Syntactic and semantic features of english collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the vietnamese equivalents

THESIS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “FREE” WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC KẾT HỢP TI

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “FREE” WITH REFERENCE TO

THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC KẾT HỢP TIẾNG ANH CÓ CHỨA TỪ

“FREE” VỚI CÁC TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG

TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYEN THI NGOC DUNG

Field: English Language

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “FREE” WITH REFERENCE TO

THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA CÁC KẾT HỢP TIẾNG ANH CÓ CHỨA TỪ

“FREE” VỚI CÁC TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

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

“The syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word

“free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents” 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, 2020

Student’s Signature

Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Dung

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Dr Phạm Thị Tuyết Hương

Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from

my supervisor, teachers and closest relatives

I would like first and foremost to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation

to my supervisor, Dr Phạm Thị Tuyết Hương, for her inspiring and invaluable

guidance, advice, encouragement and everything that I learnt from her throughout my work Without her this thesis would not have been possible

My sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, assistance and enthusiasm during my course

Special acknowledgement is also given to my lecturers at National College for Education for their precious knowledge, useful lectures in linguistics, which lay the foundation for this study

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for their patience, endless love, and devotion Whatever choices I have made, they have always stood by me and believed in me I am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given

me

There are many others I should mention here, people who helped me along the way and provided me support, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

ABSTRACT

Collocation is a big area in linguistics, it has become the subject of a linguistic study only recently, and it arouses a growing interest in numerous linguists and is defined in various ways However, Vietnamese students meet difficulties when using

English collocations Therefore this paper aims at investigating “The syntactic and

semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference

to the Vietnamese equivalents.” It was conducted with the hope of finding out the

equivalents of the collocations containing the word “free” in Vietnamese The result

of the thesis can be applied as a generic framework or a model for teaching English collocations in secondary and high schools Data used for analysis in this study were mainly collected from books, literary works, and dictionaries Data for analysis were based on descriptive, quantitative, qualitative and contrastive methods

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE” _ 28 Table 2: Semantic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE”…… 34

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

ABSTRACT v

ABBREVIATION vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 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 research 3

1.7 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Review of previous studies 5

2.2 Review of theoretical background 6

2.2.1 Theory of syntax 6

2.2.2 Theory of semantics 7

2.2.3 English collocation 8

2.2.3.1 The origin of the word “collocation” 8

2.2.3.2 Definition of collocation 8

2.2.3.3 The distinction between compounds, idioms and collocations 9

2.2.3.4 Classification of collocation 11

2.2.3.5 Characteristics of collocation 13

2.3 Review of theoretical framework 15

2.3.1 An overview of Adjective 15

2.3.2 An overview of Adverb 18

2.3.3 The word “free” in English 20

2.3.4 The word “tự do” in Vietnamese 21

2.4 Summary 22

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 24

3.1 Research approaches 24

3.1.1 Research questions 24

3.1.2 Research setting 24

3.1.3 Data collection and data analysis 25

3.2 Methods of the study 25

3.2.2 Supporting methods 26

3.3 Data collection and data analysis 26

3.3.1 Data collection techniques 26

3.3.2 Data analysis techniques 26

3.4 Summary 26

CHAPTER 4: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “FREE” WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 28

4.1 Syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE” 28

4.2 Semantic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE” 33

4.2.1 Meaning of “FREE” as costing nothing 34

4.2.2 Meaning of “FREE” as not limited or not controlled 35

4.2.3 Meaning of “FREE” as not held in a fixed position 36

4.2.4 Meaning of “FREE” as not or no longer a prisoner or an enslaved person 36

4.2.5 Meaning of “FREE” as not doing anything planned or important, or available to be used 36

4.2.6 Meaning of “FREE” as not joined to anything 37

4.2.7 Meaning of “FREE” as having unlimited movement 37

4.2.8 Meaning of “FREE” as giving or using often or in large amounts 37

4.2.9 Meaning of “FREE” as using something that belongs to someone else a lot 38

4.2.10 Meaning of “FREE” as “without” with the use at the end of word 38

4.2.11 The use of “FREE” in idioms 39

4.3 A comparison between English collocations containing the word “FREE” and the Vietnamese equivalents 39

4.3.1 In terms of syntactic features 39

4.3.2 In terms of semantic features 43

4.4 Implications for teaching and learning the English collocation containing the word “free” 46

4.5 Summary 48

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 49

5.1 Recapitulation 49

5.2 Concluding remarks 49

5.3 Limitations of the current research 50

5.4 Recommendations/Suggestions for a further research 51

REFERENCES 52

APPENDIX 54

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

In Vietnam, English has long been regarded as a tool of international communication, and together with its rising importance, the need of learning English

is becoming more and more urgent It can't be denied that all foreign learners in general and Vietnamese learners in particular desire to master English as the native speakers; however, they usually face a lot of difficulties that prevent them from gaining successful conversations

Vocabulary in general plays an important role in any language as we cannot

communicate without words British linguist Wilkins (1972) once stated without

vocabulary nothing can be conveyed There is a common assumption that the more

words a learner know, the larger the learner’s vocabulary knowledge is However, words are not used alone and separately but go with each other and depend on each other Words are combined into phrases There are free phrases and fixed phrases The latter often confuse learners because there are not any fixed rules for all the combinations English-as-a-second-language learners often have difficulties treating fixed phrases in their learning process That is why many learners cannot communicate fluently although they know a lot of words One of the reasons for these problems lies in the way people perceive and use collocations

