A survey into the teaching and learning of english articles at english faculty university of social sciences and humanities

viii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Classification of English Articles by Master 1994 Table 2.2: Classification of English Articles Contexts by White 2009 Table 2.3: Classification of Vietna

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING

OF ENGLISH ARTICLES AT ENGLISH FACULTY, UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

A thesis submitted to the

Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

DINH THIEN LOC

Supervised by

NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, Ph.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2015

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

A SURVEY INTO THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF

ENGLISH ARTICLES AT ENGLISH FACULTY, UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

in terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued

by the Higher Degree Committee The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other situation

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2015

Đinh Thiên Lộc

ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Đinh Thiên Lộc, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2015

Đinh Thiên Lộc

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my advisor,

Dr NGUYEN THI KIEU THU for the continuous support to my thesis, for her invaluable guidance, strong motivation, and extensive expertise I am wholeheartedly grateful to her deep devotion even when she was on Tet holiday I simply can not wish for better supervisor

I owe a big debt of gratitude to Dr Nguyen Thu Huong who inspired me to come up with the thesis topic He also spent a lot of his time to develop my background on English articles and he was always willing to support me with his helpful documents as well as immense knowledge

I would like to acknowledge all members, teachers and students of the Faculty

of English Linguistics and Literature who directly and indirectly contribute to the fulfillment of this thesis

I am deeply thankful to my friends Ba Tong and Thuy Anh who gave me indispensable advices and unceasing encouragement during my most difficult time I also appreciate every single support I received from my other friends at USSH

Last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my parents, my sister, my aunt and her son who are truly a miracle of my life Without them, the whole thesis would still be far from finished

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

ABSTRACT x

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY 2

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 2

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 3

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

1.5.1 Theoretical significance 4

1.5.2 Practical significance 4

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 4

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 6

2.1 THEORETICAL ISSUES ON ARTICLES 6

2.1.1 Definition of Articles 6

2.1.2 Meaning of English Articles 7

2.1.2.1 Definiteness 8

2.1.2.2 Specificity 14

2.1.2.3 Genericity 16

2.1.3 Types of English articles 17

2.1.4 Meaning of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners 20

2.1.4.1 Countability and Plurality 21

2.1.4.2 Definiteness and Maximality 22

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2.1.5 Types of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners 23

2.1.5.1 Một 24

2.1.5.2 Những/ Các 26

2.1.5.3 Zero articles 29

2.2 CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS 31

2.3 GRAMMAR TEACHING & THE METHODS TO TEACH ARTICLES 31 2.3.1 Grammar teaching 31

2.3.2 Methodologies to teach articles 32

2.3.2.1 Traditional methods 33

2.3.2.2 Cognitive method 34

2.4 ACQUISTION OF ARTICLES 36

2.4.1 Types of Articles Errors 36

2.4.2 Causes of Articles Errors 38

2.5 ERROR ANALYSIS 40

2.6 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 40

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 42

3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 42

3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN 43

3.2.1 Context of the study 43

3.2.2 Participants 43

3.2.3 Research Materials 47

3.2.3.1 Coursebooks 47

3.2.3.2 SOC, TLU and UOC 48

3.2.4 Research Methods and Research Tools 50

3.2.4.1 Coding system 51

3.2.4.2 Contrastive analysis 53

3.2.4.3 Error analysis 54

3.2.4.4 Questionnaire 55

3.2.4.5 Proficiency test 57

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3.2.4.6 Interviews 59

3.3 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE 61

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 61

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 63

4.1 ANALYSIS OF DATA AND DISCUSSION 63

4.1.1 The teaching of English articles 64

4.1.1.1 Coursebooks 64

4.1.1.2 Teaching methodology 68

4.1.2 The learning of English articles 71

4.1.2.1 Learners’ perception on English articles 71

4.1.2.2 Learners’ errors in using English articles 77

4.1.2.2.1 Learners’ errors based on article types 78

4.1.2.2.2 Learners’ errors based on contexts 80

4.1.2.3 Causes of learners’ errors in using English articles 92

4.2 MAJOR FINDINGS 96

4.2.1 Answers to research question RQ1 96

4.2.2 Answers to research question RQ2 97

4.3 SUMMARY 100

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 101

5.1 CONCLUSION 101

5.2 PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 102

5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES 105

REFERENCES 106

APPENDIX 1: Syllabus for Advanced Grammar course 114

APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire 122

APPENDIX 3: Proficiency Test 124

APPENDIX 4: Interview 125

APPENDIX 5: Answer keys for the Proficiency Test 126

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CA Contrastive Analysis

EF the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

ELT English Language Teaching

ESL English as a Second Language

SLA Second Language Acquisition

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

SR Specific Referent

SOC Supplied in Obligatory Context

TESOL Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

TLU Target Like USe

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language

UOC Used in Obligatory Context

USSH University of Social Sciences and Humanities – Ho Chi Minh city

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Classification of English Articles by Master (1994)

Table 2.2: Classification of English Articles Contexts by White (2009)

Table 2.3: Classification of Vietnamese article-like determiners by Nguyen (2005)

Table 2.4: Differences between Những and Các concerning Definiteness

Table 3.1: Description of Student Participants

Table 3.2: Description of Teacher Participants

Table 3.3: Synthesis of Research Tools and their Functions

Table 3.4: Coding System for the Correct Uses of English articles

Table 3.5: Coding System for the Incorrect Uses of English articles

Table 3.6: The Function of Items in the Questionnaire

Table 3.7: The Distribution of Number of Items within 5 Article Contexts

Table 3.8: The Aim of the Questions in the Interview

Table 4.1: Reliability Statistics of the Questionnaire

Table 4.2: Statistics of Questionnaire’s Items

Table 4.3: Statistic of Students’ Perception on English articles

Table 4.4: Reliability Statistics of the Proficiency Test

Table 4.5: Accuracy in Article Uses among 4 Groups of Participants

Table 4.6: Accuracy in Article Uses according to Article Types

Table 4.7: Combination of Students’ Accuracy according to Article Types and Article

Contexts

Table 4.8: Analysis of All Test Items

Table 4.9: UOC Score in Generic Context

Table 5.1: Articles Types within Four Semantic Contexts

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: The Difference between Những and Các

Figure 2.2: Synthesis of Issues related to the Teaching and Learning of English

Articles

Figure 4.1: Accuracy of Article Uses according to Article Contexts

Figure 5.1: Differences in Generic Sense under the View of Cognitive Grammar by

Nguyen (2005)

