Linguistic features of prepositional phrases denoting position in english and vietnamese equivalents

Page i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A Thesis LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES DENOTING POSITIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS Đặc

Page i

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONAL

PHRASES DENOTING POSITIONS IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ của cụm giới từ biểu thị các vị trí

trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt tương đương)

TRAN THI LINH

Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Assoc.Prof Dr Phan Van Que

Hanoi - 2020

Page ii

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

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

entitled Linguistic features of prepositional phrases denoting positions in English and 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

Page iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,

Dr Phan Van Que who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages

of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me

greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

A special word of thanks goes to all of the lecturers of the Faculty of Postgraduate studies - Hanoi Open University, my classmates at Ha Noi Open University, and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would ever have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my colleague for the

sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

Page iv

ABSTRACT

The thesis is carried out to investigate the syntactic and semantic features of English prepositional phrases denoting positions and its reference to Vietnamese equivalents After analysis on these features, their comparison between English and Vietnamese are discussed to find out the similarities and differences From the result

of this research, some solutions and implication in teaching and learning English prepositional phrases denoting positions are proposed The descriptive and comparative method was chosen to carry out this study Many examples are used in the study to illustrate and analyze the syntactic and semantic feature of these preposition, then making a comparison between two languages to find out equivalents The data are collect from books, dictionaries, internet, stories and novels Moreover, the survey was also carried out to find out the mistakes as well as the difficulties when using these prepositions of Vietnamese learners In short, these prepositions in both languages have some similarities and differences in term syntactic and semantics, in which the main difference is in term of semantics Many students have not distinguished the use of these prepositions yet They are not sure about the equivalents

of these prepositions in Vietnamese Through the result of this study, the author hopes that it can help Vietnamese students learn English easier

Page vi

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2.1 List of simple preposition 13

Table 2 2 List of some two word prepostions 15

Table 2 3 List of some three word prepositions 16

Table 2 4 Some examples of wrong translation prepositional phrases Error! Bookmark not defined Table 3 1 Prepositions of place in English and Vietnamese 42

Table 4 1 Research results of task 1 49

Table 4 2 Research results of task 2 51

Table 4 3 Research results of task 4 52

Table 4 4 Research results of task 5 53

Figure 2 1 Internal structure of a prepositional phrase 30

Page vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

List of abbreviations v

List of tables and figures vi

Table of contents vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale: 1

1.2 Aims and objectives 2

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1.4 Research questions: 3

1.5 Methods of study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Previous studies 5

2.1.1 Previous studies oversea 5

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam 7

2.2 Review of theoretical background 8

2.2.1 Theoretical Framework 8

2.2.1.1 Syntax 9

2.2.1.2 Semantics 10

2.2.2 Theoretical background 10

2.2.2.1 Concepts of prepositions 10

2.2.2.2 Some features of prepositional phrases 12

2.2.2.3 English preposition 12

2.2.2.4 An overview of the prepositional phrase 29

Page viii

2.2.2.5 Prepositional phrases denoting positions and their Vietnamese

equivalents 30

2.3 Summary 32

CHAPTER 3: FEATURES OF PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES DENOTING POSITIONS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 33

3.1 Syntactic features of prepositional phrases denoting positions 33

3.1.1 Prepositional phrases as modifier and complement of other phrases 33

3.1.2 Prepositional phrases as elements of clause 34

3.2 Semantic features of prepositional phrases denoting positions 35

3.3 In terms of similarities and differences between prepositional phrases denoting positions in English and Vietnamese equivalents 38

3.3.1 Similarities 39

3.3.2 Differences 40

3.4 Summary 42

CHAPTER 4: COMMON ERRORS MADE BY LEARNER OF ENGLISH WHEN USING PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES DENOTING POSITIONS 43

4.1 Survey questionnaires 43

4.1.1 Subject 43

4.1.2 Questionnaires 45

4.1.3 Procedure 47

4.2 Common errors made by learners of English when using prepositional phrases denoting positions 49

4.2.1 Common errors made by learners of English when using prepositional phrases denoting positions 49 4.2.2 Causes of committing errors using prepositional phrases denoting

positions Error! Bookmark not defined.

4.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning prepositions in English and

Vietnamese Error! Bookmark not defined.