Collocations are widely used in English and Vietnamese both in daily conversations and literary works The differences between English and Vietnamese culture resulted in many differences in their languages One of the most effective ways to transfer culture is the use of collocations which, however, causes many troubles for English learners because of their meanings In order to help learners to have a better understanding of collocations, particularly collocations containing the word “free”, this study will point out similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese collocations in terms of syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” In addition, it also offers some implications for teaching and learning English more effectively Numerous examples of collocations have been analyzed cautiously by applying qualitative approach; descriptive and contrastive methods are followed to achieve the set objectives Although collocations have become the subject of a linguistic study only recently, it arouses a growing interest in numerous linguists and is defined in various ways Accordingly, there is no exhaustive and uniform definition or categorization of

collocation Therefore, it tends to be one of the most problematic and important area

of vocabulary, especially for second language learners Hill (1999) goes so far as to

suggest: We are familiar with the concept of communicative competence, but perhaps

we should add the concept of collocation competence to our thinking He also claims

that non-native speakers have problems not because of faulty grammar but a lack of

collocations Along with Hill, McCarthy (1990) claims that collocation deserves to

be a central aspect of vocabulary study These pieces of evidence done can show the

great importance of collocation in acquisition of a language The author would like

to investigate the possibility of combining words into fixed expressions

As mentioned above, phrases are formed by words together Words in English are classified into different classes in which verbs have always been one of the most complex classes of words because verb, or rather, phrasal verb is the central to the structure of the sentence

According to Palmer (1965), learning a language is, to a very large degree, how to

operate the verbal forms, the pattern and the structure of the verb in that language

There is a question which need to be answer is that how verbs collocate with other classes of word A verb can collocate with a noun, a preposition, an adjective or even another verb Verb phrases are then created Investigating the combinations of verbs must be necessary for improving the students’ knowledge and lessening their difficulties

As can be seen from the discussion above, collocation is a big area in linguistics In

the frame work of this study, the focus of this study is only on the collocations

containing the word “free”, a rather special and complex word in English Since the

research is carried out against the Vietnamese backgrounds, the corresponding

Vietnamese equivalents are also provided The research is so entitled “The syntactic

and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents.”

1.2 Aims and objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to point out the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents in order to help to teach and learn the English collocations containing the word “free” more effectively

In order to gain the aim of the study, the following objecitves are put forward:

- To point out syntactic and semantic features of English collocations

containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents

- To find out the similarities and differences of English collocations containing the word “free” and the Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

- To suggest some implications to help Vietnamese learners of English learn English collocations containing the word “free” effectively

1.3 Research questions

i What are the semantic and syntactic features of English collocations

containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents?

ii What are the similarities and differences of English collocations

containing the word “free” in English and the Vietnamese equivalents?

iii What are the implications for teaching and learning English collocations containing the word “free” in English?

1.4 Methods of the Study

- Descriptive method is used to describe in details syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents

- Contrastive method will be used to identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese collocations in terms of syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free”

- Qualitative method focus on identifying syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” and the Vietnamese equivalents

1.5 Scope of the study

- Collocation is an issue that is studied in many different fields It is

unfeasible to discuss collocations in all aspects This study only focuses on

analyzing syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free”

- The collocations with the word “free” are studied in such levels as phrases, proverbs, idioms and set expressions

- Data in this thesis are taken from dictionaries, vocabulary and idiom books

1.6 Significance of the research

Theoretically, the study supplies a comprehensive understanding of semantic and syntactic features of the collocations containing the word “free” in order to help the English teachers and learners use the meanings and structure of the English collocations containing the word “free” exactly and effectively

Practically, the study provides the collocations of the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents in order to help the teachers of English to

teach better and help the learners of English to study better

1.7 Design of the study

This thesis is designed with five chapters:

Chapter I, Introduction, gives the general overview of the thesis including

rationale, aims, objectives, scope, significance as well as organization of the study

Chapter II, Literature review, presents the previous study and theoretical background about collocations

Chapter III, Methodology, focuses on presenting research questions and

research method

Chapter IV, Findings and Discussion, presents the semantic and syntactic

features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to their

Vietnamese equivalents and suggests some implications for teaching and learning

Chapter V, Conclusion, summarizes the major findings of the thesis along

with the practical implications, the limitations of the study and the suggestion for further study

References and Appendices come at the end of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of previous studies

Indeed, the term collocation is known very early, along with the language itself

At the beginning, this issue has been neglected in teaching and learning vocabulary for English language students The vocabulary was being learnt and taught only with the words in isolation However, with the development of society and that of pedagogical methodology as well as with the learner’s need, there have been several studies of English collocations in the field of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teaching Many linguists deal with the notion of collocations and its importance in vocabulary acquisition and teaching process such as Firth (1957), Gains & Redman (1986), Halliday (1966), Sinclair (1966), McCarthy (1990), Hill (1999) … Studying collocations is an interesting topic, touching on the key issue of what students really need to learn Clearly, any student who wishes to communicate like native – speakers will have to come to terms with the challenge of collocation