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ABSTRACT

Since the birth of the communicative approach, more and more attention have been paid to the article system in English language which was partly considered as function words, hardly carry any message and partly believed to determine users’ level of proficiency Therefore, the study done for and reported in this thesis was conducted with the aim to investigate (i) the teaching practices of the English article system at EF, USSH and (ii) the learning of English articles of 127 EF juniors To ensure the validity and consistency of the data collected, the five following research methods and research tools were applied (i) error analysis, (ii) contrastive analysis, (iii) proficiency test, (iv) questionnaire and (v) interviews

The findings, although provisional, revealed some problems with EF teachers and students’ performance in regards to the rules of English articles The main concerns were the shortcomings in the coursebooks and the pedagogies being applied for Advanced Grammar course that might create a false perception on the learners Besides, EF students also caused quite many errors which were later classified into 11 types of errors with the application of a statistical software Discussing learners’ causes of errors, the two main sources were confirmed including (i) the complicated nature of English articles and (ii) the interference of learners’ mother tongue which was believed to be an article-less language

The study, therefore, urged for a proper attention on the English articles at EF, USSH It also suggested some applicable techniques that (i) facilitate the understanding of confusing concepts, (ii) balance the concentration on all article types and (iii) simplify the long list of rules

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The articles, in some way, are one of the most commonly used words in English To be more accurate, a recent analysis from the Oxford English Corpus of nearly a billion English words has shown that “the” is the most common word and “a”

is the sixth one This leads to the fact that articles play a very important position in the English language system However, English articles have been believed to be one of the most difficult grammar aspects for L2 learners, especially for learners whose native language is article-less (Master 1997; Thomas 1989) According to a research

of Bardovi- Harlig & Bofman (1989) and later Bitchener et al (2005) inaccurate use

of articles is one of the most frequent errors committed by ESL students Therefore, mastering articles is always a challenging task for English learners For over 50 years, countless studies were published to clarify the acquisition of English articles of L2 learners and to suggest the most suitable methodology to teach articles as well

However, in a recent corpus study of nearly 700 L2 learners’ TOEFL essays, Han et

al (2006) gave a shocking number that one per every eight noun phrases had errors

with articles These findings somehow upset the previous works of many authors and encouraged more studies to be conducted

In his PhD dissertation, Nguyen (2005) raised his concern that articles were overlooked by both teachers and learners due to the appearance of communicative approaches in most English classroom It could be noted that articles are function words; unlike content words, they do not often carry the key information of a sentence In speaking, articles are often unstressed In writing, especially in news headlines or SMS messages, articles are even omitted This fact, according to Master (2002), might become a trigger that caused the mistreatment of articles in English language teaching With respect to learners’ errors in using articles, Barrett & Chen

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(2011) suggested that teachers should not ignore those minor mistakes for they may lead to a false perception in learners’ mind Especially, as stated by Miller (2005), native speakers tended to be sensitive with articles’ errors made by foreigners According to his research, three most frequent errors caused by non-native speakers were the choice of tense, subject-verb agreement and the use of articles While the first two issues can be overcome, the problems with articles are still the common errors which can be used to distinguish a native speaker and a non-native one In a same manner, Nguyen (2005) called for a special attention to the teaching and learning of English articles because they reflected the proficiency of learners

1.2 RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

This study is carried out based on the Doctor dissertation of Nguyen (2005), namely “Vietnamese learners mastering English articles” Although Nguyen had made an experimental teaching, his conclusion seemed yet to be verified by a survey

It is quite clear that English articles have been discussed in many contexts of L2 speakers with article-less native language; the case in Vietnam is still new Besides, the Vietnamese counterparts of English articles were different and the absence of articles is common in usage Students, therefore, may lean on a false perception when using English articles which is believed to lead to a majority of errors on articles Due

to the reasons above, the current study was conducted by doing a survey on the teaching and learning of English articles at University of Social Sciences and Humanities- Ho Chi Minh city, a leading university in English language teaching in Vietnam to see whether English articles are treated properly It is obvious that in such

an academic environment where students mostly express themselves in written form,

errors related to articles should be controlled

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

It should be apparent that errors in using articles still exist at the advanced level of L2 speakers where there is no equivalence to the English article system

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(Master 1995) This encouraged the researcher to conduct a survey to explore how articles are taught and learnt at EF, USSH The focus will be on the teachers, the students and the course books being used in the Advanced Grammar courses Then, it

is expected that possible causes for the common errors related to students’ use of articles could be figured out Besides, in order to overcome the situation, the traditional as well as the contemporary pedagogical practice will be analyzed to find out some useful and applicable solutions In general, the aim of this study is to explore the current learning and teaching practice of English articles at USSH The main focus will be on full-time English major students at the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature

The objectives below have been set out in order to achieve the aims above:

1 To investigate the understanding of English articles of students at EF, USSH

2 To find out how the system of English articles is taught at EF, USSH

3 To find out how students at EF, USSH apply their knowledge in using English articles

4 To find out some common errors with articles made by students at EF, USSH

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study is hoped to fill the gap in the literature review so that some significance to the study could be as follows:

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1.5.1 Theoretical significance

Chapter 2 of this thesis gave an overview as well as some detailed information

on the understanding of the complicated system of English articles and Vietnamese counterparts Some common pedagogical practices to teach articles from the past to the present were also collected The study strived to arrive at some errors that L2 learners often made as well Furthermore, the process of learning articles would be clarified which was expected to reflect the effectiveness of the current teaching method at EF, USSH

1.5.2 Practical significance

Detailed description of learners’ errors and the possible causes would bring some certain benefits to the teaching of articles at EF, USSH and also at other universities in Vietnam in general The teaching and learning implications as well as suggestions were attempted to provide both teachers and learners the most suitable and effective method to master the English articles

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

Regarding the framework of the study, the whole thesis is divided into 5 main chapters (i) Introduction, (ii) Review of Literature, (iii) Methodology, (iv) Results and Discussion and (v) Conclusion, apart from the Acknowledgements, Abstract, References and Appendixes

The first chapter, the Introduction, presents the rationale of the study, the

reasons that persuade the researcher to conduct the survey A discussion of the background and the significance of the study are also addressed in this chapter

Chapter two, the Review of Literature is divided into two parts The first one

deals with the theoretical background as well as the definitions of major terms and concepts Then comes the second part which reviews the prior studies on the topic A wide range of literature is also mentioned in this chapter As a guideline for the following chapter, the conceptual framework is introduced as well

