Form and Function" of Dorgeloh Heidrun (1997), the information structure is encoded in the inverted sentence by means of word order variation Not only is a full inversion an assessment of the speaker / writer to familiarity of the information

in the discourse but it also shows how the speaker / writer guides the attention of the listener / reader, or informs the listener / reader that certain elements in the discourse are being emphasized by the speaker In addition, the cohesion of the full inversion in discourse is closely related to the relevance of the inverted sentence to the context (the previous and following context and external situations)

Also based on the point of functional grammar, Downing and Lockke (1995) explained the phenomenon of inversions that based on the element "Theme", and choosing an element to behave as "Theme" in a sentence make inversions The

"Theme" of a sentence is what the speaker or writer chooses to make the starting point of the discourse In English, "Theme" is represented by elements leading the sentence, otherwise, the rest of the sentence is called "Rheme‖ Choosing an element to act as a "Theme" is important because it shows how the speaker / writer develops their messages Any elements brought to the top of the sentence, that element will become "Marked Theme." High level Marks Themes are the factors that create inversions Downing and Lockke (1995) divided these elements into three categories:

Category 1: Words / phrases pointing direction: are adverbs like: here, there, up,

down, print, out, off, away ; prepositions starting with: across , down to In "A

Course in English Grammar university" (1995) Downing and Lockke, the authors pointed out some examples below:

(1) Down came the rain

(2) Here comes the bus

These inversions are used to make an emphatic effect, because the starting point of the speech is that the words pointing direction and topic appearing at the end of the sentence to have a notification function

Category 2: Words / phrases which have negative meanings have the function of a

direct object inverted to the beginning of the sentence, such as: never, hardly,

seldom, scarcely, nowhere, on no account, under no circumstances, not only, no or

noun phrases that begin with negative words „not‟

For example:

(3) Never had I seen such a sight

(4) Under no circumstances must medicines be left within reach of children (5) Not a thing could the patient remember

Category 3: Other factors such as: so, neither, nor

For example:

(6) Ed didn‘t pass the exam and neither / nor did Mary

(7) So depressed did he feel that nothing would ceer him up

(8) - I couldn't sleep," I confessed,

- Neither could I,"

2.1.2 Research works in Vietnamese

“Tìm hiểu thêm về loại câu N2-N1-V” and “Bàn thêm về kiểu câu P-N trong tiếng Việt‖ of Thắng Lý Toàn (2004), which are to survey inverted structures: O – S

– V and V – S in Vietnamese, express the search for the regime to types of stated word order That is based on the form structure, the semantic dominance of the syntactic morphology, considering the information position of the elements in the sentence and the actual segment diagram of the sentence Thereby, the author lists which cases allow to be inverted and not allowed to inverted

From Lạc Đinh Trọng and Hòa Nguyễn Thái's point of view (2009), inversion is considered one of the methods to emphasize the sentence elements

Inversion is formed when reversing the position of sentence elements whose notification content does not change There are three types of inversion to emphasize: Predicate before Subject, Verb Modifiers in the beginning of the sentence, Adverbial before Subject for emphasis According to him, "an order is considered inversion if the two components of the sentence are syntactically, one component (dependent component) are changed positions The function of inversion

is to change the rhythm of the sentence, enrich the sound, evoke the expressive color – the emotion, to make a strong impression

According to the book “99 phương tiện và biện pháp tu từ tiếng Việt”

(1994), Lạc Đinh Trọng raised 11 cases of inversion

Subject

Xanh om cổ thụ tròn xoe tán Trắng xóa tràng giang phẳng lặng tờ

(Hồ Xuân Hương) Complement-Object at the

beginning

Những cuộc vui ấy, chị còn nhớ rành rành

(Ngô Tất Tố) Complement-Process before

Rồi rưng rức cô khóc không ra tiếng

(Nguyễn Công Hoan) Complement-Process at the

beginning or at the end

i sự đ ng tình và ng hộ c a anh em, cuộc

kháng chiến cứu quốc của Việt Nam nhất định

thắng lợi

(Hồ Chí Minh)

Complement-Reason

Inversion

Con gà tốt mã vì lông Răng đen vì thuốc, rượu nồng vì men

(Ca dao)