Recently, the issue of collocation has been highly estimated In the book English collocations in use, Mc Carthy and O’dell (2005) gave simple definitions of collocation with examples as well as exercises for learners to practice Bahns and Eldaw (1993), in the article, should we teach EFL students collocations, highlighted the importance of collocations Similarly, Farghal & Obiedat (1995) addressed the issue of collocations as an important and neglected variable in EFL classes A modern Course in English Syntax by Wekker, H and Haegeman, L (1985), The Study of Language by Yule, G (1985), English Syntax: An Introduction by Radford, A

(2004), Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Biber, D et al

Moreover, in the frame of M.A thesis at Vietnam National University, Hanoi - University of Languages and International Studies, Ha Noi Open University, there are also studies of collocations Works by Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005), Lê Thanh

Hà (2007), Đào Thị Ngọc Nguyên (2007) and Nguyễn Thi Toàn (2016) are some of typical examples They are all interested in the collocation issue They investigated the collocation’s definition, classification and the students’s knowledge about

collocations Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005) analyzed the collocations of one English textbook on Electronics and Telecommunications In her works, various types of collocations with different frequency of use and their characteristics are found out

A test is followed in order to obtain information about students’ knowledge of

collocation Likewise, the common errors and the causes for these errors are also drawn from the test result analysis Lê Thanh Hà (2007) carried out the lexical collocations and implications for the translators of English-Vietnamese when

meeting with lexical collocations More concretely, Đào Thị Ngọc Nguyên (2007) investigated collocations of only two adjectives (hard, happy) in English The major findings of this research are various distinguished senses of hard and happy in

different collocations and the students’ restricted collocation competence on the two adjectives in particular and on English lexemes in general Nguyễn Thi Toàn

(2016) analyzed the English collocation containing the verb Set In her works, the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word Set with

reference to the Vietnamese equivalents are pointed out Indeed, they are all great useful referential works for researchers, teachers and students who are going to investigate the issue of collocation in English

However, a detailed investigation into the collocations of the word free has

not been taken There has neither been any works that gave the insights to the comparison between English collocations and Vietnamese ones In the frame of an M.A thesis, the author would like to contribute a very minor investigation focusing

on the collocations (lexical collocation) with the word free in order to facilitate

students when dealing with these combinations of words Also, the Vietnamese equivalents are given to compare and contrast

2.2 Review of theoretical background

In order to get the aims, English collocations need to be made clear

2.2.1 Theory of syntax

Syntax is a set of principles in language It dictates how words from different parts of speech are put together with the aim of conveying a complete thought R.M.W.Dixon (1991) states that syntax deals with the way in which words are combined together Verbs are different grammatical properties from language to language but there is always a major class verb, which includes word referring to motion, rest, notice, giving and speaking

Syntax is considered to be the theory of the structure of sentence in a language This notion has its direct antecedents in the theory of immediate constituents, in which the function of syntax is to mediate between the observed forms of a sentence and its meaning

According to Bloomfield (1993), “we could not understand the form of a language if we merely reduced all the complex forms to their ultimate constituents”

He pointed that in order to account for the meaning of a sentence, it is necessary to recognize how individual constituents such words and morphemes constitute more complex forms

Syntax is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways in which 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 language and relationships between words In other words, morphology deals with word formation out of morphemes whereas syntax deals with phrase and sentence formation out of words

Syntax structures are analyzable into sequences of syntactic categories or syntactic classes, these being established on the 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 to every language However, just as the criteria for the major words class noun and verb differ from language to language, so do the ways

in which syntactic relations are marked

In brief, after putting all theories into consideration, Blooming field’ one should

be used because his theory is suitable to identify the form of English idioms and their Vietnamese equivalents

2.2.2 Theory of semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning in language It primarily focuses on the correlation between the symbolic constituent of a sentence such as words and phrases and what they demonstrate for, their references First discovered by French linguist Michel Breal, the word semantics relates series of awareness from normal using to higher application In simple meaning, it describes a range of understanding which could carry out the word choice According to Breal (1890), the difference between semantics and syntax is syntax is just a formal arrangement of constituents of a language without their own meanings, while semantics requires the critical meaning for every use of words

There are many theories of semantics which has been studied and analyzed for centuries and they could generally be classified into three basic concepts:

Model theoretic semantics: Discovered by Richard Montague in the late 1960s, this formal theory of ordinary language semantics is about how and in which expressions reflect their relational meaning among themselves And more amazingly, the truth values of a sentence and its reasonable denotations to other sentence are analyzed to a model (Montague, 1960)

Truth conditional semantics: First mentioned by the linguist Donald Davidson

in 1973, the theory tries to find the language connection with the reality which differenates it from model theoretic semantics Its result shows that every component

of a sentence must rely and reflect the truth conditions of it in order to carry out the true meaning of the combination There is a simple example for this theory: “winter

is cold” is true only when winter is cold, if two conditions of the meaning “winter” and “cold” are not logical with each other then the semantics could not be performed Lexical semantics: is the theory of context It states that the meaning of a word

is totally revealed by its situation Each component of the sentence must collaborate with others in terms of meanings which could depend on their own level and form in order to carry out the meaning of the sentence As a result, it would be easier for the speakers to conveniently deliver their thoughts depending on the current context (Levin, 1991)