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The third chapter, entitled Methodology, describes the methods employed to

conduct the study Detailed research questions, research designs and relevant procedures to collect and analyze the data are the other sessions of the chapter

The next one is Results and Discussion This can be considered as the most

valuable part of the study Chapter four reports the results from the data collection procedure and gives discussions on the findings The purpose of this part is not only

to seek for the answers of the aforementioned research questions but also to serve as a basis of the last chapter

Chapter five, Conclusion, is a brief summary of the study It states the

conclusion of the whole thesis Some suggestions for the suitable approaches of teaching and learning English articles are also included Recommendations for the further research are the last parts the author would like to contribute in the thesis

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CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1 THEORETICAL ISSUES ON ARTICLES

2.1.1 Definition of Articles

Although numerous studies have been conducted on the system of English articles, there seemed to be a widespread agreement on the definition of articles that very few authors tried to redefine the term Traditionally, articles are considered as adjectives due to the fact that their function is to modify the nouns standing right after them However, with times, the linguists realized the differences between the functions of adjectives and articles The most common explanation of articles is that articles are used to indicate whether a noun refers to a specific or a general item This way of defining articles can be found in most grammar books and also documents on the internet Using specificity to define articles, to some extent, is to determine the definiteness of a noun which is widely accepted by many authors (Chaudron & Parker, 1990; Chesterman, 1991; Nguyen 2005) Besides the role of marking the specificity of noun phrases, Foster (2010) added that articles can also be used to

“signify the level of definiteness or knowness”

A more general definition could be found in (Berry, 1993) that “articles are determinatives which serve to give precision to the nouns/noun equivalents to which they are attached” (p 23) Similarly, in his book about English grammar, Alexander (1998) defined that “articles are determiners which affect the meaning of the noun and make it clearer by showing which particular thing we are referring to” (p 55) Latter, Neldelcu (2003) supported the idea of Berry (1993) and stated that the definitions of English articles do not, in general, “go beyond” Berry’s description

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2.1.2 Meaning of English Articles

While most scholars and linguists agreed on the definition of English articles, they based on different ways to categorize the system of articles When talking about

articles in English, it comes to our mind that a/an, the and zero article are the main categories The word zero article is used to describe the state in which no article is

used before nouns or noun phrases Some authors also suggested putting one more

type to describe the state of non-use article, which is named null article (Chesterman

1991, Nguyen 2005) The line to distinguish the two terms is also based on

definiteness As explained by Master (2003), zero article is applied with the most

indefinite nouns like non-count nouns (e.g ∅ sugar) or plural count nouns (e.g ∅

tables); meanwhile, null article is the most definite form of English articles Chesterman (1991) stated that “null article represents “entities that have distinctive exterior form”, a complete external boundary” (p 86) Or in other words, null article

often occurs before proper nouns or some specific count nouns (e.g ∅ Paris) This

means zero and null article stand at two opposite poles, one represents the most

indefinite nouns, one indicates the most definite nouns However, because the

distinction between zero and null article is fairly vague and not very necessary, it is

still not mentioned in most current grammar books Thus, in the scope of the thesis,

zero article is the only word used to refer the situation in which no article is needed

With regards to the approaches on studying of English articles, Chesterman (1991) summarized the linguistics history into three main trends The first one was triggered by Russell (1905) who considered the role of definiteness as the core of the system of English articles Those who followed this trend mainly based on the meaning and the role of definiteness in the grammar system The second trend tended

to generate the uses of articles in various contexts Although this approach revealed a certain number of weaknesses, quite a lot of scholars do not stop their ambition on finding the more exact generated rule of choosing articles And those who learn about the articles from the articles themselves, i.e the meaning and distribution of each article belong to the third group

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Within the limited scope of this study, only the very selected literature would

be reviewed among numbers of valuable ones The focus would mainly on the first trend of studying on English articles, i.e discussing the role of definiteness as the core

of English articles The reason comes from the current situation in Vietnam that when

a student or a teacher is required to classify articles, it would be common that they list the two types: definite and indefinite articles The popularity and trueness of the first approach is another reason that persuaded the author to navigate his study to this direction Many linguists and scholars spent thousands of pages to investigate every corner of the notion of definiteness and up to now, there have not been a common agreement on all elements that create the definiteness of English articles So as to give

a sound classification of the system of English articles, three main notions that carry the meaning of English articles would be reviewed: (i) definiteness, (ii) specificity and (iii) genericity

2002, Ionin 2004 among others), Nguyen (2005) believed it is not easy to give a clear

definition on definiteness Using up to six notions to discuss the meaning of

definiteness, Nguyen explained the term based on three different levels The first one was about definiteness itself, the second was the intersection between definiteness and specificity and the intersection between definiteness and genericity was the last level

of this complex definition Similarly, Chesterman (1991) showed that there are numbers of issues need to be examined so as to answer the core question on definiteness He used a metaphor image “a labyrinth of problems” to express his

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feeling on definiteness in his book of over 250 pages (Chesterman 1991, p 3) To some degree, the study of Lyons (1999) on definiteness was quoted by a handful of studies of various researchers Thus, in order to clarify the meaning of definiteness, three following elements suggested by Lyons (1999) would be discussed (i) familiarity, (ii) identifiability and (iii) inclusiveness

Familiarity

Among the other ways of defining definiteness, Yang & Ionin (2009) considered the notion both in semantic and pragmatic aspect This is somehow in line with a famous study on definiteness of Lyons (1999) who assumed that the simplest and most common ways to mention this issue should base on both view of logicians (or semanticists) and pragmaticists Firstly, discussing the semantic feature of definiteness is not new, however failure to recognize it may result in misunderstanding of articles Ionin (2004) claimed that definiteness is a “discourse-related semantic feature” or in other words, it linked with the knowledge of both speaker and hearer in a specific discourse (p 325) Likewise, Guillemin (2011) considered a definite noun as it refers to an entity that is both known to the speaker and the hearer while indefinite noun is familiar only to the speaker Though the term

‘familiarity’ Guillemin gave for this distinction between definite and indefinite may differ from Ionin, Nguyen (2005) tended to have the same way to discuss familiarity Nguyen (2005) even traced back to the age of ancient Greek that familiarity can be simply translated as “the thing you know” That is why this notion is also called

knowness as suggested by Bolinger (1977) The following examples given might

clarify the semantic feature of definiteness in terms of familiarity:

(1a) Can you give me the book?