Complement-Purpose

Inversion

Để mở rộng tuyên truyền ( ) ông Nguyễn và

những đồng chí của ông ra tờ báo “Người cùng

khổ”

(Trần Dân Tiên) Position of Predicate (with

existence meaning)

Trong nhà lô nhô mấy ông cụ khăn áo chỉnh tề

(Ngô Tất Tố) Position of Predicate (with

expression meaning)

Đằng xa trong mưa mờ đã hiện ra bóng những

nhịp cầu sắt uốn cong, vắt qua dòng sông lạnh

(Nguyễn Đình Thi) Position of Predicate (with

action verb)

Ánh xuân lướt cỏ xanh tươi

Bên rừng thổi sáo một hai kim đồng

(Thế Lữ)

With "Tiếng Việt – sơ khảo ngữ pháp chức năng", Hạo Cao Xuân (1991)

remarked that the normally Vietnamese order are Theme – Rheme However, there are some cases where this order is reversed An example is used to illustrate this point:

Đẹp biết bao những lời chân thực ấy!

According to Hạo Cao Xuân, Rheme – Theme order in the above example is reversed He explained that this case of inversion often occurs in exclamations In his point of view, Theme – Rheme inversion is universal for all languages and

inversion always has an effect that changes something in a moral and especially emotional manner."

Remarkably, another view of Thuyết Nguyễn Minh (1983) argued that the arrangement of Subject, Predicate and Object as the main components of the Vietnamese sentence to form five sentence formulas with three feasible elements And according to him, the leading element of the sentence which denotes the sentence topic can be transferred to the original position It is the element to be reversed

According to Thêm Trần Ngọc (1999), "inverted structure Predicate – Subject is a phenomenon that has a reason Inversion does not happen in any intransitive verbs but in intransitive verbs which have more or less existential features such as: xuất hiện (appear), đi ra (go out), nhảy ra (jump out), vọng ra (come out),

A research project related to the inverted sentence is the doctoral thesis of

author Hoa Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh (2004) with the topic “Khảo sát cấu trúc – ngữ

nghĩa của hiện tượng đảo ngữ trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt” (Structural – Semantic

survey of inversion in English and Vietnamese) The thesis studied inversion in the relationship between two structural and semantic aspects Not only is it a phenomenon that belongs to the internal structure on the syntax, but also a phenomenon that is close to the discourse The thesis systematized and described in detail all English inversion case in the narrative sentence The thesis also examined three functions of English inversion: introducing entity in discourse, emphasis function and link function These functions are the concretization of the non-descriptive meaning of inversions Based on the concept of Lyons J [1995, p.193], The thesis argues that English language is a means of encoding and grammaticalize some non-content elements

A doctoral thesis that mentioned the phenomenon of inversion as “Nghiên

cứu phương tiện nhấn mạnh trong Tiếng Anh có liên hệ với tiếng Việt (qua trật tự

cú pháp)” (Research on means of emphasis in English related to Vietnamese

(through syntactic order)" by Nguyên Huỳnh Thị Ái (2005) found means to

emphasize information in the form of structures in English and Vietnamese Accordingly, means of emphasis can be determined by the information structure of the sentence which takes topic information and focus one as the focus Means of emphasis are also the means of focusing the important information which is new for listeners in some cases The key information may be in the Theme or Rheme and there can accommodate up to two focal points in a sentence The thesis argues that the syntactic order of the sentence related to the order of the information structure

In addition, the thesis also proves that passive sentences in English can be used to emphasis

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Word order

The arrangement of words in a phrase, clause, or sentence is word order In many languages, including English, word order plays an important part in determining meanings expressed in other languages by inflections According to Tom McArthur (1992, p.1126), word order is ―the order in which words appear in phrases and sentences.'' In English and Vietnamese, the position of a word in a sentence often signals its grammatical function in relation to the other words of the sentence Thus, in the following two sentences:

(4) Tôi đánh nó [14; 280]

It is clear that “the burglar” and “tôi” are the SUBJECTS, “the duck” and

“nó” are the OBJECTS Besides the information of (1) is different from that of (3)