2.2.3 English collocation

2.2.3.1 The origin of the word “collocation”

The term collocation was first introduced by Firth (1957), a British linguist He

was the first person to look lexis at its syntagmatic, left-to-right unfolding of language According to Firth (1957), the collocation is defined as a combination of

words associated with each other, for example to take a photo, to do homework, to

play football The term collocation has it origin in the Latin verb collocate which

means to set in order/to arrange

2.2.3.2 Definition of collocation

In Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2003), collocation is defined as the way words combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing [19]

or a particular combination of words used in this way

“The term collocation refers to combinations of two lexical items each of which makes a distinct semantic contribution” (Stephan Gramley and Kurt – Michael Patzold, 2002) [10]

Cruise (1987) defines collocations as “sequences of lexical items which

habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical constituent is also a semantic constituent Such expressions as (to pick a

semantic area at random) fine weather, torrential rain; high winds are examples of

collocations

The semantic cohesion of a collocation is the more mark if the meaning carried

by one (or more) of its constituent elements is highly restricted contextually, and different from its meaning in more neutral contexts From Cowie’s viewpoint (1994), words which combine with other words, or with idioms, in particular grammatical

constructions are said to collocate with those words or idioms Collocations are of

two kinds:

b1 Restricted collocations: Restricted collocations are sometimes referred to as

‘semi-idiom’ In such combinations, one word has a figurative sense not found outside that limited context The other element appears in a familiar, literal sense For

example, the verb and noun, respect in to jog one’s memory and the adjective and noun in a blind alley Some members of this category allow a degree of lexicon variation, for instance to have cardinal error/ sin/ virtue/ grace and in this respect

‘restricted’ collocations resemble ‘open’ ones Another point of similarity is that the literal element is sometimes replaced by a pronoun, or deleted altogether, in sentence where there is an earlier use of the full expression:

For example: The Board didn’t entertain the idea, and the Senate wouldn’t

entertain it either (Cowie, Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms)

In other respects, however, restricted collocations are idiom-like The particular

sense which jog has in to jog one’s memory occurs in no other text

b2 Open collocations: Most sharply and easily distinguished from idioms in the

strict sense are combinations such as to fill the sink and a broken window The use of

the term ‘open’, ‘free’, or ‘loose’ to refer to such collocations reflects the fact that, in each case, both elements (verb and object, or adjective and noun) are freely

recombinable, as for example in to fill/ empty the sink and to fill the sink/ basin

Typically also, in open collocations, each element is used in a common literal sense

2.2.3.3 The distinction between compounds, idioms and collocations

To attain a clearer understanding of collocations, it is helpful to try to distinguish them from idioms on the one hand and from free combinations on the

other Apparently, collocations, free compounds and idioms share one important feature in their form, that is to say they all refer to combinations of words that go together very often However, the case is that they differ from each other in both meaning and form

In terms of form, McCarthy (1990) claims that collocation items can be separated by several words while words of a compound are always syntactically bound to one another Such is the case, for example, in make a decision We could separate make and decision with some words:

He made an extremely important decision

They reject my appeal

The rejection of his appeal was a great shock

Looking at idioms, Bolinger (1975) argues that some idioms are virtually unchangeable; others follow a limited amount of manipulation McArthur (1992) agrees with Bollinger when he makes the point that idioms are often fixed inform It can rain cats and dogs but never dogs and cats According to them, collocations are looser groupings than idioms Collocational items can be contiguous as with head and ache in headache or proximate to each other as with cat and purr in the cat was purring

In terms of meaning, Benson, Benson & Ilson (1986) use combinations with the noun murder to illustrate the main distinguishing features of the three categories The least cohesive type of word combination is the so-called free combinations The noun murder, for example, can be used with many verbs (to analyze, boast of, condemn, discuss, (etc.) a murder), and these verbs, in turn, combine freely with other nouns Idioms, on the other hand, are relatively frozen expressions whose meanings do not reflect the meanings of their component parts An example containing the noun murder would be to scream blue murder (to complain very loudly) Between idioms

and free combinations are loosely fixed combinations (or collocations) of the type to commit murder The main characteristics of collocations are that their meanings reflect the meaning of their constituent parts (in contrast to idioms) and that they are used frequently, spring to mind readily, and are psychologically salient (in contrast

of back Sinclair makes a sharp distinction between those two categories claiming that the elements of the upward collocation (mostly prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns) tend to form grammatical frames while the elements of the downward collocation (mostly nouns and verbs) by contrast give a semantic analysis

of a word These two terms are called respectively significant and casual collocations

In terms of structure, Benson, Benson & Ilson (1977) divide collocations into two groups: grammatical and lexical collocations The first category consists of the main word (a noun, an adjective, a verb) plus a preposition or to-infinitive or that-clause and is characterized by eight basic types of collocations:

The first type of collocation is noun plus preposition For example:

Blockade against apathy towards

The second type is noun plus to-infinitive See the following examples:

He was a fool to do it

They felt a need to do it

The third is noun plus that-clause For example

We reached an agreement that she would represent us in court

He took an oath that he would do his duty

The fourth type is preposition plus noun For example: by accident, in agony

The fifth type is adjective plus preposition For example: fond of children, hungry of news

Adjective plus to-infinitive is the next type of collocation:

It was necessary to work

It’s nice to be here

(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005) The next type is adjective plus that-clause See the following example:

She was afraid that she would fail

It was imperative that I be here

(McCarthy M & O’Dell F, 2005) The last type of collocation is different verb patterns in English, such as verb plus to-infinitive: they began to speak, or verb plus bare infinitive: we must work and other

Lexical collocations do not contain prepositions, infinitives or relative clauses but consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs This group is of seven types as follows:

Firstly, verb (which means creation/ action) plus noun/ pronoun/

Prepositional phrase For example: come to an agreement, launch a missile Secondly, verb (which means eradication/cancellation) plus noun For example: reject an appeal, crush resistance Thirdly, [adjective plus noun] or [noun used in an attributive way plus noun]: strong tea, a crushing defeat, house arrest, land reform The next type is noun plus verb naming the activity which is performed by a designate of this noun, such as: bombs explode, bee’s sting Quantifier plus noun is the next type For example: a swarm of bees, a piece of advice

The next type is adverb plus adjective For example: hopelessly addicted, sound asleep

The last type is verb plus adverb For example: argue heatedly, apologize humbly

In terms of strength, it is worth noting that it is not reciprocal, which means that the strength between the words is not equal on both sides, e.g blonde and hair Blonde collocates only with a limited number of words describing hair colour whereas hair collocates with many words, e.g brown, long, short, and mousy It happens very often

that the bond between the words in unilateral, e.g in the phrase vested interest, vested only ever collocates with interest but interest collocates with many other words According to Lewis (2000), there are very few strong collocations and he makes

a distinction between strong collocation e.g avid reader, budding author; common collocation which makes up numerous word combinations, e.g fast car, have dinner,

a bit tired and medium strong one, which in his view account for the largest part of the lexis a language learner needs, e.g magnificent house, significantly different Sharing the view with Lewis, Hill (1999) adds one more category - unique collocation In his article, Hill (1999) divides collocations into

four kinds: unique collocations; strong collocations; weak collocations and medium-strength ones To foot the bill, shrug one’s shoulders are the examples of the unique collocations These are unique because foot (as a verb) and shrug are not used with any other nouns

2.2.3.5 Characteristics of collocation

In discussion of the nature of collocation, the author bases on her knowledge with reference to the linguists’ works to generalize what characteristics collocation has in common Generally, collocation has three major features as follows

Collocations are arbitrary, a question often raised by speakers of English as a foreign language is what underlies native speakers’ choice of words or why they choose one word among a list of possibilities to combine with another so often that they become collocation Lewis (1997) points out that collocation is not determined

by logic or frequency but is arbitrary, decided only by linguistic convention In the first characteristic, words are not often combined with each other at random Collocation cannot be invented by a second language user A native speaker uses them instinctively

According to Gairns & Redman (1986), a statement on collocation is never absolute As they maintain, lexical items may co-occur simply because the combination reflects a common real world state of affairs Such is the case, for instance, pass and salt which collocate since people want others to pass them the salt However, they added, there may exist in collocation an element of linguistic convention or native speakers’ habitual preferences in their choice of words among a number of possibilities It is because lexical collocations bear linguistic convention that joining together semantically compatible parts do not always produce a typical

collocation A native English speaker, for example, would say the lion roared rather than bellowed

Sharing the point of view with Gains & Redman, McCarthy (1990) states that knowledge of collocation is a question of typicality The notion of typicality is important, for without it we could not recognize untypical collocations, which are part of the creativity and the imaginative dimension we find in literature

Definitely, there is no rule of collocation and it is difficult to group items by their collocation properties Thus, they are best dealt with isolation as they arise or depending on notion of typicality to decide what acceptable and unacceptable collocations are

Collocations are language-specific, as discussed earlier, the thing mat matters is that the way words are chosen to combine together is conventional and lexical collocations in English bear their own linguistic convention Larson (1984) describes that English, like other languages, interprets the physical worlds in its own way and has its own convention; therefore, it governs different collocability of words Therefore, learners have difficulties when acquiring knowledge of collocational appropriacy in cases where collocability is language-specific and does not seem solely determined by universal semantic constraints (McCarthy, 1990) English collocations are therefore specific to the English language itself The fact is that what

is perfectly acceptable collocation in one language may be unacceptable in another Take the case of the verb làm in Vietnamese as an example Vietnamese speakers say làm bánh and làm bài tập with the same verb làm but their equivalent meanings in English are make a cake and do the homework by using two different verbs do and make Then, phrases such as do a cake and make the homework are unacceptable Also, instead of saying ride bicycle, Vietnamese learners sometimes says go bicycle because đi xe đạp is totally correct in Vietnamese