(1b) Can you give me a book? – Which one?

The difference between the two sentences above lies in the notion of familiarity of the hearer It can be understood that in (1a), the hearer has already known the book that the speaker mentioned However, in (1b), there might be a lot of

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books that the use of “a book” from the speaker confused the hearer To some extent, the misunderstanding of familiarity is the main cause of the overgeneralization rule in choosing the correct articles With regards to definiteness, the element of familiarity is also known as “Familiarity theories of Definiteness” and is believed to be first mentioned by Christophersen (1939) and latter is supported by Heim (1983) However, the linguist community would not pay much attention to familiarity without the works of Heim (1983) and his famous ‘donkey example’ (Abbott 2006) In most literature, the role of familiarity is defined as to decide whether definite or indefinite should be put before a noun As the father of the Familiarity theories, Christophersen also recognized its weakness that he warned learners should pay attention to the

‘unambiguous relation’ between the noun and an entity related to the noun that has

already been known by the hearer The expression of The author is unknown is a

prominent example when we talk about a certain book To make it short,

Christophersen (1939) suggested “For the proper use of the, it is necessary that it

should call up in hearer’s mind the image of the exact individual that the speaker is thinking of” (p 28)

Interestingly, Hawkins (1978) who was inspired by the quantification theories

of Russell claimed that sometimes the is linked with unfamiliarity rather than

familiarity Take the example below as an example

(2) They’ve arrived in Ho Chi Minh city The plane was five hours late

Because to reach Ho Chi Minh city, a passenger have many other choices beside using air way, the appearance of the plane is obviously not known to the hearer before it was uttered by the speaker Thus, there was the appearance of ‘unfamiliarity’

in the choice of definite article the in this case The Familiarity theories of

Christopheren were challenged again when Perrion (1989) finally pointed out the weakness he found in indefinite NPs In his dissertation, Nguyen (2005) restated the example of Perrion to illustrate this interesting idea:

(3) You have a fine daughter

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The point here is that the hearer must have known who his daughter is but the

way the speaker addressed the girl using a instead of the is totally correct It means

that the element of familiarity seems to have problem in this situation As the result, this led the linguists to coin a new term: ‘identifiability’

Identifiability

According to Lyon (1999), identifiability appears when the hearer can refer the entity that the speaker mentioned “by signaling that he [the hearer] is in a position to identify it” (p 6) The use of identifiability, as explained by Lyons (1999) does not deny the element of familiarity Without the prior knowledge of familiarity, the hearer can hardly apply identifiability The combination of the two terms allows the hearer to match the noun mentioned by the speaker with the real entity that the hearer knows about its existence Although the speaker does not directly mention that entity, the hearer can refer to the exact entity because he has seen it, heard about it or he can base on common senses From the definition of Russell (1905), Guillemin (2011) simply explained identifiability as a “discourse referent that belongs to a set that the hearer must be able to identify for clear interpretation” (p 4) Here is an example taken from a study of Russell (1905)

(4) I took a taxi to the airport, but the driver was new to the area So I missed

the flight

In this case, although the hearer does not know about the driver, he can refer to the existence of the driver of the taxi This happens thanks to his knowledge that he has had before in his life Or we may say he can identify the driver due to the link between the taxi and the driver But the situation is not that simple, Lyons (1999) suggested that it also required hearer’s readiness to identify the real entity of the noun

phrase indicated by the definite article the To explain the idea of Lyons, Nguyen

(2005) introduced two examples as follows:

(5a) Just give the shelf a quick wipe, will you, before I put the television on it (5b) Pass me the hammer, will you?

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At this stage, some linguists start to look at definiteness under pragmatics viewpoint So as to understand the situation, the physical condition of the utterances needs to be regarded as well In (5a), both the speaker and hearer are in a same room, the speaker asks for a favor and of course the hearer can immediately refer to the shelf that visible in his eyesight However, the setting for (5b) is when the speaker stands

on a ladder and intends to drive a nail into the wall and the hammer is out of his reach

At that very moment, the hearer entered the room and immediately the speaker utters the suggestion to the hearer In this case, the hearer does not have any idea about the hammer but he can quickly realize the current situation with the speaker on the ladder The hearer then can look around and find the chair The quick response action of the hearer can be understood as the “hearer’s readiness” when he hears the definite article

the before hammer as supposed to exist by Lyons (ibid) The example also proves the

interchange between familiarity and identifiablity As in “The author is unknown”,

where familiarity fails to explain the choice of article, identifiability can bring

evidence

It might be noted that Hawkins (1999) used to suggest the use of ‘locatability’

in which the location joins the steps of deciding the definiteness as well This means

in some cases, the speaker and the hearer do not communicate in harmony because the relationship between speaker’s referent and hearer’s identifiable entity in real life can not be established The suggestion of Hawkins was that location needed to be considered The theory was soon directly criticized by some prominent authors like Lyons (1991) and Chesterman (1991) as another way to define the alrealdy-known notions of uniqueness and identifiability Conversely, Nguyen (2005) still believed it would be worth discussing the examples raised by Hawkins

Inclusiveness

According to Lyons (1999), to criticize the idea of uniqueness, Hawkins (1978)

suggested that with plural nouns or mass noun, the definiteness was affected by

‘inclusiveness’ rather than uniqueness In terms of uniqueness, Russell (1905)

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concluded that definite the must be applied before unique entities, the entities that happened to be the only on Earth In contrast, when indefinite article a is used, there

must be more than one entity of that kind found on Earth Therefore, Hawkins (1978)

proposed that if something is marked definite, it is not necessary a unique entity but it needs to carry the element of inclusiveness Lyons (1999) seems to stand on both

sides that inclusiveness and uniqueness have a mutual affection The most important

thing Lyons (1999) reminded was that it would be a wrongly assumption that “the

signals uniqueness with singular noun phrases and inclusiveness with plural and mass

noun phrases” (p 11& 12) However, inclusiveness, according to Hawkins, did not directly belong to a list of category of definiteness but just a part of identifiability or

to be more exact, inclusiveness took care of the quantity aspect of identifiability To discuss the link between quantity and inclusiveness, Chesterman (1991) based on both semantic and pragmatic view And from the viewpoint of Chomsky, Chesterman (1991) somehow added the feature [+all] to inclusiveness Or in Lyons (1999)’s

words, the is a “universal quantifier” which has the same meaning with all The

following example is taken from Hawkins (1978)