Page ix

4.4 Summary 54

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 58

5.1 Recapitulation 58

5.2 Limitation of the study 58

5.3 Suggestions for further research 59

REFERENCES 60

APPENDIX 65

Page 1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale:

In today‟s global world, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored since English is the most common language spoken everywhere With the help of developing technology, English has been playing a major role in many sectors including medicine, engineering, especially education Particularly, as a developing country, Vietnams needs to make use of this world-wide spoken language to help country develop Awareness about those important roles of English, there are many policies to develop this language in Vietnam English has been the most update foreign language in comparison with other ones Everyone who wants to have a large stock of knowledge, gets opportunities with good jobs, has success in career needs to learn and master English Nowadays, English is one

of the most three important subjects after mathematics and literature in most secondary schools in Vietnam Textbooks have been renovated; new methods have been applied in teaching English Since English is far different from Vietnamese, it

is not easy for learners to master They sometimes find some difficulties in mastering all the aspects of English language because English grammar is different from Vietnamese structure There are many rules used to correlate or to combine parts of speech for making good sentences or phrases such as article, determiners, pronouns, prepositions, subjunctive, etc

Prepositions have begun to attract the attention of many language researchers over the past few decades Besides, English prepositions pose a big challenge for the acquisition of second language Learners of English as a foreign language often face with huge difficulties in actively mastering the language Generally, they seemingly hold the view that English notional categories, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are crucial, hence striving to learn as many of them as possible and functional categories as prepositions are of minor significance because they are limited in number and their meanings are not important to the meaning of the whole sentence

Page 2

In terms of syntactic function, prepositions and prepositional phrases are words used to connect nouns or noun phrases to other phrases in a sentence They exist in both English and Vietnamese language systems, in which their characteristics and usages, however, are quite different Mastering prepositions and prepositional phrases cause a great deal of troubles for Vietnamese native speaker learners when learning English The noticeable point that makes Vietnamese learners easily cope with difficulties to understand and translate is a group of prepositional phrase denoting position It is not simple to understand these words by just relying on their literal meanings, their positions, or their functions Therefore,

an effective way of mastering prepositional phrase denoting position should be found to help learners overcome their difficulties in acquiring English For all

mentioned above reasons, the topic “Linguistic features of prepositional phrases denoting positions in English and Vietnamese equivalents” has been chosen for

1.2.2 Objectives

The three main objectives of this study are:

(1) Identifying the prepositional phrases denoting positions in English

(2) Find out the similarities and differences between prepositional phrases denoting positions in English and Vietnamese equivalents English and Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

(3) Proposing some implications for teaching and learning „prepositional phrases denoting positions in English in an effective way

Page 3

1.3 Scope of the study

This study focuses mainly on analyzing the syntactic and semantic features

of prepositional phrase denoting positions in English and investigating the equivalents when translated into Vietnamese There are a lot of prepositional phrase denoting positions in which preposition of “in”, “on”, “at” are most popular one and these prepositions are normally misunderstand and made mistakes by Vietnamese learners Therefore, in scope of this thesis, authors only concentrated on the prepositional phrase with “in”, “on”, “at” denoting positions The implications of the study are to help Vietnamese learners of English in general and the students at in particular master prepositional phrases denoting positions in English effectively

1.4 Research questions:

The study is carried out to find out the answers to the following questions: (1) What are the syntactic and semantic features of prepositional phrases denoting positions in English?

(2) What are the similarities and differences between prepositional phrases denoting positions in English and Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features?

(3) What are common mistakes made by students when translating

„prepositional phrases denoting positions in English? What are suggestions made by the author for learners?

1.5 Methods of study

In order to deal with the research subject effectively a flexible combination

of methods is employed This thesis is basically carried out with the descriptive and comparative analysis methods

First, the descriptive method is utilized to give a deep and detailed description of prepositional phrases denoting positions and their Vietnamese equivalents Then examples for illustrating the description will be taken from the grammar and reference books written by contemporary influential linguists in

analysis process

1.6 Structure of thesis

The thesis starts out with Introduction chapter where rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, methods, scope, significance, and design of the study are presented The literature review chapter is the place to summarize the results of the researchers who worked on the problem, and give an overview on prepositional phrases denoting positions in English The Finding and Discussions chapter is the part analyzing data and interpreting the results, as well as stating some pedagogical implications of the findings The Application of the research findings chapter is the part common errors by learners of English when using prepositional phrases denoting position and solutions The last chapter is Conclusion which summarizes the issue and results of the study, as well as offers some recommendations for the further study