In brief, an acceptable collocation is not always made by joining semantically compatible parts The ability of a word to combine with another is restricted by linguistic convention specific to the English language itself which is highly unlikely

to totally overlap with any other languages

Collocations are not necessarily adjacent According to McCarthy (1990), collocations can be contiguous or proximate, not necessarily adjacent He presents that the collocational relationship still applies, even though several words may separate the collocating items The following extracts from a newspaper report

concerning a planning application for a new shopping center who collocation at work over clause-boundaries:

The study of planning appeals for similar centres in the past, most of which were rejected, suggests that the furniture is more hopeful for developers Now that the Secretary of State for the Environment has said that applications should be approved unless there are good reasons against them, many more should succeed

The collocational relationship between reject and appeal; application, approve and succeed, as he argues, is strong, despite the intervening words

2.3 Review of theoretical framework

Adjectives take many forms Some common adjectives are formed when we add

a suffix to a noun or verb For example, when we add the suffix -ful to the noun beauty makes the adjective beautiful, and adding the suffix -able to the verb read makes the adjective readable Other suffixes often used to create adjectives include -

al, -ary, -able and –ible, –ish, -ic, -ical, -less, -like, -ous, -some, and -y Some adjectives take the form of participles (verbs ending in -ed or -ing), and many others are not formed from nouns or verbs but are original in themselves—for example, close, deep, slow

Let's dive into the intricacies of this important part of speech so you can identify

an adjective when you see one

Adjectives Are Information Gatherers

What are adjectives? When it comes to function, adjectives are information gatherers Specifically, they provide further information about an object's size, shape, age, color, origin or material Here are some examples of adjectives in action:

It's a big table (size)

It's a round table (shape)

It's an old table (age)

It's a brown table (color)

It's an English table (origin)

It's a wooden table (material)

It's a lovely table (opinion)

It's a broken table (observation)

It's a coffee table (purpose)

Adjectives Answer Questions

Adjectives serve another important role: they answer questions like, "Which one?" "How many?" and "What kind?" You can see how they do this job in the following examples:

Which cat did you see? It was the grey cat

What kind of potatoes did you buy? I bought red potatoes

How many cars were in the parking lot? There were few cars

How many people like ice cream? Most people like ice cream

Which spoon did you use to stir the soup? I used the wooden spoon

What kind of coffee do you like? I like black coffee

Before a Noun

If it comes immediately before a noun, it's likely an adjective For example, in

"blue plate," "blue" is an adjective describing the noun "plate."

Between an Article and a Noun

If it comes between an article like "the," "an," or "a" and is followed by a noun,

it is almost definitely an adjective For example, in "the grassy field," "grassy" is the adjective describing the noun "field."

Between a Possessive and a Noun

If it comes between a possessive pronoun or noun and another noun, it is almost definitely an adjective For example, in "his red kite," "red" is an adjective to describe

"kite." The same is true for "Sam's red kite."

Between a Demonstrative and a Noun

If a word comes between a demonstrative like "this," "that," "these," or "those" and a noun, it is probably an adjective For example, in "that immaculate kitchen,"

"immaculate" is an adjective describing "kitchen."

Between an Amount and a Noun

If a word comes between an amount, including "some," "most," "all," or "a few," and a noun, it is often an adjective For example, in the phrase "a few ordinary days,"

"ordinary" is an adjective describing "days."

Adjectives Can Act As Complements

Adjectives can also act as complements Complements complete a sentence when the verb is "to be." Not every complement is an adjective, but some adjectives can be complements For example:

She is tall

He is smart, handsome, and rich

This tent is malodorous

A Note on the Order of Adjectives

If you're using adjectives in your writing, order is important When you list several adjectives in a row, there's a specific order they need to go in Native English speakers tend to put them in the correct order naturally, but if you're learning English, you'll have to memorize the order It goes like this:

- Determiner - An article (a, an, the), a number or amount, a possessive adjective (my, his, her, its, your, our, their), or a demonstrative (this, that, these, those)

- Observation/Opinion - Beautiful, expensive, gorgeous, broken, delicious, ugly

Size - Huge, tiny, 4-foot-tall

Shape - Square, circular, oblong

Age - 10-year-old, new, antique

Color - Black, red, blue-green

Origin - Roman, English, Mongolian

Material - Silk, silver, plastic, wooden

Qualifier - A noun or verb acting as an adjective

This is the correct cumulative order for adjectives that come directly before a noun They are not separated by commas

My beautiful big circular antique brown English wooden coffee table was broken in the move

An Important Exception

When an item is defined by its purpose, that word isn't usually an adjective, but

it acts as one with the noun in that situation

2.3.2 An overview of Adverb

An adverb is a word that modifies (describes) a verb (he sings loudly), an adjective (very tall), another adverb (ended too quickly), or even a whole sentence (Fortunately, I had brought an umbrella) Adverbs often end in -ly, but some (such as fast) look exactly the same as their adjective counterparts

Tom Longboat did not run badly

Tom is very tall

The race finished too quickly

Fortunately, Lucy recorded Tom’s win

It’s easy to identify adverbs in these sentences

Adverbs and Verbs

One of the things adverbs do is modify verbs This means that they describe the way an action is happening

Phillip sings loudly in the shower

My cat waits impatiently for his food

I will seriously consider your suggestion

The adverbs in each of the sentences above answer the question in what manner? How does Phillip sing? Loudly How does my cat wait? Impatiently How will I

consider your suggestion? Seriously Adverbs can answer other types of questions about how an action was performed They can also tell you when (We arrived early) and where (Turn here)

