Syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents

Among the five different types of phrases in English namely noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, noun phrases are the most common play

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the research 1

1.3 Scope of the research 1

1.4 Research Methods 2

1.4.1 Major methods and supporting methods 2

1.4.1.1 Major methods 2

1.4.1.2 Supporting methods 2

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 2

1 Theoretical background 2

1.1 Noun phrases in English 2

1.1.1 Definitions of English noun phrases 2

1.1.2.Structure of English noun phrases 3

1.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese 4

1.2.1 Definitions of Vietnamese noun phrases 4

1.2.2 Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases 4

2.Syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents 4

2.1 Noun phrases in English 4

2.1.1.Structure of English noun phrases 4

2.1.1.1 The head 5

2.1.1.2 Pre-modification 5

2.1.1.3 Post-modification 6

2.1.2.Syntactic functions of English noun phrases 7

2.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese 7

2.2.1 Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases 7

2.2.1.1.The head 7

2.2.1.2 Pre – modification 7

2.2.1.3 Post – modification 7

2.2.2.Functions of Vietnamese noun phrases 7

3 Comparisons between syntactic features of English noun phrases and their Vietnamese equivalents 7

3.1 In terms of structure 7

3.1.1 The heads of noun phrases 7

3.1.2 Pre-modification 8

3.1.3 Post-modification 9

3.2 In terms of function 10

4 Applications 11

4.1 For teachers teaching and translating noun phrases 11

4.2 For students 11

4.3 Error analysis 11

PART 3: CONCLUSION 12

References 12

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale

English is the most popular language in the world It plays an important role in our social-economic life of human beings It is now the main language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy and advertising In order to speed up the country's economy, and to improve living standards as soon

as possible, it is very necessary for scientists, technicians and engineers to learn and acquire English so as to keep up date with the latest developments in technology taking place in the world Learning and teaching English, reading with comprehension or translating material from English into Vietnamese or vice versa, always create difficulties for learners particularly because

of the differences between English and Vietnamese

Among the five different types of phrases in English (namely noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases), noun phrases are the most common playing various syntactic functions in the sentence and clause structure: subject, object and complement (of various kinds), apposition and attribute.Without knowledge of noun phrases in English, learners could not produce comprehensible sentences In order to find out this issue, in

this graduation thesis, I have decided to choose the topic "Syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents".

We hope that this study will contribute a small part in teaching and translating noun phrases

to Vietnamese learners

1.2. Aims of the research

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the English and Vietnamese noun phrases and their impact upon teaching and learning English in Vietnamese situation It is hoped that this contrastive analysis will provide as much information as possible on English and Vietnamese noun phrases With the practical aims, it attempts to state the similarities and differences in noun phrases of the two languages in term of their internal and external structures The study draws attention to the analysis of the heads of noun phrases in the two languages, the pre and post modifications, their positions and functions of English and Vietnamese noun phrase Finally, some teaching implications are made for those who teach English as a Foreign Language to their students At the same time, some kinds of error made by Vietnamese learners due to differences

in word order and functions of noun phrases between the two languages will be discussed

1.3. Scope of the research

Noun phrase is an important and complicated part of English grammar in English However, due to constraints as well as the framework of a graduation thesis, it is impossible to touch all the differences and similarities in syntactic features of noun phrases of all schools In this research, I only mention some common syntactic features of English noun phrases from perspective of traditional grammar and Vietnamese noun phrases and then find out the similarities and differences between noun phrases in English and Vietnamese

1.4. Research Methods

1.4.1 Major methods and supporting methods

1.4.1.1. Major methods

Descriptive research method and comparative method will be used in the study Firstly, the descriptive method is used in the first stage to give the deep and detail deseription of syntagtid features of English noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese equivalents Secondly, the comparative method will be used to find out the similarities and differences between the syntactic features of English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases In this research method, survey questionnaires in form of a written test is used as one of data collection methods

to evaluate the participants ability in understanding English noun phrases and translating noun phrases Then statistic method is applied to present quantitative descriptions in manageable form

to simplify large amounts of data in a sensible way

1.4.1.2. Supporting methods

The analytical method is used to define elements to form an English noun phrase and Vietnamese noun phrase Moreover, this method also helps to analyze syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to Vietnamese equivalents to point out relations between them The contrastive method is applied to compare English noun phrase with reference to Vietnamese equivalents

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

1 Theoretical background

1.1. Noun phrases in English

1.1.1 Definitions of English noun phrases

By traditional, the noun phrase can be defined in many ways; however, most scholars of

traditional grammar agree on the following definition which is quoted from A comprehensive grammar of the English language (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1972): "The noun phrase typically

functions as subject, object, complement of the sentence and complement of the preposition

phrase" It can be inferred from the definition that the functions of noun phrases bring about the recognition of noun phrase