The same different is found when (2) and (4) are compared

2.2.2 English and Vietnamese as SVO Type Languages

Language often differ in their word order In such languages as Latin, word order is relatively free because these are highly inflected languages and the relations between words can be signaled by inflections Conversely, word order in English is relatively fixed This ―tolerably fixed word order‖ is Subject – Verb (Predicate) – Object (S – V – O) Regarding word order in Vietnamese Chừ Mai Ngọc and others (1992; p.2810) assert that the basic word order in a sentence is Subject – Predicative (Verb) – Object, and that the rules concerning word order in a sentence are very close In other words, both English and Vietnamese belong to SVO type languages [15; 98] As a matter of fact, every language has sentences that include a Subject (S), an Object (O), and a Verb (V), although some sentences do not have all these three elements [21; 186]

Word order is an important grammatical device in Vietnamese because Vietnamese is typical of isolating and analytic languages in which grammatical meanings are shown chiefly through word order and function words (grammatical words)

(―When did you leave?‖ ―I left yesterday.‖)

(―When will you leave?‖ ―I will leave tomorrow.‖)

It can be seen that the order ―Subject – Verb – Adverbial‖ in the question of (5) is closely related to the meaning of ―the past‖ whereas the order ―Adverbial –

Subject – Verb‖ in the question of (6) implies that the speaker expects a reply giving a departing point of time in the ―future‖

In the Vietnamese language, word order is also employed in word formation For instance: ―tấm vải" (the piece of cloth) is different from "vải tấm" (the pieces of cloth are classified in sheets), ―bò sữa‖ (a cow that gives milk) is different from

―sữa bò‖ (milk from a cow) [14; 280]

On the other hand, Đỗ Hữu Châu [13; 65] gives an example to illustrate that word order in Vietnamese express different grammatical meanings in different structures In the sentences ―Em yêu anh‖ (―I love you‖ – women‘s sayings) and

―Anh yêu em‖ (―I love you‖ – men‘s saying) the word order ―Doer – Receiver‖ Like Vietnamese, English is also signaled with word order because the English language is inclined to be analytic though it belongs to the type of languages which are inflected and synthetic In other words, English is no longer a highly inflected and it is not so synthetic as languages like Latin or Russian Besides using such grammatical means as affixation root inflexion, stress, etc English also employs word order to show grammatical relationships:

The words in the above sentences are the same but in the word order which indicates who frightened whom, and that it is the spider which is large not Aunt Matilda [1; 62]

In English the role of word order is also necessary in distinguish for example: ―hair root‖ from ―root hair‖ The former means ―the root of the hair‖ whereas the latter refers to the hair of the root of some plants [46; 59] Other examples are: ―horse – race‖ (race between horses with riders) and ―racehorse‖ (horse bred or kept to run in races) [6; 33]

Asher et al [7; 4998] suggest that variations in order typically involve major sentence elements rather than the elements of phrases which on the whole

2.2.3 English inversion

According to the Oxford Companion to the English language of McArthur

Tom (1992; p.526) the term ―inversion‖ which dates back to the 16th century originated in both Latin and Greek Its Latin origin is ―inversio‖ or ―inversionis‖ which means ―turning around‖ Its Greek origin is ―anastrophe‖ which means

―turning back‖ For example, in English it is observed when certain kinds of questions are formed from statements, such as: ―Are you coming?‖ formed from

―You are coming‖ by inverting the order of ―you are‖ Inversion is also found in rhetoric English in which the normal word order of statements is turned around, usually for emphasis or to mark priority and eminence: e.g.: (18) ―There were the wolves Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself arms in the air pressing it back from him as it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent.‖ [55; 30-32]

Ilyish (1971; p230) in ―The structure of Modern English” points out the

scope of inversion in English as follows:

―the normal order in English is “Subject + Predicate” and every case of the order

“Predicate + Subject” is to be considered as a deviation that is as an inversion This

has been the common view put forward in most grammars until recently.‖

For example, the sentence ―At the end of the hall stood a knight in armour” comes

from the sentences with the normal order ―A knight in armour stood at the end of the hall.‖ [2; 218]