The tables of main contents of the thesis are as follows

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Literature review

Chapter 3 Features of prepositional phrases denoting positions in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

Chapter 4 Common errors made when translating prepositional phrases denoting positions in English

Chapter 5 Conclusion

Page 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

2.1.1 Previous studies oversea

According to Otto Jesperseen , who is one of the prominent traditional linguists and grammarians, groups prepositions as a subclass of particles and defines them very briefly in “ Essentials of English Grammar” as elements which signal

different types of relationship in the sentence as follows: in, at, through, for, etc As

a traditional grammarian, Curme (1935) pays special attention to preposition as an indeclinable word of relation; he also considers the item governed by the preposition, which must be a noun phrase

Lawal (2004) shows that prepositions indicate various relationships between words or phrases in sentence The relationship includes those of time, points, position, direction and various degrees of mental or emotional attitude

Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) concern about the relational meanings that the prepositions establish among the constituents of the sentence and prepositions meanings are difficult to describe systematically in “Concise grammar of English”

In his grammar textbook “Mastering American English”, Hayden, et.al focuses on the usage of prepositions He mentions that “a preposition shown relationship between its object and other words in a sentence…Some of the relationships that prepositions express is place or position, direction, time, manner and agent.”

Concerning about the implications for teaching prepositions, Celce – Murcia and Larsen – Freeman show the nine most frequent prepositions (at, by, from, in, for, of, on, to, with) in “ An English Grammar for Teachers of English as a Second Language” (1978) He recommended that beginning students should master at an early stage the primary meanings of the nine prepositions in his book

Many studies have been done to examine the use of prepositions by second language learners However, the present study has focused on errors particularly in the use of prepositions of place, of time and of direction

Page 6

Habash (1982) has investigated the occurrence of students‟ errors in the use

of English prepositions and tested the relationship between the students‟ achievement in the English language at school and their achievement in the diagnostic test

The researcher found that the errors with spatial prepositions were more frequent than those with temporal prepositions

Reef (2000) observed the errors in the use of place prepositions and attempted to find out whether such errors were tied to poor teaching or the interference of the first language The researcher undertook this study to find the level of competence among students in the use of the four types of prepositions namely, position/destination, relative, passage, and orientation

The results revealed that students could not clearly differentiate the four types of the prepositions and they faced difficulties in using the prepositions of position/destination than the other types The inability of the students to distinguish the semantic content of these prepositions and poor teaching methods employed by teachers are the major reasons for the errors

Kim (2001) examined the errors in the use of English prepositions in the written work of Upper Secondary Malay students The aim of the study was to identify the prepositional errors and to find out the causes for the occurrence of these errors

The researcher applied nine concepts of prepositions which pose the most of the difficulties for students namely, prepositions of place, time, direction, manner-agent, cause-purpose, similarity, association, verb-preposition, and adjective-preposition A diagnostic test was administered to these students to elicit the data In the test, they were required to write an essay and fill the blanks of a Cloze text and sentences with the correct prepositions The result of the study showed that the students made a number of errors using the prepositions of place, time and direction due to wrong selections The researcher suggested that the method of teaching

Ahmad (2011) attempted the learningproblems and analysed the errors in the use of articles and prepositions The instrument used in the study was the essays written by 8th class students in their annual examination

The findings of the study showed that the secondary school students faced difficulties in learning prepositions of time and were confused while using prepositions in their writing The studies on prepositions mentioned above showed that many studies have been done on prepositions from different perspectives

2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam

Prepositions and prepositional phrases have been also studied deeply by many Vietnamese linguists such as Dinh Van Duc, Diep Quang Ban, Bui Duc Tinh

In Vietnam, the oldest material which mentioned preposition may be “Báo cáo vắn tắt về tiếng An Nam và Đông Kinh” in a dictionary that was called

“Viet – Bo - La” of Alexandre de Rhôdes (1651) In the part III of this article, the author stated Vietnamese prepositions as one of four non inflected parts of speech (adverb, interjection, conjunction and preposition)

According to Bui Duc Tinh (1952), preposition and preposition phrases are words used to show the meaning correlativeness of two words or two phrases

