The experiential structure of nominal group in english and vietnamese

Theunderstanding of the experiential functional components and the effects that eachcomponent can have on the whole meaning of the nominal group in the two languages canhelp much in this

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES



TRIỆU THÀNH NAM

THE EXPERIENTIAL STRUCTURE OF

NOMINAL GROUP

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(CẤU TRÚC KINH NGHIỆM CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ

TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

HÀ NỘI, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES



M.A Minor Thesis THE EXPERIENTIAL STRUCTURE OF

NOMINAL GROUP

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(CẤU TRÚC KINH NGHIỆM CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ

TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

By: Triệu Thành Nam Supervisor: Nguyễn Huyền Minh, M.A.

HÀ NỘI, 2010

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale for the study 1

II Scope of the study 2

III Research Questions 2

IV Methods of the study 2

V Methods of Analysis 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENTS CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE I Systemic Functional Grammar 4

II Noun Phrase or Nominal Group: The problem of labeling 5

III Noun Phrase/Nominal Group in Different Schools of Grammar 6

1 Noun Phrase in Structural Grammar and Generative Transformational Grammar 6

2 Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar 7

3 Nominal Group in Systemic Functional Grammar 8

IV The Nominal Group in English 9

1 An overview of English Nominal Group 9

2 The experiential structure of the nominal group in English 11

2.1 Premodifier 11

2.1.1 Deictic 11

2.1.2 Numerative. 13

2.1.3 Epithet 13

2.1.4 Classifier 13

2.2 The Head: The Thing 15

2.3 The Postmodifier – the Qualifier 16

3 Summary on the experiential structure of the nominal group in English 16

CHAPTER 2: NOMINAL GROUP IN VIETNAMESE

I An overview of studies on Vietnamese Nominal Group 18

II Nominal Group in Vietnamese 19

2.1 The Head: the Thing 20

2 2 Premodifier 23

2.2.1 Position (-1) 24

2.2.2 Position (-2): Cái 24

2.2.3 Position (- 3) 25

2.2.4 Position (- 4) 26

2.3 Postmodifier 26

2.3.1 The Postmodifier is a word 26

2.3.1.1 Position (1): Classifier 26

2.3.1.2 Position (2): Epithet 27 2.3.1.3 Position (3): Deictic 27 2.3.2 The postmodifier is a phrase or clause 28

CHAPTER 3: STRUCTURAL SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF THE NOMINAL GROUP IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH I Similarities. 29

1.1 NGs in English and Vietnamese have the same logical structure 29

1.2 The similar realization of the experiential functions 30

1.3 The Numerative occurs before the Head 30

1.4 The structural similarity in the post-position phrases and clauses 30

II Differences 31

2.1 The function of Deictic 31

2.2 The function of Epithet 32

2.3 The function of Classifier 32

III Concluding Remark 33

PART 3: CONCLUSION 36

List of Reference. 38

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale for the study

Over the last few decades, the modern linguistics has seen the remarkabledevelopments of functional linguistics in which the theory of systemic functional grammardeveloped by Halliday is said to have the greatest influences Vietnamese linguistics hasalso initiated new trends, basing on the functional grammars Some Vietnamese linguists,

such as, Cao Xuan Hao with Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng (1991), Hoang Van Van with

Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm của cú tiếng Việt: Mô tả theo quan điểm chức năng hệ thống (2001), and Diep Quang Ban with Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt (2008) are the first to apply the

theory of Systemic functional grammar into the interpretation of Vietnamese language.And their studies marked new important changes in the approaches to Vietnameselanguage

These works have settled a functional base for other further studies on Vietnameseunder the light of the Systemic functional grammar In these works, functional aspects andrelationships, such as the issues of Theme, Mood, and Process of transitivity of clauseshave been described Besides, structures below clauses, such as, nominal groups, also havereceived some interpretations However, on Vietnamese language in general andVietnamese nominal groups in particular, there have to be more functional studies becausetheory of functional grammar can be still considered "new" in Vietnamese linguistics That,

in other words, means the number of people who know and pay attention to it is stilllimited