In English dictionaries of language [7; 5136], [15; 424], [55; 803] inversion

is considered as reversed sequence of sentence elements

Since inversion is closely associated with the order of sentence elements It is necessary to state the sentence the sentence elements first before the concept of inversion is taken into consideration

2.2.4 Sentence Elements

According to Quirk et al [47; 35-40], there are five elements of sentence (or clause) structure which are normally obligatory: Subject (S), Verb (V), Complement (C), Object (O) and Adverbial (A)

The term Verb (V) stands for a verb phrase in a sentence Classified according to complementation Verbs (either habitually or in certain uses) will not admit the progressive, they are called STATIVE; when they will admit it, they are called DYNAMIC Unlike EXTENSIVE verbs, INTENSIVE verb requires a complement and/ or an adverbial All transitive verbs take a direct object Transitive verbs are divided into three minor types: DITRANSITIVE verbs permit both a direct object and an indirect complement or an adverbial: MONOTRANSITIVE verbs take one object only

The Subject whose general characteristic is that it has a close relation to

―what is being discussed‖, the ―theme‖ of the sentence, with the normal implication that something new (the predicate) is being said about a ―Subject‖ that has already been introduced in an earlier sentence Another feature is that the subject determines concord of person and number with the verb phrase The subject can be a noun phrase or a clause with nominal function It occurs before the verb phrase in declarative sentences and immediately after the operator in interrogative sentences

The Object (direct or indirect) normally follows the subject and the verb phrase It is a noun phrase or a clause with nominal function By the passive transformation, it assumes the status of subject

The Complement (subject of object) is a noun phrase, an objective phrase, or

a clause with a nominal function It follows the subject, verb phrase and (if one is present) object Unlike the object, the complement does not become subject through passive transformation

The Adverbial is an adverb, adverb phrase, adverbial clause, noun phrase or prepositional phrase In terms of position, it is generally mobile i.e.: it is capable of occurring in more than one position in the clause Moreover, it is generally optional i.e.: it may be added to or removed from a sentence without affecting the acceptable

of the sentence

The above is the syntactic features of sentence elements presents presented

by Quirk et al [47; 343] who also distinguish seven sentence (or clause) types based

on the above-mentioned elements

The sentence (or clause) types in their simple declarative form are:

Table 1: The sentence types in the simple declarative form

The general picture is quite simple: there are:

Henrietta (S) is ignoring (P) the bull – frog (C) in the bathtub (A)

Startled squirrels (S) squiggle (P) rapidly (A)

These elements can also be found in the Vietnamese language Ban Diệp Quang (1984), Phiến Hoàng Trọng (1980), Chừ Mai Ngọc (1992) all agree that there are Subject (S), Predicator (P), Object (O), Adverbial (A) in sentences The terms S, V, O, C, A are used in this paper to refer to sentence element in both English and Vietnamese, because Buren Paul Van (1974; 282) states:

“It is logically impossible to engage in contrastive analysis without postulating common categories of one sort or another since, more generally, it is logically impossible to compare any two entities without using the same frame of reference”

(11) Will he ask any questions?

(12) Is he asking any questions?

(13) Has he asked any questions?

Wh-question is formed by the Q – element which comes first in the sentence Then there come the operator and the subject except when the Q – element is subject

In negative statements, ―not‖ is always placed after the operator or contracted with it: (17)

(18)

a They have not/ haven‘t sent news

b You wouldn‘t/ would not have sending news [18]

It can be said that the operator is part of a predicator if the predicator consists

of one or more auxiliaries When a predicator does not contain any auxiliary, it does not contain the word that can act as an operator for the purpose of forming questions

and negative sentences with ―not‖ In such cases, “do” is introduced when an

operator is required

(19) It rained steadily all day? => Did it rain all day? [47] The lexical verbs BE and HAVE can act like operators even when they are predicators So, the term ―Operator‖ is also used for them in such cases as the following:

(20) Is she a pretty girl?

Quirk et al (1972), Leech and Svartvik (1975) state that apart from questions and negatives, there are a number of other constructions which require the use of an operator They include:

(24) The boat hasn‘t left, has it?