However, there is one type of verb that doesn’t mix well with adverbs Linking verbs, such as feel, smell, sound, seem, and appear, typically need adjectives, not adverbs A very common example of this type of mix-up is

I feel badly about what happened

Because “feel” is a verb, it seems to call for an adverb rather than an adjective But “feel” isn’t just any verb; it’s a linking verb An adverb would describe how you perform the action of feeling—an adjective describes what you feel “I feel badly” means that you are bad at feeling things If you’re trying to read Braille through thick leather gloves, then it might make sense for you to say “I feel badly.” But if you’re trying to say that you are experiencing negative emotions, “I feel bad” is the phrase you want

Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs can also modify adjectives and other adverbs Often, the purpose of the adverb is to add a degree of intensity to the adjective

The woman is quite pretty

This book is more interesting than the last one

The weather report is almost always right

The adverb almost is modifying the adverb always, and they’re both modifying right

“Is my singing too loud?” asked Phillip

My cat is incredibly happy to have his dinner

We will be slightly late to the meeting

This bridesmaid dress is a very unflattering shade of puce

Adverbs and Other Adverbs

You can use an adverb to describe another adverb In fact, if you wanted to, you could use several

Phillip sings rather enormously too loudly

The problem is that it often produces weak and clunky sentences like the one above, so be careful not to overdo it

Adverbs and Sentences

Some adverbs can modify entire sentences—unsurprisingly, these are called sentence adverbs Common ones include generally, fortunately, interestingly, and accordingly Sentence adverbs don’t describe one particular thing in the sentence—instead, they describe a general feeling about all of the information in the sentence

Fortunately, we got there in time

Interestingly, no one at the auction seemed interested in bidding on the antique spoon collection

At one time, the use of the word hopefully as a sentence adverb (e.g., Hopefully, I’ll get this job) was condemned People continued to use it though, and many style guides and dictionaries now accept it There are still plenty of readers out there who hate it though, so it’s a good idea to avoid using it in formal writing

2.3.3 The word “free” in English

The word “free” is an adjective, an adverb or a verb It has many different meanings:

As an adjective, it means: Not costing any money, not held as a slave or

prisoner, not physically held by something, able to do what you want to do :able to move, go, or act without being stopped - followed by to + verb, not controlled by a

harsh ruler or laws, not limited by government control, not limited by fear,

uncertainty, etc :open, not having, including, or suffering from something unpleasant, painful, or unwanted - usually + from or of, not required to be doing something :having nothing that must be done instead, of time :not being used for work

or other activities, not being used, not attached to anything, not covered or filled with

things :clear, giving, doing, or saying something very often, Of a translation :not closely following or matching the original language :not exact

As an Adverb: in a free way, without charge: at no cost, buy one, get one free,

free of charge: without charge :at no cost

As a Verb: frees; freed; freeing

- [+ obj] :to cause (someone or something) to be free: such as

- to release (a person or animal) from a prison, cage, etc

- to release (someone or something) from being physically held or blocked

- to cause or allow (someone or something) to stop having or being affected by something - - unpleasant, painful, or unwanted - + from or of

- to make (something) available for use

- to give more free time to (someone)

2.3.4 The word “tự do” in Vietnamese

The word “tự do” in Vietnamese is also an adjective, an adverb and a noun It has many different meanings:

- TỰ DO: Unrestricted, unreasonable restriction in a particular activity

 In nature, for example:

Tất cả các loài động vật đều hoang dã và tự do

Tự do ngôn luận được bảo vệ bởi hiến pháp Hoa Kỳ

- TỰ CHỦ: The sovereignty of a country, to own its own territory and work, no one

is allowed to violate or interfere

Kinh tế tự chủ.

Rút quân về vùng tự do

- TỰ DO TƯ TƯỞNG: Right to reason, judge, comment according to their own

thoughts

Các nhà báo được hoàn toàn tự do tiếp xúc với tù nhân

- TỰ CAO: Tự kiêu.Self - proclaimed person

Tự cao tự đại Think of yourself as better than others

- TỰ CẤP: Self-supply: Produced for self-sufficiency

Nền kinh tế của một nước tự mình cung cấp cho mình những vật cần

thiết, không mua của nước ngoài

- TỰ CƯỜNG - Try best to have strength

Một dân tộc phải tự cường mới giữ được độc lập

- TỰ DƯNG There is no excuse, no cause:

Hai đứa tự dung cãi nhau.