(6) We have to ask you to move the sand from our gateway

The use of definite article before the mass noun here requires the hearer to consider the feature [+all] in this case This means in a common sense, the hearer would remove all the sand away In the same manner, Lyons (1999) compared “I’ve washed the dishes” and “I’ve washed all the dishes” to emphasize the very link

between the and all

But again, the theory of Hawkins was not supported by quite a lot authors Among those, Chesterman questioned the link between mass noun/ plural noun with the feature [+all] included in inclusiveness Nguyen (2005) demonstrated this debate

by an example of Chesterman (1991)

(7) The Americans have reached the moon

It is as clear as crystal that not all Americans have reached the moon The

definite article the in this example can not be understood correctly within its

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inclusiveness Thus, the theory of Hawkins needs to be modified One way to revise

inclusiveness, in Chesterman’s opinion, is that [+all] might be just “more or less all”

Talking about definiteness, there are tons of paper to discuss and debate on every small aspects of its However, in this paper, only the prominent literatures on

some main features of familiarity, identifiability and inclusiveness are reviewed

Although this is just an overall review, Lyons (1999) and Nguyen (2005) believed the core of definiteness somehow can be understood with the knowledge on those aforementioned notions

2.1.2.2 Specificity

According to Lyons (1999), specificity is a term applied for an indefinite singular noun phrase to decide whether it refers to a particular entity or a general one Later, Briton (2000) supported the idea by defining a specific article as an article that denotes “a particular entity in the real world” and an article that denotes “no particular entity in the real world” is a nonspecific article (p.292) It is also well documented in SLA that specificity is linked with “particular entity in the real world” (ibid.) Huebner (1983) seemed to trigger this trend and his idea was highly appreciated by many authors like Roberson (2000) Another way to distinguish specificity and non-

specificity is to identify the two notions of reference and denotation (Guillemin

2011) As explained by the author, the purpose of a specific expression is to “refer” while a non-specific expression is to “denote” (p 6) The examples bellows were given to demonstrate his idea

(8a) A/ the cat purrs (non-specific)

(8b) A/ the cat purred (specific)

In (8a), the meaning of the sentence is applied for all cats or it can be viewed

as a universal truth Hence, sentence (8a) denotes a generic sense which does not aim

to any specific cat In contrast, sentence (8b) directly asserts a/ the cat that purred Hearer, in this case, can refer to the existence of such cat

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As one of the most prominent modern writers on English articles, Ionin et Wexler (2003) suggested that standard English does not carry the feature of

specificity The is marked for definite article and a/an is marked for indefinite article,

regardless the appearance of specificity It is, in fact, the colloquial English (or spoken English) that can mark the element of specificity This can be understood as only the context can explain the specificity And thus, definiteness does not affect the selection

of specificity To support this idea, Nguyen (2005) gave 3 examples to show the combination between definiteness and specificity (not including [-specific, + definite], i.e generic case)

(9) A lion and two tigers are sleeping in the cage

(10) I am going to clean the house

(11) Pass me a book

First, sentence (9a) can be inferred that hearer can refer to a specific lion although he can not identify the lion mentioned by the speaker Concerning the second example, it is pretty clear that both speaker and hearer can refer to a specific house and that house is known by the hearer In the third sentence, the book mentioned by the speaker is not a specific one and it neither belongs to any set of books that is known by the hearer In this case, by using “a book”, the speaker means

a ‘presupposition of existence’ (Brickerton 1981), or an ‘assertion of existence’ (Ionin 2006)” (Guillemin 2011, p.7)

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2.1.2.3 Genericity

As a main interest of many authors who have delicately worked on the system

of English articles, genericity has been so far a debatable topic on hundreds of studies Therefore, a detailed literature review might be too large for the scope of this study When talking about genericity, it would be a big mistake not mentioning Carsol who has been considered as an inspiration for many notable works on this topic

(Greenberg 2003, Mari et al 2013) The definition given by Carsol (2009) is that

“genericity is a phenomenon whereby generalizations are expressed by sentences that typically abstract over events, situations” Lyons (1999) also stated that the most common way of defining generic sentence is that it is “used to express a class as a whole” (p 179) This means all the entities included in that specific class would normally satisfy all the characteristics of the generic noun “Universal truth” is another term which is widely used to explain the genericity (Guillemin 2011, Hawkins 1999 among others) Also, Guillemin (2011) added that the sense of a generic sentence often denotes a permanent characteristic on the noun Concerning the choice of article affected by the appearance of genericity, Nguyen (2005) remarked

that all three forms of article (i.e a/an, the and zero article) can appear with generic

sense This explains why in most literature, genericity is put at the same level with definiteness and specificity although generic articles are a sub-category which is equal

to [+definite, - specific] cases According to Greenberg (2003) who spent five years writing a dissertation on genericity, the distinction between ‘indefinite plural’ and

‘bare plural noun’ is the key point to decide the use of generic article This appears to

be in line with a recent book on about genericity by Mari et al (2013) in which they

mentioned various forms of plurality in their very first chapter of the book To understand the element of genericity and different meaning of generic articles, we should have a look the examples below:

(12a) ∅ Cats purr

(12b) A cat purrs

(12c) The cat purrs

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Although the three sentences above seems to carry the same meaning, a

detailed explanation can show the slightly different generic sense of the, a and zero article In (12a), bare plural with generic sense is considered as a denoting term

(Carlson 1978, 1999) Besides, a generic bare plural can stand for the category of an entity; thus this sentence can be understood as “Generally a cat purrs.” (Guillemin 2011) For sentence (12b), Guillemin translated it into “For all cats, if x is a cat, then

x purrs” In most literature, when a generic article is used before an indefinite singular noun, the noun is considered as “property associated with the kind” (Guillemin 2011, p.9) Interestingly, Nguyen (2005) raised his concern that normally there exists two

ways of analyzing the meaning of generic a The first one compared it with “a

typical” and the second one viewed it as “any” Taking a neutral stand, Nguyen suggested the uses based on each particular sentence Lastly, in reference to example (12c), a paraphrase of its should be “That kind of animal purrs” Guillemin (2011) stated that a generic definite noun can be the “representative of the kind”

It is worth noticing that Lyons (1999) also warned the misunderstanding that generic articles are another forms of “any, each, every, all” He quoted from previous studies that there were some examples to prove the irrelevance between the sense of generic articles and the aforementioned determiners For the generic sense is somehow outside the influence of semantics, Lyons (1999) suggested that the specific cases should be considered before drawing up a description for generic uses