(25) John recognized you, didn't he?

Pro – forms: (26) Bill damage his father‘s car At least he told us that he did

(27) John drives a car So does Bob

Statements

with

inversion:

(28) Never have I seen such a magnificent perfomance

The operator performs an important syntactic function It is normally the first auxiliary of the predicator and when it ―operates‖ It is isolated from the rest of the predicate no matter how complex the predicator is The part of the predicate distinguished from the operator is called predicator by Quirk et al (1972; 35)

2.2.6 Definitions of English Inversion

Inversion as a syntactical phenomenon can be considered as a universal language [22; 12] Not only does it exist in English but also in many other

languages: French: inversion, Russia: inversiya, German: umkehrung, etc Many

books on English grammar examine inversion and give a list of cases in which inversion occur, but not all of them present a satisfying definition of this concept Below are some definitions about inversion found in English grammar books which have been popular recently

Eagleson et al (1983; 61): ―Inversion is a rearrangement of the subject and verb or operator from their normal order in statements‖ It occurs in questions: (29) Was he very ill? Compare: He was very ill

(30) When did he buy it? Compare: He bought it yesterday

Or when a topic is fronted for emphasis:

(31) Here is the bus Compare: The bus is here

Eastwood (1994; 57) distinguishes between: Subject-Verb inversion ><

On the door-step stood an old

Here is the news

After direct speech:

(34) ―Are you ready‖ Jane asked/ asked Jane

Subject-Auxiliary inversion:

In questions:

(35)

(36)

What did the man want?

Have you heard the news?

In additions with ―so‖ and ―neither/ nor:

(37) I saw the man and so did Paul

(38) Barbara can‘t drive and neither/nor can her husband

After a negative phrase in front position:

(39) In no circumstances should you sign the form

In some conditional clause:

(40) Have you signed the form, you would have lost all your rights Swan (1980; 277): ―Inversion means putting the verb before the subject This

happens in questions and in a number of other cases There are two main kinds of

inversion In the more common kind, an auxiliary verb comes before the subject and

the rest of the verb comes after If there is no auxiliary: do, does, or did is added.‖

(41) Has your mother spoken to Arthur?

(42) I saw Marry yesterday Did you see her?

―In the sort of inversion, the whole verb comes before the subject: do and did

are not used.‖

(42) ―I love you‖, whisper John

Quirk et al (1972; 948): ―… inversion of which we distinguish two types

consisting respectively in the reversal of SUBJECT and VERB, and the reversal of

SUBJECT and OPERATOR‖ Quirk et al (1972; 948) also point out that since the

verb BE intensive clauses can be simultaneously regarded as verb and operator

There is a choice of classifying its placement before the subject as an instance either

of subject-verb or subject-operator inversion

Leech and Svartvik (1975; 178-179) also divide inversion into two types:

Subject-verb inversion

SUBJECT VERB X … X VERB SUBJECT …

Subject-operator inversion

SUBJECT OPERATOR X … X OPERATOR SUBJECT …

In conclusion, although slightly differing in the use of terminology (the above-mentioned linguists use ―the verb‖ to refer to the predicator and some use

―the auxiliary verb‖ to refer to the operator), most linguists share the same view about the concept of inversion in English of which the characteristics can be listed

as follows:

a) When inversion occurs, the normal word order of sentences is reversed in such

a way that either the operator or the predicator is placed before the subject of the sentence

b) As a result, there are two types of inversion in English: Subject-Operator inversion and Subject-Predicator inversion

c) In an inversion structure, there is usually an element coming before the operator or the predicator It is given different names: the initial element [47], the topic element [32], the lead word [23]

d) Many inversion structures are not obligatory and they tend to create an emphatic effect On the other hand, in some cases, inversion can form a meaning different from that of the sentence with the normal order

e) Language is a means of communication and every language form is closely associated with its own functions As a result, inversion structures can be examined

in the syntactic classes of sentences according to different communicative functions

2.2.7 Types of Sentences according to Communicative Functions

According to Quirk et al (1972; 385 – 386), simple sentences may be divided into four major syntactic classes whose use correlates with different communicative functions:

a) Statements are sentences in which the subject is always present and generally precedes the predicator:

b) Questions are sentences marked by one or more of these three criteria:

 The placing of the operator in front of the subject:

 The initial positioning of an interrogative or Wh – element:

 The ―question‖ intonation:

c) Commands are the sentences which normally have no overt grammatical subject and whose predicator is in the imperative mood:

However, there is a type of command in which the subject ―you‖ is retained

(48) You open the door!