Page 8

Dinh Van Duc (2001) states that preposition like conjunction is used to express the relationship among words of open word class The function of conjunction is not to express the grammatical meaning

Nguyen Kim Than in “Nghiên cứu về ngữ pháp tiếng Việt” separated preposition as one types of part of speech and definite that prepositions is a kind of empty words that are used to connect to link the sub – word with the main word to show the relationship between the two words

From the basis of the previous studies, it can be seen that the investigation of prepositional phrase with „in‟, „at‟, „on‟ denoting positions and their Vietnamese equivalents have not discussed so far in both languages, English and Vietnamese A research relating English prepositional phrase with „in‟, „at‟, „on‟ denoting positions with reference to Vietnamese equivalents has been chosen for my thesis

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Theoretical Framework

The basic syntactic properties and semantic functions differ in many languages In other languages, the prepositions occur after the complement (subject-object-verb) They are called post positions In English language, they are usually placed before a noun or a noun equivalent (subject-verb-object)

Languages such as English, French, German, and numerous others are prepositional languages whereas Korean, Turkish, Finnish, and lots of others are postpositional languages (Endley, 2010) They often cause problems for second language learners as there are no one-to-one correspondences between English and the other languages Besides, many prepositions have metaphorical and abstract meanings that a language learner finds difficult to learn The task of choosing the right preposition is made even more difficult when the preposition is used together with a noun, a verb, or an adjective, especially since there are no general rules by which a preposition is assigned

For instance, the author of the book – the prepositions on, to, and of are determined by rely, similar and author respectively While learning, the various

Page 9

meanings and meaning extensions of repositions are perhaps the greatest challenge

A pedagogical strategy is essential for students to pay attention to the occurrence, collocation, and discourse behavior of prepositions

co-2.2.1.1 Syntax

The word “syntax” is derived from the Greek “syntaxis”, which means

“arrangement” Syntax in linguistics deal with the ways the elements of a sentence

or phrase can be arranged to express different meanings In the other, it is set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentence in a given language, specifically word order More simply, syntax can be defined as an arrangement of words in a sentence The term syntax is also used to mean the study

of the syntactic properties of a language It dictates words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought Perhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech connect together Every language has rules that dictate types of words can be used in a sentence, and how to interpret the resulting sentence For this reason, discovering the syntactic rules common to all languages in the goal of many syntacticians

Syntax is one of the major components of grammar Traditionally linguists have recognized a basic distinction between syntax and morphology which is primary concerned with the internal structures of words However, this distinction has been somewhat disrupted by recent research in lexico grammar Syntax allows speakers to communicate complicated thoughts by arranging small, simply units in meaningful ways For example, in English, a sentence can be simple as a one-word interjection, or it can be a lengthy composition with multiple clauses strung together Syntax plays important roles in language, it makes human language unlimited Humans can create news sentences or phrases to express different meanings with the rules of syntax

According to R.M.W Dixon (1991), syntactic clues have to be treated with care, and the relevant syntactic categories must be established empirically, not determined a priori

Page 10

2.2.1.2 Semantics

The word semantics was first used by a French philologist, Michel Breal In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology The simple definition of semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions The formal study of semantics intersects with many other fields of inquiry including lexicology, syntax, pragmatics, etymology and others It contrasts with syntax, the study of the combination of units of a language without reference to their meaning, and pragmatics-the study of the relationships between the symbols of a language, their meaning, and the users of the language

In linguistics, semantics the subfield that devoted to the study of meaning, as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse It is also closely linked to the subjects of representation, reference and denotation In traditionally, semantics has included the study of sense and denotative reference, truth conditions, argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of all these to syntax

According to Hurford and Heasley (1983) semantics is the study of meaning

in language Language is a mean of communication, and people use language to communicate with other by making conversations, giving information, and other things to make social relationship Morries was quoted by Lyons (1977) at first defines semantics as the study of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable And then he revised his definition, saying that, semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of sign in all modes of signifying The concepts as well as the studies of syntax and semantics are basic study to investigate syntax and semantic features of preposition „by‟ in English

2.2.2 Theoretical background

2.2.2.1 Concepts of prepositions

A preposition is traditionally defined in some following ways:

According to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary a preposition “is a word or group of words used before a noun or pronoun to show place, position, time