2.1.3 Types of English articles

Due to the notion of definiteness, most teachers and grammar books divided the English articles into two groups: definite and indefinite articles Moore (2004) seemed to be one of a few researchers who claimed that the system of English articles included three groups: definite, indefinite and zero article Zehler & Brewer (1980) gave a more exact division that this kind of classification consisted of definite,

indefinite and null article because in most researches published by international journals, zero article was listed as an item of both definite and indefinite articles

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(White 2009, Han et al 2006, Hall 2004, Butler 2002) However, from the study of

Chesterman (1991), Master (2003) directly concluded that zero and null article were

at the two opposite extremes namely most definite and most indefinite article Thus, it

would turn back to the basic classification that English has two types of articles:

definite and indefinite

When definiteness was mentioned, another term was coined: specificity

According to Ionin et al (2004), definiteness occurs in case both speaker and hearer

are aware of the existence of a thing denoted by a noun phrase Specificity, on the

other hand, occurs when the speaker refer to a thing denoted by a noun phrase and

“considers this individual [a thing denoted by a noun phrase] to possess some

noteworthy property” White (2009) suggested that the main theoretical premise

behind the division of definiteness and specificity was rooted from a very famous

classification scheme by Bickerton (1981) It is worth noticing that Bickerton believed

a referent, i.e a thing denoted by a noun phrase, had two universals: (i) semantic

universal which decided whether a referent is specific or not, i.e [+SR] or [-SR] and

(ii) discourse universal which assumed whether a referent is known by the hearer or

not, i.e [+HK] or [-HK] From this study of Bickerton, Huebner (1983) introduced his

semantic wheel which is later adapted in numerous studies related to English articles

It is, indeed, the most common classifications to be found in academic researches In

1994, Master summarized the idea of Huebner in a table and gave some examples as

shown below

Table 2.1: Classification of English Articles by Master (1994)

Category Article Environment Example (from Master 1994)

∅ Wild pigs move in bands of fifteen to twenty

mentioned, or physically present referents

What is the diameter of the moon?

Once there were many trees here Now, the trees

are gone

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NPs following existential “has/ have” or

“there is/ there are”

I would like a cup of coffee, please

I always drink ∅ water with my meals

There is an orange in the bowl

negation, question, or irrealis mode

What is the sex of your baby? It’s a boy!

Einstein was a man of great intelligence

∅ Foreigners would come up with a better solution (SR: Specific Referent / HK: Hearer’s Knowledge)

It can easily be seen that the classification above was influenced by the three

concepts of definiteness, specificity and genericity Specific referent and hearer’s

knowledge somehow were just another name for the notions discussed above The

existence of genericity also appears in the case where a noun carries the feature of

hearer’s knowledge but denies the specific referent

At the end of the 1980s, Thomas (1989) was one of a few who suggested

adding a fifth category to the list He argued that the use of idioms was not mentioned

in the semantic wheel of Huebner In favor of Thomas (1989)’s idea on the fifth

category, Butler (2002) supported the new classification system by giving some

examples as all of a sudden to argue that the use of article here is beyond [+/- SR] and

[+/- HK] In the same manner, Hall (2004) believed the system of five categories

should be applied for the idiomatic uses of articles required neither semantic nor

discourse explanation

While current studies tended to favor the classification with five categories,

few still seek for other ways Among those was Ionin et al In their journal article in

2004, they based on previous studies which chose definiteness and specificity as key

notions However, after doing an experimental study on Korean speakers, they added

the element of ‘partivity’ to the universal semantic feature of a referent Thus, their

classification would include eight categories, each one was described by three factors

(for example [-definite, + specific, + partitive]) In one way or another, partitive,

according to their explanation, could be interpreted as “previously mentioned”

Taking a middle-ground position, White (2009) on the one hand supported the idea of

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definiteness and specificity, but on the other hand, he hoped to explore the deeper layer of the semantic context Therefore, although two issues may seem to have the same semantic features [+definite, + specific], their meaning may not be the same As the result, the classification with six different contexts of White was introduced as follows:

Table 2.2: Classification of English Articles Contexts by White (2009)

Context 1 [+definite, +specific] Previous Mention Context 2 [+definite, +specific] Explicit Speaker Knowledge Context 3 [+definite, - specific] Denial of Speaker Knowledge Context 4 [- definite, +specific] Explicit Speaker Knowledge Context 5 [- definite, - specific] First Mention

Context 6 [- definite, - specific] Denial of Speaker Knowledge

Nguyen (2005) believed that the intersection between definiteness and specificity is not the last level of English article Genericity, in his opinion, was indeed the last one When it came to genericity, the problem was even more complex

Or in other words, the four categories were not the most detailed classification which could be found Depend on the meaning and the usage, the categorization can be

various Quirk et al (1985) could even divide the use of the in seven different

contexts In general, the classification of English articles may vary; authors are still looking for the most correct one but many appear to agree on the system of five categories

2.1.4 Meaning of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners

In the scope of this thesis, the theory that Vietnamese is an article-less language is appreciated However, it could not be ignored that the idea whether Vietnamese language has a system of article is still controversial In most literatures,

it was believed that Truong (1888) was one of the pioneers who tried to compare the Vietnamese system of article-like words with the real system of articles in Western

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countries However, the case was only seriously discussed after decades when two

famous scholars Nguyen (1975) and Dinh (1986) considered một, những/các and zero article as Vietnamese counterparts of articles in French or English Một is used before singular indefinite nouns Những and các, despite their slightly differences in definiteness, are used with plural nouns Lastly, zero article can be used before mass

nouns with generic sense or before definite singular nouns Thus, to some extent, Nguyen (1975) and Dinh (1986) believed there exists a system of articles in Vietnamese language As a rebuttal to this point, Cao (1999) simply classified those words as quantifiers or determiners He used many noteworthy examples to demonstrate for his arguments The case was also taken into consideration by other researchers as To (2011) or Bui (2000) On the one hand, Vietnamese linguists agreed upon the existence of some “words” which are somehow equivalent to English articles Their grammatical role, on the other hand, still challenged linguists’ community and that caused different ways of naming those words To avoid misunderstanding, the name “article-like determiners” is used in the thesis to refer to Vietnamese counterparts of English articles as suggested by Nguyen (2005)