(49) Don‘t you open the door!

[47; 405] [47; 405] These commands are usually admonitory or ―finger – wagging‖ in tone and frequently express strong irritation As a result, they cannot naturally be combined with markers of politeness such as: ―please‖ ―Please you open the door!‖ A 3rd

person subject is also possible in this kind of command:

(50) Somebody opens the door

(51) Don‘t anyone open the door

[47; 405] [47; 405]

There are also commands followed by question tags such as: “will you?” “can

you?”, “won‟t you?”, “can‟t you?”, etc

(52) Get out your books, will/ would/ can/ could you? [19; 22] d) Exclamation are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by ―what‖

or ―how‖, generally without inversion of subject and operator:

Occasionally, in literary or poetic style, there occurs inversion of subject and

operator or predicator in exclamatory sentences:

Palmer Frank [43; 222] states that such a reverse is felt as archaic

In Vietnamese, the Vietnamese grammarian Ban Diệp Quang (9; 244 – 261) and Phiến Hoàng Trọng (46; 266 – 279) also divide Vietnamese sentences into four different syntactic classes based on different communicative functions: statements, questions, commands and exclamations

In statements, the subject is generally present and comes before the predicator:

Statements consists of two forms: affirmative and negative

(56) Tôi lấy quyển sách này

(57) Tôi không lấy quyển sách này

(60) Anh về hay ở lại?

(61) Anh có tìm đươc bút không?

(62) Có phải em vẽ tranh này không?

[46; 278] [46; 278] [9; 251] [9; 252] [9; 252] ―Có … không‖, ―có phải … Không‖, etc are called interrogative particles

Besides, it is quite common for such modality particles as: à, ừ, ạ, nhỉ, nhé, hả/ hở,

chứ/ chớ, chăng, sao to be used in making Vietnamese questions Among these

particles: à, ừ are most neutral, the rest are means of emotiveness The modality particles normally stand at the end of the statements

(63) Bác (anh, mày) lấy quyển này à (ư)? (Neutral)

(64) Bác (anh) lấy quyển này ạ? (Respectful)

(65) Ông ấy chưa về nhỉ? (hở/ hả/ chứ/ chớ) (Informal friendly)

[9; 255]

Ban Diệp Quang states that particles ―hở/hả‖, ―chứ/chớ‖ frequently imply more interrogative meaning than ―nhỉ/nhé‖

(66) Bây giờ mới về hở (hả/chứ/chớ)?

(67) Bây giờ mới về hở nhỉ/nhé?

[9; 255]

In Vietnamese there is a kind of question in which the expression ―(có) phải không?‖ comes at the end:

(68) Người ta bảo anh thế, (có) phải không? [9; 255]

A popularly accepted kind of question which merely employs intonation is the one beginning with the word ―còn‖ The final part of the questions has rising intonation:

In Vietnamese commands, the particles “hãy, đừng chớ, không” … are found

to stand at the beginning:

(70) Hãy tính độ dài của đoạn thẳng AB (second person)

(71) Bác đừng nói thế! (second person)

(72) Không ai được nhúc nhích! (third person)

[9; 255] [9; 255] [46; 289]

It is clear that commands in Vietnamese are not only addressed to the second person but to the third person as well

Exclamations are formed through the use of the following devices:

Particles: (74) Sao mà cái đời nó tù túng, nó chật hẹp, nó bần tiện

meeting) ―How do you do?‖ cannot be transformed into reported speech ―They asked him how he did‖ or answered in equivalent statement form ―I do very well‖ Besides, there are formulaic sentences in which the old optative subjunctive survives, combined with inversion, as in:

(76) Far be it from me to spoil the fun

(77) Suffice it to say we lost

[47; 412] [47; 412]