On Vietnamese nominal groups, although there have been some studies, the issuestill has some questions to be answered and some debates to be solved, and needs furtherinvestigations One question raised to be answered is: Can the experiential functions inVietnamese nominal groups be clearly determined based on the systemic functionalgrammar? One debate that has not been solved completely is about the determination of thecomponent element(s) of the Head and Thing in Vietnamese nominal groups

Furthermore, for Vietnamese learners of English, the full understanding of nominalgroups in English and Vietnamese has been proved to be of the great importance,especially, when they want to develop skills of high proficiency, such as translation As amatter of fact, dense scientific terms, expressions of complicated abstract issues, etc are in

the forms of nominalization, and their meanings are not easy to be grasped Theunderstanding of the experiential functional components and the effects that eachcomponent can have on the whole meaning of the nominal group in the two languages canhelp much in this case.

Those discussed above are the reasons for doing this thesis which is titled: The

Experiential Structure of Nominal Groups in English and Vietnamese.

II Research Questions

The aims of the study are stated in the following research questions:

1 How are Nominal Groups in English and Vietnamese constructed in the light of Systemic Functional Grammar?

2 What are the similarities and differences in the functional construction of the NominalGroup in English and Vietnamese?

III Scope of the study

As can be inferred from the research questions, the study focused on the experientialfunctions of nominal groups in the two languages The study is to describe the experientialfunctional components of which the nominal group is comprised Based on thedescriptions, the comparison between English and Vietnamese nominal groups will bemade Due to limited time, the issue of reference of nominal group/noun phrase is put out

of the study That will lead to the fact that some relevant structural features of the nominalgroup will not be discussed fully

The study is within the nominal group structure and the relations of its functionalcomponents Nominal groups that are used for the description and demonstration tend to be

of the standard ones

IV Methods of the study

The basic methods used in this thesis are descriptive and contrastive methods oflanguage research First, a description of NG in English is given in the chapter oftheoretical background and literature review, and then that in Vietnamese will be done inthe next chapter Nominal groups that are used as examples for analyses and descriptionsare taken from books of different genres in English and Vietnamese The contrastivemethod is used to figure out the similarities and differences between nominal groups in thetwo languages

V Methods of Analysis

To answer the first question, with the Systemic Functional approach the study willlook into the structures of the nominal groups in the two languages Each functionalcomponent of the nominal group will be described separately, and defined first in theinterpretation of English nominal groups In the description of Vietnamese nominal groups,there will be marked positions in the structure; each position will be examined to determinethe function that the element in that position realizes Examples of Vietnamese nominalgroups will be used accompanied with their English translations

The answer to the second research question is obtained through comparing the typicalorderings of the functional components of the nominal groups in the two languages For thedemonstration of the similarities and differences, examples of English - Vietnamesenominal groups are given The similarities and differences are intended for further studiesand unstated implications for learning and teaching English for Vietnamese learners

PART 2: DEVELOPMENTS

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

I Systemic Functional Grammar

Systemic Functional grammar (SFG) developed by Halliday is a theory that isbased mainly on the work of the British linguist J.K Firth It is also influenced byHjelmslev, the anthropologist Malinowski, and the Prague School The theory is systemicbecause it is “a theory of meaning as choice, by which a language, or any other semioticsystem, is interpreted as networks of interlocking options” (Halliday, 1994, xiv) It isfunctional because it is designed to explain “how the language is used”; “language hasevolved to satisfy human needs, and the way it is organized is functional with respect tothese needs.” (Halliday, ibid, xiii)

What Halliday made himself different and developed from Firth and Malinowski, isthat he has put more concerns on social and cultural motivations than onpsychological/cognitive processes “Indeed, the social dimension is more strongly

developed in SFG than in any other functional theory” (An Encyclopedia of Linguistics,