Page 11

or method” Agoi (2003) described preposition as a word or group of words used with a noun or noun equivalents to show the link between that noun which it governs and another word According to Richard Nordquist, he defines preposition

as “a word that show relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence”

Ehrlich and Murphy (1990) state that preposition is a word conveys the meaning of position, direction, time or other abstraction Prepositions according to Lawal (2004) indicate various relationships between words or phrases in sentence The relationship includes those of times, points, position, direction, and various degrees of mental or emotional attitude Wishon and Burks (1980) state

“Prepositions are always followed by nouns or pronouns They are connective words that show the relationship between the nouns following them and one of the basis sentences elements: subject, verb, object, or complement.”

Another definition of preposition within traditional grammar is presented by Curme (1935) “A preposition is a word that indicates a relation between the noun or pronoun it governs and another words, which may be a verb, an adjective, or another noun or pronoun” This definition emphasizes the function of expression relation It offers an extremely comprehensive definition of a preposition

A preposition is a word that indicates a relation between the noun or pronoun it governs and another word, which may be a verb, an adjective or another noun or pronoun

E.g: She was dependent on us

Or: Her opinion of us improved

Page 12

E.g: Jock, with several of his friends, was drinking till 2 am

The preposition with in the example expresses the relation between the ositional complement several of his friends and the noun Jack

rep-2.2.2.2 Some features of prepositions

Prepositions are used with a lot of functions including time, location, manner, means, quantity, purpose, and state or condition Regarding to prepositions

of time, there are some prepositions like at, on, in, from, since, for, during, to, till/until, after, afterwards, By, before and so forth For example, we have: at six o‟clock, on Monday or in the evening

Another usage of prepositions is to show location Some belong to this category are in, at, on, next to, beside, behind, in front of, opposite, near, on top of, under, above and so on Prepositions of movement include from, to, at, into, out of, toward, on, onto, across, through, around, along, up

2.2.2.3 English preposition

a Classification according to structure

According to structure, prepositions are classified into 2 kinds: simple and complex prepositions

Simple prepositions

Most of the common English prepositions, as at, in and for, are simple, i.e

consist of one word The following is a list of the most common simple preposition

In view of the different stress patterns, they have been divided into mono- and polysyllabic

Page 13

over, pace, pending, throughout, toward(s), under, underneath, unlike, until, upon, versus, vis-a-vis, within, without

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 665-667) Carter and McCarthy (2006) gave “a list of more than 50 common simple prepositions” (p.251) They are summarized in the following table:

Table 2.1 List of simple preposition

(Source: Carter and McCarthy, 2006)

Page 14

Carter and McCarthy (2006) note that some prepositions like upon, into, etc

are no other than pairs of words that have “over time become fused as simple prepositions” (p.251)

The fusion in the case of simple prepositions is different from that in complex prepositions since the latter are separate two or three words that operate, in terms of meaning and syntactic function, as single prepositions (ibid) Certain simple prepositions share the same form with other word classes such as verbs (following, barring, excluding, etc.), adverbs (across), and conjunctions (after, as, before, since, until, etc.)

Prepositions are distinguished for the complements they take, unlike the other parts of speech In addition to the repositions listed above, there are some words which behave in many ways like prepositions, although they also have affinities with other word classes such as verb or adjective

E.g: Granted his obsequious manner, I still think he's ambitious enough to do

the job

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 667)

Here is a list of some marginal prepositions with verbal affinities: Bar,

barring, excepting, excluding, save, concerning, considering, regarding, respecting, touching, failing, wanting, following, pending, given, granted, including

Less, minus, plus, times, and over form a special group in their use with

numerals, eg: Six + two are read as "six plus two"

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 667)

* Complex prepositions:

The prepositions, consisting of more than one word, are called complex prepositions They may be subdivided into two- and three- word sequences

* Two- word sequences:

In two- word sequences the first word is an adverb, adjective, or conjunction, and the second word is a simple preposition (usually for, from, of, two, with)

Page 15

Except for Margaret, everybody was in favor of the idea We had to leave

early because of the bad weather

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 669) Here is a list of some two- word prepositions from Quirk, et al, 1985