2.1.4.1 Countability and Plurality

Unlike English articles which were classified built on definiteness and

specificity, Vietnamese counterparts were grouped due to their ‘countability’ Hoang

& Nguyen (2008) stated that Truong (1883) was the first to point out the element of countability in Vietnamese noun phrase base on his understanding of French

According to Cao (1999), countability is the key notion which appears not only in

grammatical but also in lexical aspect of Vietnamese nouns Cao strongly believed that his view on countability as the main criteria of Vietnamese noun phrases was totally fit with previous studies of famous linguists like Jespersen (1924) or Chomsky (1965) In his book on Vietnamese grammar, he stated that most of Vietnamese nouns are [-countable], leaving the rest 350 nouns are [+countable] Within the small number of countable nouns in Vietnamese, Cao argued only 270 words are

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[+substantive] That leads him to add ‘substance’ to the list of factors that can be used

to select the suitable article-like determiners Another factor that linked to countability

is ‘plurality’, the state to decide whether a noun is in singular or plural form Nguyen (2004) divided the system into two categories, (i) một, cái and zero article are used with singular form and (ii) for plural form, Vietnamese language has những and các

Although not many studies discuss the feature of [+/- unit] as an important part

of Vietnamese grammar, Hoang & Nguyen (2008) noted that it appeared quite often both explicitly and implicitly in various articles As an author of many high school

and university coursebooks, Diep (1991) directly suggested ‘unit’ as a criteria to

classify the system of Vietnamese noun phrases According to him, unit can be the

criteria to mark something as in ổ “loaf”, miếng “piece” or a collective of things as bầy “herb”, đàn “flock” The way of understanding ‘unit’ seemed to attract linguists

like Hoang & Nguyen (2008) who agreed that unit plays an important part in diving unit noun and mass noun In their recent work, Hoang & Nguyen (2008) also suggested that [+/- unit] should be considered before [+/-countability] to determine the article for Vietnamese noun phrases This is a typical difference between noun

phrase in English and in Vietnamese It would be wrong to say *một lính “a soldier”

in Vietnam, một người lính is a correct expression, instead To some extent, the

appearance of [+/- unit] is implied into the system of Vietnamese classifier (Nguyen 1975)

2.1.4.2 Definiteness and Maximality

Definiteness in Vietnamese counterparts of English articles was also

mentioned by many researchers (To 2011, Bui 2000, Nguyen 2005) In his recent

journal, Bui (2000) debated an issue raised by Nguyen (1975) and Dinh (1986) that

definiteness can be applied to distinguish between những and các Moreover, Nguyen (2005) and Cao (1999) assumed that the confusion of một and zero article in Vietnamese language can also be determined by the element of definiteness It might

be noted that the notion of ‘maximality’ was introduced by Nguyen (2005) to

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compare with definiteness First, he based on the study of Langacker (1987) to list

maximality and uniqueness as two elements to decide the definiteness in speech act

Basically, maximality is used to inform a mass noun But to some extent, maximality

can occur when the is put before plural nouns to refer the mutual mental contact of the

speaker and the hearer The point here is that Nguyen (2005) used the background from Langacker and mixed it with the theory of Nguyen (1975) and Cao (1999) to

reveal some correlations between maximality and definiteness in the system of

Vietnamese article-like determiners In general, to classify the Vietnamese

counterparts of English article, (i.e các, những, một and zero article), we depend on countability, plurality, definiteness or maximality The following illustration from

Nguyen (2005) is expected to summarize the ideas above

Table 2.3: Classification of Vietnamese article-like determiners

by Nguyen (2005)

Instance Type Indefinite/

(The cakes/ Cakes)

Các cái bánh -s piece cake

(The cakes/ Cakes)

2.1.5 Types of Vietnamese Article-like Determiners

Although most linguists agreed that một, những, các and zero article altogether make up the Vietnamese counterparts of English articles, it is worth noticing that cái also appeared in some literature However, the role of cái is very complicated which

might almost be the most controversial word in Vietnamese, according to Nguyen

(2005) Depending on different authors that cái played quite a various role as an

article (Tran 1941), a general classifier (Nguyen 1997) or a special word for counting

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(Cao 1999), an ‘indexical cái1’ (Nguyen 1975) or even a ‘particle cái’ (Nguyen 2004)

Because the role of cái is rather difficult to decide, the author of this study would leave cái out of the list of Vietnamese article-like determiners with the hope that one

day experts will give an apparent investigation on this most complex word in Vietnamese language The following part will introduce some main points on each

member of Vietnamese article-like determiners, i.e một, những, các and zero article

2.1.5.1 Một

Normally, một is used as a singular, indefinite article in Vietnamese language

Or it can be said that một is [+singular, -definite] However, as mentioned before,

most of noun phrases in Vietnamese are [-countable], thus they require a classifier,

e.g chiếc, miếng, con after một (To2011) This seems to be in line with the element of unit mentioned in the previous part It is also emphasized that the appearance of such classifiers between một and an uncountable noun is necessary in most cases Consider

the following examples:

(13) Tôi vừa mua một quyển sách ở tiệm sách

I just buy a CL book at store book

‘I have just bought a book at the book store.’

It might be confused that một is also a numeral “one” in Vietnamese To demonstrate the differences between the two functions of một, let us have a look at the

following example of Nguyen (2004)

(14) Họ chỉ có một người con, chứ không phải hai

They only have one CL child but NEG right two

‘They have only one child, not two.’

An interesting feature of một is that it is often used for first mentioned noun phrase For the next times the noun phrase is referred, một is no more put before that

noun phrase Or as explained by Nguyen (2004), this can be a clear evidence to prove

Indexical cái 1 : cái chỉ định

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the indefiniteness of một Somehow it can be compared with the use of the indefinite article a in English Here is the example

(15) Bà tôi cho tôi một con mèo Một hôm (*một) con mèo

Grandmother I give I one/a CL cat one day (one/a ) CL cat

‘My grandma gave me a cat One day, the cat …’

Another notable point which is observed by Nguyen (2004) is that một can also

immediately precede an uncountable noun in case the noun belongs to a kind of food and it is used with a countable sense

(16) Cho tôi một cà phê đá

Give I a coffee ice

‘Can I have a (glass of) coffee with ice, please?’