In SFG, fundamental components of meaning in language are functionalcomponents, and the use and meaning of language are understood as the performance ofthe 3 metafunctions: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual These functions arerealized in every units of language in use ranging from the whole text to phrases andgroups and so on It can be said that the theory of 3 metafunctions is the thread line in SFG

by Halliday It also helps to distinguish SFG from other functional theories

The ideational metafunction is divided into two subtypes: the experiential andlogical metafunctions The experiential function is to reflect our experience and

understanding of the world, which include all that come from our imagination The logicalmetafuntion works above the experiential It builds up our reasoning on the basis of ourexperience The second metafunction is the interpersonal metafunction which comprisesthe three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance and relative socialstatus, and which serves to establish and maintain social relations The textualmetafunction is to provide links of building/setting up discourses By this function, we cantell a text from a set of sentences randomly mixed together It can be said that the theory of

3 metafunctions is the underlying background of SFG

II Noun Phrase or Nominal Group: The problem of labeling

In doing this thesis, we have run over the two terms: Noun Phrase and NominalGroup, which are used to refer to the same thing but in different respects of meaning Forthe sake of further investigations later into the issues, it is better to look into the two terms

at the right beginning for any distinction to be made

Within the scope of this study, the two terms: Noun phrase and Nominal group arethe two labels to refer to the same structural unit in language The thing that matters to bementioned here is that each term is used in a certain context reflecting a certain choice

Noun phrase is a term of formal grammar; it has been used in formal traditionalgrammar for a long time and has become so popular in linguistics As a formal term, it islikely to be understood fully in terms of intrinsic formal features of structural constituents

To the term Nominal Group, it is easily understood that Halliday has his ownreason for his choice As a functionalist, Halliday has always made himself a distance fromformal grammar One of his ways of doing this is trying to avoid formal terms in SFG.Therefore, he uses Nominal Group Also, he makes a distinction between the concept ofGroup and of Phrase A group is defined as “an expansion of a word”, whereas “a Phrase is

a contraction of a clause The choice of the term Phrase is more preferable when dealingwith it as a larger unit in clausal relationship However, this distinction makes nomeaningful differences to the content of our analysis in this thesis In other words, in thescope of our study, Noun Phrase and/or Nominal Group are interchangeable, but becausethe study is based on the Systemic Functional Grammar by Halliday the thesis will use theterm Nominal Group

III Noun Phrase/Nominal Group in Different Schools of Grammar

In this part, we would discuss some typical points of view on Noun Phrase/NominalGroup from different schools of grammar with the aim to get an overview into all thestudies on Noun Phrase/Nominal Group We will investigate the Noun Phrase in StructuralGrammar and Generative Transformational Grammar Then we also look at the concept ofNoun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar Finally, we discuss Halliday‟s point ofview on Nominal Group

1 Noun Phrase in Structural Grammar and Generative Transformational Grammar

In schools of formal grammars, Noun Phrase is defined as a group of words with a

Noun or Pronoun as the main part (the Head), and other words (coming before or after the Head) taking the role of modifiers

A Noun Phrase may consist of only one word, which means it has only the Head

without any modifiers Dogs and cats in the following sentence are examples:

Dogs are more intelligent than cats

Noun Phrases can have a noun as the Head and some other words such as aDeterminer coming before the Head and modifying it Because the modifying words comebefore the Head, they are called Premodifiers In the sentence below the Noun Phrase: The

house consists of the Head house and the Premodifier the:

The house was pulled down yesterday.

When a Noun Phrase has the modifiers that follow the Head, the modifiers in thiscase are called the Postmodifiers In the following sentence, the noun phrase taking the role

of the subject consists of three parts: the Premodifier, the Head and the Postmodifier”

The girl who lives next door is now on holiday.