Table 2 2 List of some two word prepositions

Adv/ Adj/ Conjunction+ for as for, but for, except for, save for

Adv/ Adj/ Conjunction+ from across from, apart from, as from, aside

from, away from

of, exclusive of, inside of, instead of, irrespective of, off of, out of, outside of, regardless of, upwards

of, void of

Adv/ Adj/ Conjunction+ to according to, as to, close to, contrary to,

due to, near to, next to, on to, opposite to, owing to, preliminary to, preparatory to, previous to, prior to, pursuant to, subsequent to, thanks to,

up to

than, up until,

(Source: Quirk, et al, 1985)

* Three- word sequences:

The most numerous category of complex prepositions is the type consisting

of three words, as in: Prep 1+ NOUN+ Prep 2

Page 16

This category may be subdivided according to which preposition function as prep 1 and prep 2

The following table is quoted from (Quirk, et al, 1985: 670-671)

Table 2 3 List of some three word prepositions

In+ noun+ of In+ noun+ with by+ noun+

b Classification according to meaning

In the survey of preposition meanings, to which most of this chapter is devoted, place and time relations will be dealt with first, and will be followed by a more cursory exemplification of other relations such as cause, goal, origin, etc So

Page 17

varied are preposition meanings that no more than a presentation of the most notable semantic similarities and contrasts can be attempted here

Prepositions of place

* Positive position and direction: at, to, on, onto, in, into

Between the notion of simple position (or static location) and destination (movement with respect to an intended destination), a cause- effect relationship obtains:

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 675)

In many cases (especially in colloquial English), on and in may be used for both position and destination when onto and into make an unnecessary emphasis on

the combination of destination and dimension:

I have put the coin in my pocket Mr Temple jumped on the stage

(Alexander L G, 1998: 148)

* Negative position and direction: away from, off, out of

There is a parallel cause and effect relation with negative prepositions away

from, off, out of

= Tom was not at the door

= The book is not on the shelf

= Tom is not in the water

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 678)

Page 18

The negative prepositions away from, off, and out of may be defined simply

by adding the word "not" to the corresponding positive prepositions: away from (= not at), off (= not on), out of (= not in)

* Relative position: by, over, under

Apart from simple position, prepositions may express the relative position of two or groups of objects:

He was standing by his brother ("at the side of")

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 148

Above, over, under, underneath, beneath and below, on top of express

relative position vertically, whereas in front of, before, behind, and after represent

of horizontally The antonym above and below, over and under, in front of and

behind are converse opposites:

The picture is above the mantelpiece = The mantelpiece is below the picture

* Relative destination: by, over, under, etc

As well as relative position, the preposition listed the right above (but not,

generally, above and below) can express relative destination:

The bush was the only conceivable hiding- place, so I dashed behind it When it started to rain, we all went underneath the trees

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 149)

* Passage: by, over, under, etc

With verb of motion, prepositions may express the idea of passage (i.e movement towards and then away from a place) as well as destination

Page 19

equivalent of by which may also, however, be substituted for past in a "passage"

sense) For example:

He came across the bridge

(Huddleston, R, 1984: 348)

* Direction: up, down, along, etc

Up, down, along, across, and (a)round, with verbs of motion, make up a

group of prepositions expressing movement with reference to an axis or directional path

Up and down contrast in term of vertical direction:

We walked up the hill and down the other side

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 682)

While along contrast with across in term of a horizontal axis:

I took my dog for a walk along the river Be careful when you walk across a street

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 683)

With (a)round, the directional path is an angle or a curve:

We ran (a)round the corner

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 150)

Toward(s) is in category of its own, having the meaning "in the direction of":

We walked toward(s) the old farmhouse

* Orientation: beyond, over, past, etc

Most prepositions of relative position and direction can be used in a static sense of orientation This brings in a third factor apart from the two things being spatially related: via a point of orientation, at which (in reality or imagination) the speaker is standing

Beyond (= "on the far side of") is a preposition of which primary meaning is

one of orientation; furthermore, over (BrE), past, across, and through can combine

the meaning of "beyond" with more specific information of dimension- type, as described in:

His village lies two miles beyond the border

Page 20

(Cobuild, C, 1997: 54)

He lives across the moors (i.e "from here")

The village past the bus stop/ through the wood

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 150)

Up, down, along, across, and (a) round are used with reference to an axis in:

He lives (a)round the corner He is up/ down the stair

There is a hotel across/ along the road

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 151)