- TỰ GIÁC: Self-known clearly how, what to do: Self-discipline

Nếu tôi tự do làm điều gì đó theo ý mình, điều đó có nghĩa là tôi đã chọn tự làm; không ai khác bắt tôi làm điều đó

- TỰ ĐỘNG Self-operated, no one needed to promote: Self-participation in

socialist labor

Tự động tham gia lao động xã hội chủ nghĩa

 A device that enables it to be self-transporting, without the need for frequent operators



- TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA: Supplying equipment to a production department so that it can

operate without constant supervision or control

2.4 Summary

This chapter has provided us with the theoretical background for the contrastive

analysis of “The syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing

the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents” It covers an overview

of syntactic and semantic features, a brief introduction about the word “free” in English and in Vietnamese We have also discussed two types of word meanings: grammatical and lexical meanings Moreover, a short description of collocations as well as the distinction among free word combinations, idiomatic expressions and

collocations is also mentioned Based on this theoretical foundation, we will commence chapter 3 to choose the suitable research orientations and research methods for this study

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research approaches

- Collecting and classifying data, the research approaches help the study process simple and find the result easily and correctly In this method, the semantic and syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference

to their Vietnamese equivalents are collected, then only statistics on the number of the English collocation containing the verb “free”

- Analyzing data: to arrange, to classify the English collocations containing the word “free” to certain criteria of symbolic meaning and the aspects of syntactic

- Descriptive is an important method used in this thesis It helps to show the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free”

- Comparing and contrasting: these methods are used to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in using the English collocations containing the word “free”

- Putting forward some implications for teaching and learning English with the English collocations containing the word “free”, and giving suggestions for further researches

3.1.1 Research questions

This study aims at pointing out the semantic and syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents

So, this study has three questions needed to be studied:

1 What are the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents?

2 What are the similarities and differences of English collocations containing the word “free” in English and the Vietnamese equivalents?

3 What are the implications for teaching and learning English collocations containing the word “free” in English and the Vietnamese equivalents?

In order to obtain the above-said aims, the study is carried out basically through the descriptive and qualitative methods The descriptive method is employed to give

in depth and detailed description of the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” The work starts with a review of existing study results on collocations to provide a better understanding of the topic Then different meanings of collocations of the word “free” are described, and then examples are provided to illustrate the description

3.1.3 Data collection and data analysis

The data used in the study is collected from dictionaries: English – English dictionary, English – Vietnamese dictionary, English – Vietnamese collocation dictionary, English – Vietnamese novels, stories and the internet

After reading the materials collected, the study focuses on the English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents, they are categorized into two main aspects: syntactic and semantic ones

Syntactically, the classification of the data is mainly based on the different

structural categories, word order

Semantically, the classification is carried out on the basis of typical semantic

features of descriptive in both languages

All of the collocations containing the word “free” are selected from dictionaries, novels, stories, so they are reliable for research results

3.2 Methods of the study

There are major methods and supporting methods:

3.2.1 Major methods

- Descriptive method is used to describe in details syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents

- Contrastive method will be used to identify the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese collocations in terms of syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free”

- Qualitative method focuses on identifying syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “free” and the Vietnamese equivalents

3.2.2 Supporting methods

Quantitative technique can be used as data collection and data analysis

3.3 Data collection and data analysis

3.3.1 Data collection techniques

The data collection is the most important step in any research This procedure consists of two main stages

Firstly, a large number the English collocations containing the word “free” were collected in order to make the corpus of this thesis

Secondly, statistics on the number of the collocation containing the word “free”

classifying them into the group means, group structures And then determining the

frequency of occurrence of each collocation containing the word “free”

3.3.2 Data analysis techniques

In this study, from 263 English collocations containing the word “free” and their Vietnamese equivalents, we choose the most interesting and noticeable ones which can clearly illustrate syntactic and semantic features of the English collocations containing the word “free” and the Vietnamese equivalents

After collecting 263 English collocations containing the word “free” and the Vietnamese equivalents, we categorize them into syntactic features and semantic features Then the syntactic and semantic features of the English collocations containing the word “free” are presented through clear and understandable examples After that the finding and discussions are carried out in order to state the differences and similarities in English and Vietnamese

3.4 Summary

To sum up, this chapter gives an overview of how to carry out the research It has two main parts The first one is research-governing orientations which present research questions needed to be dealt with in the study, state the physical, social, and cultural site in which the research will be conducted, also include when and where the research is planned to conduct Two main research approaches are qualitative and quantitative methods also mentioned in this part Moreover, this section also shows criteria in collecting data The second part is research methods which present major

methods and supporting methods used in the study In addition, techniques in collecting and analyzing data will be illustrated in this part

This study uses four main methods; they are descriptive, contrastive, quantitative and qualitative to point out the syntactic and semantic features of the English collocations containing the word “free” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents in the following chapter

CHAPTER 4: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE WORD “FREE” WITH

REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

This chapter presents results obtained from analyzing a corpus of 263 English collocations containing the word “FREE” extracted from Cambridge English corpus Results are used to respond to the research questions Firstly, the researcher explains and analyzes the syntactic and semantic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE” respectively Depending on the analysis some comparisons of similarities and differences between English collocations containing the word

“FREE” and the Vietnamese equivalents regarding syntactic and semantic features are presented

4.1 Syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE”

Syntactic features of English collocations containing the word “FREE” refers

to what patterns in a sentence in which the “FREE” is used The investigation into the data set reveals that there are various patterns with the use of the word “FREE”

in English sentences Results are described in the following table:

Table 4.1 indicates that there are 6 major patterns in which the word “FREE”

is used, including Free + Noun, Verb + (Object) + Free, Free + preposition (to/for/with/of/from) + Noun/Ving, Noun + Free, For +Free, and Free + to Verb, acting as Adjective, Adverb, and Verb