The a determiner is the Premodifier, girl a noun the head, and who lives next door a relative

clause is the Postmodifier

Going into the structure of the Noun Phrase, formalist have given a 3 part model asmentioned above and diagramed below:

Following this model, the analysis into the structure of the Noun Phrase can be continued

by investigating the components of each part At the end of the process of analyzing, singleword classes can be shown in the chart of the Noun Phrase structure, as in the followingexample:

A little boy

In a quick conclusion for this part, Noun Phrase in Structural Grammar andGenerative Transformational Grammar has been paid much attention The structure ofNoun Phrase is analyzed into single constituents in the labels of word classes

2 Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar

Having its foundation of Functional Grammar which was developed by the Dutch

linguist Simon Dik and his colleagues from the late 1970s onwards (An Encyclopedia of

Linguistics, p 699), Functional Discourse Grammar was developed by Hengeveld In his

theory, Hengeveld inherited a lot from Functional Grammar, and also added more newthings which helped to make the Functional Discourse Grammar “a new research program

in the linguistic landscape” (The Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar, edited

by Daniel Garcia Velasco and Jan Rijkhoff, p.3)

In Functional Discourse Grammar, Noun Phrase gets a lot of discussion AlthoughHengeveld keeps using the label Noun Phrase, his way of looking into the structure ofNoun Phrase is different from that of formalists He looks at Noun Phrases as discourseunits which are analyzed at four distinct levels as follows:

- at the Interpersonal Level (IL)

- at the Representational Level (RL)

- at the Morphosyntactic Level (ML)

- at the Phonological Level (PL)

3 Nominal Group in Systemic Functional Grammar

As mentioned previously, Halliday claims that every discourse unit in a languagecan be analyzed by looking into 3 respects of meanings: ideational, interpersonal, andtextual meaning, when he states: “the three functional components of meaning, ideational,

interpersonal, and textual are realized through the grammar of a language.” In An

Introduction to Functional Grammar half of what Halliday does is to investigate those

three layers of meaning in one clause, and in part 2 of the book, he focus on the structureswhich (he calls) are above, below, and beyond the clause Nominal Group belongs to thestructures below the clause

According to Halliday, it is still possible to analyze the three functional components

of meaning in a Nominal Group, but there is some difference in the patterning whencompared to a clause In a clause, each component of meaning makes a part of meaningstructure; therefore, the meaning of a clause consists of three distinct combined meaningstructures In a group, the 3 components of meaning are not seen as “separate wholestructure, but as partial contributions to a single structural line.” That is why Halliday tends

to analyze the structure of nominal group in one aspect of meaning, not in 3 as in analyzingthe clause He states that: “The difference between clause and group on this respect is onlyone of degree; but it is sufficient to enable us to analyze the structure of the group in oneoperation, rather than in 3 operations as we did with the clause.” (Halliday, ibid, p.179)

In analyzing Nominal Group structure, Halliday splits the ideational meaningcomponent into two: Experiential and Logical Hallidayan point of view in analyzing thestructure of Nominal Group focuses on interpreting the position of each subset element andits functional contribution to the meaning of the Head – the semantic core of the group andthe meaning of the group on the whole Describing the experiential structure of theNominal Group, Halliday (ibid) sets up the following system of functions: Deictic(typically realized by Determiner), Numerative (typically realized by Numeral), Epithet(typically realized by Adjective), Classifier (typically realized by Noun/Adjective), Thing(typically realized by Noun), and Qualifier (typically realized by prepositional phrases andembedded clauses)

IV The Nominal Group in English

In this section, we will discuss the experiential structure of the nominal group Asstated by Halliday, the ideational function can be divided into two functions: logical andexperiential When the nominal group is seen as a univariate structure generated byiteration, we are discussing its logical structure The relationship of modification withfamiliar terms, such Head, Modifier, is of the logical function When the nominal group isseen as a multivariate structure in which components play different functional roles, we aredealing with its experiential structure Halliday (ibid) identified six experiential functions

in a nominal group They are: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier, Thing, and Qualifierwhich will be discussed in more details in this section