2.3 Summary

In short, one similarity between English and Vietnamese is that both languages employ word order as a grammatical device Classified according to the basic order in which sentences elements occur, English and Vietnamese belong to SVO is the language type Nevertheless, this does not mean that SVO is the only possible sentence pattern in these languages There is another sentence pattern as well Furthermore, the word order in these two languages is only ―relative fixed‖

As a result, it is understandable why there are quite a number of common variations

on the rules of word order in a sentence

Quirk et al (1972; 948), Leech and Svartvik (1975; 178 – 179), Swan (1980; 277), Eagleson et al (1983; 61), Eastwood (1994; 54) agreed that there are two types of inversion English: They are subject-operator inversion and subject-predicator inversion

In the next chapter, these types of inversion are going to be classified, described and examined through a contrastive analysis with Vietnamese equivalent sentences to discover the similarities and differences of two languages on the sentence level

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research approach

The thesis chooses research approach based on linguistic viewpoints of Quirk et al (1972; 948), Leech and Svartvik (1975; 178 – 179), Swan (1980; 277), Eagleson et al (1983; 61), Eastwood (1994; 54) to analyze the characteristics of English and Vietnamese inversion‘s features in terms of syntax and semantics All

of the above-mentioned authors agreed that there are two types of inversion English: They are subject-operator inversion and subject-predicator inversion

This study carries out a micro linguistic contrastive analysis on the level of syntax-the grammar of sentences concerned with the way in which words or particular word classes are combined to form sentences The unit of this contrastive analysis is the sentence As Swan (1980; 25) puts it a sentence is ―a group of words that expresses a statement, command, question or exclamation A sentence consists

of one or more clauses and usually has at least one subject and finite verb In writing, it begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.‖ Linguists have agreed that all sentences are made up of one or more clauses and that simple sentences are sentences consisting of only one clause

3.2 Methods of the study

a) Contrastive Analysis method:

This study follows the instructions of applied contrastive analysis As a result, it concentrates on how inversion in English is rendered in Vietnamese This implies that the study is characterized by its directionality: it is unidirectional in the sense that the contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese is descriptively biased toward the former E.g.: much more attention is paid to English rather than to Vietnamese since it is the former which must be learnt

The criteria for comparison or the ―tertium comparationis‖ employed in this paper are the translationally equivalent sentences Many contrastivists [56; 175] claim that it has been standard practice in grammar CA to compare the formal features of translationally paired sentences James [56; 67] states that ―It is a procedural convenience to work with translationally equivalent sentences‖ But

notices that ―For two sentences from different languages to be translationally equivalent they must convey the same ideational and interpersonal and textual meanings.‖ [56; 178]

The ideal meaning which is concerned with deep structure is the meaning that single isolated sentences convey [56; 178] According to Kizeszowski [56; 175], ―equivalent constructions have identical deep structures even if on the surface they are markedly different‖ A conclusion to draw from all this is that translational equivalents have at least the same ideational meaning

The interpersonal meaning of a sentence determines what kind of speech act

it performs for its user: to praise, condemn, refuse, agree, and so on [56; 178]

The textual meaning of a sentence determines what information it contributes to the message: how it helps maintain cohesion and coherence [56; 178]

James [56; 178] concludes that ―for contrastive analysis we must equate first language and foreign language forms which, no matter how far they diverge superficially are semantically and pragmatically equivalent‖ and that ―translation equivalent of this rather rigorously defined sort is the best available tertium comparationis for contrastive analysis.‖

The translationally equivalent sentences chosen to server as tertium comparationis for the contrastive analysis in this study are the ones which meet the above-mentioned conditions The pairs of sentences are juxtaposed in order to show the striking contrast between the two languages Then the similarities and differences are formulated by means of transfer rules which specify how English inversion gets parceled out correspondingly in Vietnamese

James [56; 47] points out that transfer rules are inherently directional: the rules describing the conversion of English into Vietnamese are different from those affecting the conversion in the opposite direction

The examples used in this study are taken from two kinds of sources The first source is 11 English literary works in which the examples involved have been examined, described and classified The second source is the equivalent literary works in Vietnamese in which the examples involved have been quoted