* Resultative meaning

All prepositions, which have motional meaning can also, have a static resultative meaning indicating the state of having reached the destination:

I managed to get over the fence

So too with the verb "be":

The horses are over the fence (i.e are now beyond)

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 151) Resulative meaning is not always distinguishable out of context from other static meanings; its presence is often signaled, by certain adverbs: already, just, at last, (not) yet, etc

Pervasive meaning: all over, throughout, etc

Over (dimension- type 1/2) and through (dimension- type 2/3), especially

when preceded by all, have pervasive meanings (either static or motional):

That child was running all over the flower borders

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 684)

Throughout, substitutable for all through, is the only preposition of which

primary meaning is "pervasive" Occasionally the "axis" type prepositions of direction are also used in a pervasive sense:

There were crowds (all) along the route

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 151)

Prepositions of time

Page 21

Of all kinds of prepositions, prepositions of time are quite popular and very large in number In time sphere, there are three types: time position, time duration, time relationship

* Prepositions denoting time position: at, on, in, by

At is used for point of time, chiefly clock- time (at ten o'clock, at 6.30 pm, at

noon, etc); also idiomatically, for holiday periods (at the weekend (BrE), at Christmas, at Easter); and for phrases (at night, at the/ that time, etc)

On is used for referring to days: on Monday, on the following day, on May

first

In is used for periods longer or shorter than a day: in the evening, in summer,

in August, in the 18th century, in 1969 We have some notes:

"On Monday", "on the following evening", etc illustrate an exceptional use

of on with a complement referring to a part of a day rather than whole day But we use in with phrases: "early morning", "late afternoon"

By occurs in the idioms: "by day", "by night": We preferred traveling by

night

* Prepositions denoting time duration: for, during, over, (all) through,

throughout, from to, until, upon

Duration is usually expressed by for:

I have learned English for two years

Over, (all) through, and throughout have a durational meaning, as in: We

camped there over the holiday/ over Christmas

We camped there through (out) the summer

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 689)

Page 22

Over normally accompanies noun phrases denoting special occasions (such

as holiday and festivals), and so generally refers to a shorter period than through

(out)

From to (or till) is another pair of prepositions, of which locative meaning is

transferred to duration In AmE, it may be replaced by from through, eg:

We camped there from June through September

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 690)

But with from absent, only until, till, and through can be used, as in:

I work until/ till three

(Cobuild, C, 1997: 153)

* Prepositions denoting time relationship: before, after, since, until,

between, by

Before, after, since, until occurs almost exclusively as prepositions of time

Consider the following examples:

Until specifies a terminal point with positive and a commencement point

with negative predication:

Pending is used in formal, especially legal style:

The decision must wait pending his trial ["until"]

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 691)

Other prepositions of time relationship are between, by, and up to:

I'll phone you between lunch and three o'clock

By the time we'd walked five miles, he was exhausted

Up to last week, I hadn't received a reply

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 155)

* Prepositions of cause, reason, motive: because of, on account of, for, from

Page 23

There are some prepositions expressing either the material cause or the

psychological cause (motive) for a happening: because of, on account of, for, from,

due to, owing to

Because of the drought, the price of bread was high that year

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 156)

On account of is a more formal alternative to because of as an expression of

cause or reason, eg:

She was despised on account of her sex

(Cobuild, C, 1997: 116)

Out of and for are mainly restricted to the expression of motive, ie

psychological cause, for instance:

Some support charities out of duty, some out of a sense of guilt I hid the money, for fear of what my parents would say

(Quirk, et al 1985: 696)

* Prepositions of purpose, intended destination: for

The preposition for is used to express purpose, intended destination in the

following examples:

He'll do anything for money Everyone ran for shelter

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 156)

In this use of for, there is a corresponding paraphrase with a clause (in order to):

To express intended destination, for is used with verbs: run, start, head,

leave, and set out For example:

He set out for London

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 696)

* Prepositions of recipient, goal, target: for, to, at

When for is followed by noun phrase denoting person or animals, the meaning is rather one of intended recipient:

At, in combinations such as "aim at" expresses intended goal or target

After aiming carefully at the bird, he missed it completely She smiled at her

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 697) Other combinations with at may also express the meaning of goal such as:

"kick at", "charge at", "bite at", "catch at", "shoot at", "chew at"