The first part of this section will look into some definitions of the nominalgroup/noun phrase over the history of linguistics with points of view from different schools

of grammar The rest part is for the description of the experiential structure of the nominalgroup in English following the Hallidayan approach

For the sake of the analysis, the nominal group will be divided into three partsaccording to its logical structure: Premodifier, Head, and Postmodifier In this description,each part will be looked into further for its experiential functional components

1 An Overview of English Nominal Group

Over the development of linguistics, Noun Phrase/Nominal Group has receivednumerous definitions Each definition has a specific purpose when dealing with NominalGroup/Nominal Group

The noun phrase in English is defined concerning its functions in the sentences:

"The noun phrase is that element in the sentence which typically functions as Subject,Object, and Complement" (Quirk, et al, 1977:127)

Furthermore, we can find more explanations on the noun phrases through thedefinitions of the phrase and of the noun In other words, formal grammarians indirectlygive definitions on the noun phrase when they discuss the phrase and the noun Huddleston(1976) states about the phrase as follows:

A phrase is a group of two or more words It doesn't contain a finite verb It is functionally equivalent to a single word, and will thus be classified according to the part of speech of the kind of word to which it is equivalent

Noun Phrase in English is understood in Crystal's definition of the main syntactic features

of English nouns:

1 The meaning and use of nouns are defined by one of the determiners, e.g a, the, some

2 Nouns act as the head of noun phrases

3 Nouns change forms to express singular and plural, or the genitive case

From the functional viewpoint, Bloor and Bloor (1995) 's definition of NominalGroup is as follows: "A nominal group is typically a group with a noun or pronoun as ithas, and that noun may be modified, but it does not have to be modified in order toconstitute a group in this technical sense." It seems that this definition by Bloor and Bloor

is not very "functional"

As far as the structure is concerned, noun phrase is commonly and traditionallydefined as consisting of 3 potential parts: the Premodifier, the Head, and the Postmodifier,

in which the head, taken by a noun, is compulsorily required

A noun phrase can consist of only a noun or pronoun as in: Tom is a student, and

Tigers are mammal animals A noun phrase can also have a noun as the Head and some

elements coming before it (what we call Premodifiers) as in:

- The pretty girl

Pre Head

- A beautiful dress

Pre Head

A noun phrase can have the full form of 3 parts: Premodifier Head - Postmodifier as in

the following: - The pretty girl in the corner

Pre Head Post.

On discussing groups and phrased, Halliday (ibid, p.180) states that: "a phrase isdifferent from a group in that, whereas a group is an expansion of a word, a phrase is acontraction of a clause." From this statement, we can infer that a nominal group is anexpansion of a noun Halliday (ibid) also asserts that it is still possible to recognize thesame 3 functional components of meaning in the structure of a group as in a clause, but,because "they are not represented in the form of separate whole structure but rather aspartial contributions to single structural line", it is sufficient to analyze the structure of agroup in terms of one aspect of functional component of meaning In Systemic FunctionalGrammar, group structure in general is interpreted in terms of ideational metafunctionwhich can be split into two subsets: logical and experiential

As a matter of fact, nouns have the nature of naming things and making theconception of the world That is why when we interpret the structure of the nominal group,

we focus much more on the experiential function - the function that is to express ourconceptions of the world and our consciousness

2 The experiential structure of the nominal group in English

As said in the previous part, Head, Premodifier, and Postmodifier fall within thelogical structure However, for the sake of simplicity, we will discuss the experientialfunctional components in each part of the following will discuss the experiential structure

of the nominal group, and there will be sections named: Premodifier, Head, andPostmodifier.