And Schmidt (1999)said that: A noun phrase is one or more words which we use in a sentence as subject, direct, indirect object, complement or prepositional complement In addition to, In Quirk and Greenbaum viewpoint(1973),the complex noun phrases cor sist of three components: the head,the premodification,and the postmodification

We see that there are many different attitudes about noun phrases because this is studied from different aspects like: the function of noun phrases, role of noun phrases, or components

of noun phrases However, all definitions include some common features such as components and their relationships of noun phrases

1.1.2 Structure of English noun phrases

Basic noun phrases

Structurally speaking, basic noun phrases consists of pronouns, numerals or nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or nouns with other closed - system items that occur before the noun head including pre - determiners, determiners and post - determiners Many linguists argue that pronouns are a special class of noun According to Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik(1972), the implication of the name as pronouns is that they replace nouns or rather whole noun phrases, since they cannot normally occur with determiners Not only can basic noun phrases consists of pronouns or nunerals, but they can also comprise a head noun with determiners or determiners modified by pre-determiners and/ or post-determiners.The head noun of a noun phrase is the central element and decisive factor in performing the syntactic functions of the whole noun phrase

Complex noun phrases

Complex noun phrases contain three components: pre-modification, head noun and post-modification

Head noun

As in the basic noun phrase, the head noun, first of all is the central element and core component of the complex noun phrase It may be count or mass noun which dictates concord and (for the most part) other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase

Pre - modification

The second component of a complex noun phrase is modification, also called pre-modifiers, including modifiers that stand before the head noun Pre-modifiers can be closed-system and / or open-class items Closed - closed-system pre - modifiers are optional in the complex noun phrases Meanwhile, open -class pre-modifiers come after the closed-system ones and precede the head noun

Post-modification

The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post - modification, called post - modifiers, comprising all the items placed after the head These post - modifiers are mainly realized by prepositional phrases, finite clause (or relative clauses), non finite clauses, adjective phrases, noun phrases or adverbial phrases

1.1.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese

1.2.1 Definitions of Vietnamese noun phrases

Noun phrases in Vietnamese, like that of English, play a very important role in sentences English, although being a little inflectional language, has this grammatical phenomenon, especially in number Vietnamese is an un - inflectional and isolating language and the word order in the language is of special importance, relating to the word order in the noun phrase Vietnamese linguist focus on the combination between Vietnamese nouns and other modifications as well as the combination among modifications in the relationship with nouns

In Vietnamese, when a noun is used to perform some functions in a sentence, some modification is often added to form a phrase Such phrases in which there is a noun acting as

a head are called noun phrases According to Đỗ Thị Kim Liên:"A noun phrase is combination of words in which the noun is a central element and it has one or more subordiaate elements around to supplement gram matical meanings to itself." And in Lê Dũng's viewpoint (2002), “A noun phrase is a group of words which the beginning is a noun and its function is appositive”

1.2.2 Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases

In general, a noun phrase in Vietnamese may have two parts, they are:

(i) the head taken by noun, in the middle of the phrase

(ii) modification is divided into two parts: pre-modification and post-modification

The order of modification is never free in Vietnamese noun phrases, occurring either as pre-modification or post-pre-modification These noun phrases consist of three parts In some cases, such phrases can be seen to have only two parts

a.Those with pre-modification and the head

b.Those with the head and post-modification

2 Syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents

2.1 Noun phrases in English

2.1.1 Structure of English noun phrases

In describing noun phrases we need to distinguish the following constituent parts: The head, the pre-modification and the post-modification

2.1.1.1 The head

According to Randolphin Quirk in A comprehensive grammar of the English language,

1972, 1238 "The head, around which (for the most part) of the other constituents cluster and which dictates concord with other parts of the sentences"

2.1.1.2 Pre-modification

The pre- modification comprises all the items placed before the head It can be formed by:

a Pre-determiners

- All, both, half

These pre-determiners can occur only before articles or demonstratives but, since they are themselves quantifiers, they do not occur with the following “quantitatives” determiners:

every, (n)either, some, any, no, enough All, both, and half have of-constructions, which are

optional with nouns and obligatory with personal pronouns

b Determiners

-Article: the, a, an

-Possessive adjectives: my, our, their, etc

-Interrogative pronouns:which, who, that, etc

-Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, etc

c Post-determiners

-Cardinal numerals: Apart from one, which can co-occur only with singular count nouns, all cardinal numerals (two,three,etc) co-occur only with plural count nouns:

E.g.I have one brother and two sisters

-Ordinal numerals: except first, co-occur only with count nouns All ordinals usually precede any cardinal numbers in the noun phrase:

E.g My classroom is on the second floor

-Quantifiers

There are two small groups of closed-system quantifiers:

(1) many, (a)few, and several co-occur only with plural count nouns:

(2) much and (a) little co-occur only with non-count nouns:

Several is rarely (and much virtually never) preceded by a determiner, and in the case of few and little, there is a possitive/negative contrast according as the indefinite article is or is not used:

a few oranges(=several)

few oranges(=not many)

a little bread(= some)

little bread(=not much)

d Pre-modification by adjectives

E.g: He is a hard worker

e Pre-modification by - ing participles

E.g - The approaching train is from Liverpool

f Pre-modification by – ed participles

Most -ed participles have passive meaning, and only a few will easily admit the permanent reference that will permit pre-modifying use.We may contrast the participle of the stative verb with that of the dynamic verb

g Pre-modification by nouns

In most cases, premodifying nouns correspond to postmodification with prepositional phrases

h Pre-modification by genitive

The illustration of the genitive as premodifier with restrictive function

i Pre-modification by adverb and other phrases

Another minor type of pre-modification is the adverb phrase

j Pre-modification by sentence

2.1.1.3 Post-modification

a Post-modification by finite clauses

We distinguish two major types of finite clauses as noun- phrase postmodifiers,relative clauses and appositive clauses

b Post-modification by non finite clauses

(i) Post - modification by present participle clauses:

Post-modification of the noun phrase is possible with all three of the non-finite clause types: -ing participle, -ed participle and infinitive clauses The correspondence between -ing clauses and relative clauses is limited to those relative clauses in which the relative pronoun is subject

(ii) Post modification by infinitive clauses

(iii) Post modification by past participle clauses:

c Post - modification by prepositional phrases

2.1.2 Syntactic functions of English noun phrases

Randolph Quirk et al (1980) says "the functions of noun phrases, as subiects, objects, complements or appositive in English sentence structures are diverse" Some other functions of English noun phrases are prepositional complement, adverbial, adjective complement

2.2 Noun phrases in Vietnamese

2.2.1 Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases

Noun phrases in Vietnamese, like that of English language, play a very important role in sentences Vietnamese linguists focus on the combination among modifications in the relationship with nouns Like in English, in Vietnamese when a noun is used to perform some grammatical function in a sentence, some modifications are often added to form a phrase Such phrases in which there is a noun acting as the head are called noun phrases

In general, a noun phrase in Vietnamese has two parts, they are

(i) the head taken by noun, in the middle of the phrase

(ii) modification is divided into two parts: pre-modification and post-modification

2.2.1.1.The head

The head of a noun phrase in Vietnamese may consist of two parts (head one-hl and head two-h2)

Head one is used to denote units, accordingly they are also called unit words whereas head two

to express things

2.2.1.2 Pre – modification

When one comes to consider the premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese,three points need special attention.They are the classifiers,quantity words and the order

2.2.1.3 Post – modification

The noun phrases in Vietnamese are post - modified by noun, noun phrases, verbs, adjectives, adjectival phrases, ordinal numbers, quantity words and clauses

2.2.2 Functions of Vietnamese noun phrases

Vietnamese noun phrases also has the functions of nouns as subject, predicate, adverbial phrase, apposition and complement

1.13 Comparisons between syntactic features of English noun phrases and their Vietnamese equivalents

3.1 In terms of structure

3.1.1 The heads of noun phrases

The head of English noun phrases often consists of a word, which is a content word such

as a beautiful girl (“girl” is the head) It can be either a noun or a pronoun It can not generally occur with pre-modification although a restrictive pre-modification may sometimes occur On the contrary, a head in Vietnamese noun phrase may consist of two sub-parts (head one and head two), and the head of noun phrases may occur with three variants:

(i) A form with two parts, head one and head two

(ii) A form with head one only(head two is absent)

(iii) A form with head two only (head one is absent)

For example: a horse (the head is only one word) but in Vietnamese we have một con ngựa (the head is two words).

“one girl” we can not say “một gái", but we must say “một cô gái”

“one fish" we can not say "một cá”, but we must say “một con cá”

“one book” we can not say "một sách", but we must say "một quyển sách”

3.1.2 Pre-modification

We have seen that modification in English noun phrases can be formed by: pre-determiners, pre-determiners, post-pre-determiners, adjectives, participles, genitives, noun, adverbial phrases, sentences Now, we compare with Vietnamese ones, we have a comparison about some following typical items