In this case, the speaker does not need to add any classifier between the

uncountable noun “cà phê” and the article-like determiner một Still, this kind of

expression is not very popular and is mostly used in informal language

Interesting, Nguyen (2004) also remarked the use of một in daily conversation where no formality is required He noticed the absence of một before indefinite noun

phrase, especially in case when the indefinite context can be inferred easily by the

hearer To understand the situation where một is omitted, the context should be

considered

(17) Context: a regular customer at the newsstand

Bán cho (một) tờ báo

Sell give (one/a) CL newspaper

‘A newspaper, please.’

With regard to generictiy, the use of một requires a strict rule as highlighted by

To (2011) In her recent article, she stated three requirements that can create the

generic use of một, i.e (i) một must appear at the first position, (ii) the classifier must

not be omitted and (iii) the uncountable noun need to carry a restrictive adjunct Only then can a singular noun be the representative for a whole class of people, animals or things

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(18) Một nhà lãnh đạo giỏi thì không thể nào hành động như thế

One/a house leader good is NEG can behave like that

‘A good leader cannot behave in such a way.’

On the other hand, according to Nguyen (2005), the generic một can not be translated as an equivalence of a in English To fully acquire the genericity of một and

a, users must regard the pragmatic use of them The following example from Nguyen

is worth discussing the common errors of Vietnamese learners

(19) Bất kỳ con sư tử nào cũng là thuộc loài động vật có vú

Any CL lion also be belong class mammal

‘Any representation of the lion is a mammal.’

‘A lion is a mammal.’

In general, there are sound evidence to prove that một carries the feature of [+singular] [-definite] in Vietnamese language In most situations, một requires a classifier before an uncountable noun Sometimes, in particular contexts, either một or the classifier can be omitted Besides, the generic use of một is a remarkable point And the misunderstanding between numeral một and the determiner một might

confuse users as well

2.1.5.2 Những/ Các

Many authors viewed những, các as plural markers or pluralizers in

Vietnamese language (Cao 1992, Nguyen 1997, Bui 2000 among others) Although

the plurality of những and các is widely agreed in the community, the definiteness of những and các seems to be a debatable topic with various viewpoints In his literature

review, Bui (2000) summarized2 the ideas into two main branches (i) những and các are at two opposite poles of definiteness in which các carries the feature of [+definite] and những, as opposed to các, is [-definite] (Tran, T K 1950) or two poles of

[+/-precise2] (Nguyen 1975, Dinh 1983, Diep 1996) and (ii) các is marked [+definite] while những takes a neutral position which is [+/-definite] (Cao 1992, Nguyen 1996)

Precise 2 : chỉ biệt

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Standing on the second point of view, Nguyen (2004) added that despite the

fact that both những and các can mark [+definite], những is, to some extent, less definite than các To demonstrate the slightly difference between the two words, Nguyen (2004) drew a diagram based on the idea of Thompson (1965) that những refers to “only certain of the total possible number are referred to” while các

emphasizes “all of a given set of entities” (quoted from Nguyen 2004, p 36)

Figure 2.1: The Difference between Những and Các The outer circle marks the use of các which represents for the whole class of entity while những is put in the inner circle which demonstrates the use to “mark a

boundary between a subset and another within a set” (Nguyen 2005:106) To explain

the differences, Nguyen (2005) proposed that các carries the element of maximality while những can be understood as the cataphoric use of English article the or some in some cases Standing on the same line, Nguyen (2004) believed the meaning of some proves the [-definite] feature of những Let us consider the examples below

(20) Đó là những dấu hiệu đầu tiên của mùa đông

This be -s sign first of season winter

‘These are some of the first signs of winter.’

(Not ‘….the first signs’)

(21) Có những người sống sót kể rằng…

There -s man surviving tell that…

‘There are some of the survivors telling that…’

(Not ‘…the survivors’)

những

Các

Những

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This tricky use of những and its counterpart in English might be difficult for

Vietnamese learners, according to Nguyen (2004) ‘The first signs’ or ‘the survivors’

is definite but ‘some of the first signs’ and ‘some of the survivor’ are obviously indefinite

Hoang & Nguyen (2008) focused on the element of maximality of các which is not contained in những to distinguish two words They argued that the presence of các implied the maximiality of the noun The following examples were given in their

article in 2008:

(22a) Các thực khách (đều) đã đến

-s guest (all) aleady come

‘(All) the guests came.’

Not ‘Những thực khách (đều) đã đến

(22b) Có những thực khách đã đến

There -s guest already come

‘There are some of the guests who already came.’

Not ‘Có các thực khách đã đến’

In (22a), the speaker tends to refer to the whole set of ‘guests’, therefore, the

use of các is obligatory because những can not mark maximality In contrast, sentence (22b) simply infers ‘some of the guests’, thus we need to put những to differentiate

between those who came and those who have not came Nguyen (2004) emphasized

that in existential sentence which requires indefiniteness like (22b), các can never be

used It should also be noted that Hoang & Nguyen (2008) believed in some cases

where các and những can be used interchangeably, những is used to compare with the other subsets contained in the same set which is marked by các This way of

identifying is similar to what Nguyen (2005) called “mark the boundary” (p.106) The

table below is expected to summary the differences between of những and các in terms of definiteness

Greeting -s gentleman –s lady!

(Ladies and gentlemen!)

Những/ Các

Những giáo viên ấy rất nhiệt tình

Các giáo viên ấy rất nhiệt tình

-s teacher that very enthusiastic

(Those teachers are very enthusiastic.)

Indefinite Những

( Tôi thích những quyển sách đắt tiền

I like -s CL book expensive

(I like expensive books.)

In addition, the genericity is also mentioned for những and các It requires the

noun phrases to be [+countable] and [+plural] so as to be marked genericity with

những and các To (2011) noted that restrictive adjuncts are often required in those

cases

(23) Các sản phẩm Việt Nam có chất lượng tốt

-s product Vietnam have quality good

‘The products from Vietnam have good quality.’

(24) Những kẻ lười biếng thì không làm gì nên thân

-s CL lazy is NEG do decently

‘Lazy people cannot do anything decently.’

To sum up, những and các are both plural markers in Vietnamese Still, there is

a slightly difference in their usage in which những can precede an indefinite noun phrase while các cannot In terms of their meaning, các presents all the entities within

a given set; những, however, refers to only a certain number of entities in a set Lastly, the sense of genericity can also be inferred by những and các with some

specific requirements

2.1.5.3 Zero articles

The no-use of article in Vietnamese is also named zero article Some authors, like Nguyen (2005) also suggested null article for some specific cases where the