2.1 Premodifier

In Nominal group in English, the Postmodifier can consist of the followingexperiential functional components: Deictic, Numerative, Classifier, and Epithet And theorder of the functional components in the Premodification is as the following figure given

by Halliday (ibid: 181)

Those two splendid old electric trains

2.1.1 Deictic

Deictic is the first functional element that can be found in the Premodifier part ofthe nominal group It has the function of pointing There are two subtypes of Deictic: Thespecific Deictic and the non-specific Deictic The specific Deictic helps to indicate that thesubset of the thing is specific The subset of the thing is not specific if it is premodified bynon-specific deictic

Deictic is usually realized by determiner, possessive nouns or possessive pronouns.The following tables given by Halliday (ibid) show how the specific deictic and non-specific deictic are realized:

(Table 6.1: Items functioning as specific deictic)

Determinative Interrogative Demonstrative This, that, these, those, the Which(ever), What(ever) Possessive My, your, our, his, her, its, their, one‟s, Whose(ever) [which person‟s],

John‟s, my father‟s etc.

(Table 6.2) Items functioning as non-specific deictic

Non-singular Singular dual mass/plural Unmarked

positive each both all

Total every

negative neither no (not any)

(not

Partial neither)

selective one either some [s m]

any non- a(n) some [sm]

selective

„one‟ „not one‟ (unrestricted)

Furthermore, a nominal group may have no deictic element in its structure, or itcan have a second deictic element which adds further information to the identification ofthe subset in the question, and which is called post-deictic or deictic 2 The most commonPost-deictic elements are: other, same, different, identical, complete, entire, whole, andabove, etc The function of Post-deictic is to “identify a subset of the class of “thing” byreferring to its fame, or familiarity, its status in the text, or its similarity/dissimilarity tosome other designated subset.” (Halliday, ibid, p.183)

2.1.2 Numerative

The function of Numerative is to indicate the feature of quality and ordering of the

Thing in either an exact or inexact way In the nominal groups: two trains, four hotels, the numerative elements (two and four) express exact number of the Thing (trains and hotels);

in many trains, several houses, the numeratives show inexact number (we cannot tell the exact numbers of the trains and houses referred.) Expressing ordering feature, numerative can indicate an exact position in an order (such as in the second corner) or an inexact position in an order (as in a subsequent train.)

Epithets are realized by adjectives, and there is no clear line between experientialepithets and attitudinal epithets As in Halliday‟s note: “the same word may act as eitherexperiential or interpersonal epithet.” However, there are still some criteria to distinguishexperiential from attitudinal ones “Experiential epithets are potentially defining,

interpersonal ones are not” Furthermore, attitudinal are more likely to precede experientialones They may come before Numerative, and tend to be “reinforced by other words, orother features, all contributing to the same meaning: synonyms, intensifiers, swear words,particular intonation contour, voice quality features and the like.” (Halliday, ibid, p.184)

2.1.4 Classifier

The last function element in the premodifier part of the nominal group in English isthe function of Classifier This function is to indicate a specific sub class of the Thing.Classifiers are typically realized by adjectives and nouns, and they usually occur rightbefore the Thing Consider the following nominal groups:

(1) bus station

(2) electric trains

(3) wooden trains.

In (1) bus is the Classifier It helps to tell the specific type of the station to be referred to,

answering the question: which type of the station is it? Similarly, in (2) and (3), the

classifiers electric and wooden help to point pout the subset of the trains, distinguishing the

trains in (2) from the trains in (3)

One problem that arises when recognizing the experiential functions in the nominalgroup is to distinguish Classifier from Epithet Some ambiguity can occur when the

determination of the function can be assigned either Classifier or Epithet In dancing girls,

as Boor and Bloor (ibid) point out, when dancing is considered as Classifier, the nominal group refers to some girls who dance as a job, and when dancing is considered as an

Epithet the group refers to some girls who are in the process of dancing

Halliday (ibid, p.184) also claims that: “Sometimes the same word may functioneither as Epithet or as Classifier with a difference in meaning” Although the separate linebetween Epithet and Classifier is not very clear, there are still sufficient differences.Halliday (ibid, p.185) has pointed out two differentiating criteria:

(1) Classifiers do not accept degrees of comparison (one can normally say an older table, a more splendid dress, but not a more wooden table.)

(2) Classifiers tend to be organized in mutually exclusive sets (a table is wooden, mental or plastic.)

We have discussed the four functions potentially occurring in the premodification

of the nominal group: Deictic – Numerative – Epithet, and Classifier Of the four functions

mentioned, Deictic and Classifier can be restrictive elements or restrictors which help tospecify the referents of the thing Numerative and Epithet in general add more qualityfeatures or characteristics of the thing.

2.2 The Head: The Thing

In the Head of the nominal group, we can find the fifth experiential function That

is the Thing which is the semantic core of the nominal group and which is usually realized

by a noun, pronoun, or a deverbal nominal item According to Bloor and Bloor (ibid,p.142) Thing can be “a material inanimate thing, an animal, a person, a substance or even

an abstract concept” However, as Halliday (ibid) has pointed out, sometimes there is aHead but the nominal group can have no Thing “There is always a Head in the nominal

group (unless, it is branched, like one brown in one blue eye and one brown.), but there

may be no Thing In those cases, the functions of Numerative and Deictic, can take the role

of the Head." (ibid, p.194)

One of the cases when the Head and the Thing do not conflate that is worth

mentioning here is the case of involving a measurement of something which includescollectives, partitives, and quantitatives According to Halliday, in the nominal groups ofmeasurements, the Head is measuring word, with the “of” phrase as Postmodifier, whereasthe Thing is the thing being measured, and the measuring expressions have the function of

a complex Numerative

Examples:(1)

a pack of cards

(2)

a slice of bread

(3)

a yard of cloth

21

In this section, we have discussed the fifth experiential functions in the nominalgroup: the Thing, which is the most semantic component Other functions in theexperiential structure play the roles of adding some kind of meaning property to the Thing.

In other words, other functional component has certain effects on the status o the Thing Inunmarked cases, the Thing of the experiential structure conflates with the Head of thelogical However, a nominal group with a Head can have no Thing And in these nominalgroups, Numerative and/or Deictic can have the role Head in logical structure

2.3 The Postmodifier – the Qualifier

In this section, we discuss the element that follows the Head/the Thing That is thePostmodifier and in the experiential term, it is called the Qualifier

The Qualifier, unlike other experiential functions, can be realized by a clause and/or

a phrase Typically, it is the defining relative clause and verbal group, and “of” phrase thatrealize the Qualifier in the nominal group Some examples of the nominal groups with theQualifiers of phrases and clauses are given below:

- the book on the natural resources

- the man who is standing in the corner

- the baby which needs looking after more carefully

About the function of the Qualifier in the nominal group, the Qualifier expressessome characteristic of the Thing The process of characterizing by the Qualifier hereinvolves the participation of the Thing in a direct or indirect way

3 Summary on the experiential structure of the nominal group in English

In general, the experiential structure of nominal groups in English can potentiallyconsist of six functions: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier, Thing, and Qualifier.Each function is typically realized by a certain class of word, phrase and clause, and has adifferent role in identifying the Thing It is unmarked that the Head of the nominal groupconflates with the Thing, which is usually realized by a noun or a pronoun ThePremodifier part of the nominal group is made up with 4 experiential functions: Deictic,Numerative, Epithet, and Classifier whereas the Postmodifier has only one function That

is the Qualifier From the discussion that has been made, the experiential structure of thenominal group in English can be interpreted as follows:

Premodifier Head Postmodifier Deictic

Numerative Epithet

Classifier Thing Qualifier Quantitative Ordinative Experiential Attitudinal

CHAPTER 2: NOMINAL GROUP IN VIETNAMESE

I An Overview of Studies on Vietnamese Nominal Group

1. Noun Phrase/Nominal Group (NP/NG) in Vietnamese has received a lot ofresearches and studies over the last 50 years, and there have been remarkable achievements onexplaining the structure of Noun Phrase/Nominal Group Some famous Vietnamese who have

paid much attention and great efforts into NP/NG can be mentioned are: Nguyen Lan (1956),

Nguyen Tai Can (1975), Cao Xuan Hao (1991), Dinh Van Duc (2001), Hoang Van Van (2001),

and Diep Quang Ban (2008) The studies and researches by the Vietnamese linguists are based

on different viewpoints of different school of grammar Hence, though there have been a lot ofagreements on the structure of NP/NG in Vietnamese, the issue still has some debates

In general, it can be said that most of the investigations into the structure ofNP/NG in Vietnamese are formal descriptions The two things that these descriptions havedone are (1) to classify the constituents of NPs/NGs according to their meanings and parts

of speech, and (2) to clarify the formal relationship between the Head and otherconstituents The last 4 decades have seen the development and influence of FunctionalLinguistics in general, and the Systemic Functional Grammar in particular in the linguisticsover the world That makes one new trend in modern linguistics And of course,Vietnamese linguists can ignore that new trend Some linguists have made great efforts

applying the new theory in interpreting Vietnamese Cao Xuan Hao, Hoang Van Van and

Diep Quang Ban are typical authors using the Functional Grammar into Vietnamese with

lots of high appreciated achievements

Though standing on different points of view, Vietnamese linguists all agree that aNP/NG of fully potential form in Vietnamese is made up with three parts: the Head- thecentre of the NP/NG, the Premodifier – the modifier occurring before thee Head, and thePostmodifier – the modifier occurring after the Head A fully potential form NP/NG inVietnamese appears in the following pattern:

In terms of logical structure, Vietnamese NP/NG has the same structuralcomponents as English one with the Head in the centre and the modifiers locating beforeand after it

2. Coming back to the debates on the structure of NP/NG in Vietnamese, wediscuss some different viewpoints below It can be said that the debates on the structure ofNP/NG in Vietnamese mainly come from the disagreements on the determination of the Headstructure when in the NP/NG there appears a classificator (loại từ) – a class of word in

Vietnamese coming right before the noun and generally sorting/classifying it as in một

con chuột (a mouse), con is a classificator informing that the noun (chuột) following

belongs a class of animals There are 3 different treatments on the structure of the Headwhich will be discussed below:

2.1 In the NGs with the structure involving a classificator + a noun (1 loại từ +

1 danh từ) such as một bác nông dân, hai cuốn cuốn sách, những bức tranh

the classificators, bác, cuốn, bức are considered as the Head of the NGs.

This treatment is given by Nguyen Tai Can (1970)

2.2 The second point of view is to consider the NGs having the Head composed

of 2 elements: a classificator + a noun which are termed T1+T2; bác nông

dân, cuốn sách, and bức tranh are the Heads in those NGs This point of

view is proposed by Nguyen Tai Can (1975)

2.3 The last viewpoint is to treat the nouns in these cases as the Heads In those

NGs, nông dân, sách, and tranh are the Heads This viewpoint is proposed

by Dinh Van Duc (2001) and Diep Quang Ban (2008)

3. It should be remembered that all the points of view discussed above are related tothe aspect of logical structure Within the scope of this study we cannot go into the rationale ofeach viewpoint However, we choose the last point of view to investigate the NP/NG The reason

is that this thesis is based on Systemic Functional Grammar, which focuses on the meaningmuch more than the syntax, and that our aim is to investigate the experiential structure of NG

II Nominal Group in Vietnamese

In this section, we try to discuss the experiential functions of the NG in Vietnamese in thethree parts of its logical structure We choose to investigate the Head first because it posessome debates as mentioned previously