* Prepositions of source, origin: from

The converse of to (goal) is from (source)

I borrowed the book from Bill ("Bill lent the book to me")

From is also used with reference to "place of origin"

He comes from Scotland/ Glasgow ("He is a Scot/ a Glaswegian")

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 698)

* Prepositions of manner: in manner, like, with

Manner can be expressed by the prepositions: in manner, like, with

For example:

The task was done in a workmanlike manner

We were received with the utmost courtesy

The army swept through the city like a pestilence

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 158)

Note that like with intensive verbs, as in: "life is like a dream", refers not to

manner but to resemblance

* Prepositions of means, instrument: by, with, without

By can express the meaning of "by mean of"

Did you come by car?

Page 25

They tried to save themselves by clinging to the wreckage

(Cobuild, C, 1997:58)

With, on the other hand, expresses instrumental meaning:

I wrote this letter with my pencil

(Phuc, N.S, 1999: 12)

For most sense of with, including that of instrumental, without expresses the

equivalent negative meaning:

I drew it without a ruler (i.e "I didn't draw it with a ruler")

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 699)

Besides, the preposition by, on can be used to express mode of transport, as in:

I go to work on the bus (= I go to work by bus)

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 158)

On is used instead of by in the phrases: "on foot", "on horseback"

Of is used with "die" in expressions like:

He died of hunger

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 159)

* Prepositions of instrument, agentive: with, by

While the "instrument" is the inert and normally inanimate cause of an action ["the ball that breaks the window"], the agentive ["the boy who threw the ball"] In

passive sentence, the agentive or instrument can be expressed by the preposition by, but only the instrument can be expressed by the preposition with For example, we

can say:

The window was broken by a ball/ by a boy The window was broken with a ball

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 159) But we can't say:

The window was broken with a boy

Although both of by and with are used to express instrument, there can be a

difference in meaning, as appear more clearly in the following sentences:

My car had been damaged by the branch of a tree [a]

Page 26

My car had been damaged with the branch of a tree [b]

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 700)

By in [a] would exclude a human agency: a storm may have caused the

branch to cause the damage By contrast, with in [b] would exclude the natural

cause and would suggest that human agents had used the branch broken from a tree

to inflict the damage

The agentive by- phrase also occurs as post-modifier to signify authorship like: A picture by Degas ("painted by Degas")

* Prepositions of stimulus: at

The relation between an emotion and its stimulus (normally an abstract

stimulus) can often be expressed by at or the instrumental by:

I was alarmed at/by his behaviour

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 701)

At has a common alternative in about: annoyed at/ about, pleased at/ about,

etc

* Prepositions of support and opposition: for, with, against

There are three prepositions expressing support and opposition in English:

for, with, against

Are you for or against the plan?

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 160)

Remember that every one of us is with you

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 702)

For conveys the idea of support, with that of solidarity or movement in

sympathy; against conveys the contrary idea of opposition In this use, there is no negative without contrasting with with However, to denote the idea of opposition, the preposition with is preceded by some verbs in: "fight with","quarrel with",

"argue with", etc For example:

You heard how the boy was arguing with him

(Cobuild, C, 1997: 158)

Page 27

* Prepositions of having: of, with, without

We have some examples:

A man with large ears [2] = The man has large ears

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002 160)

The preposition of in [1] is normally used with abstract attributes, while with

in [2] is more general and is especially common with concrete attributes The

negative of with is again without:

Women without children ("childless women")

(Quirk, R& Green Baum, S, 2002: 160

The correspondence between phrases with with or without and relative

clauses with "have" applies also to "have"- existential sentences

* Prepositions of reference: with reference to, with regard to, as for, etc

Some of the prepositions denoting reference are used in rather formal contexts typically business letter, eg:

With reference to (less usual: In reference to) your letter/ request/ enquiry of

April 29th, I confirm my Director's agreement to advance a further sum of £2000

<Formal> Re functions like with regard to but is more common in notes than in

formal letters, eg:

Re your idea of extending the canteen

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 706)

As to and as for are less formal than the other complex preposition in this

group:

As to the question you raise in your last letter, I think that

As for his book, I suppose you've read the reviews!

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 707)

Other prepositions within the same general area of meaning are regarding, in

regard to, with respective to, in respect of, and on the matter of

Page 28

There are a number of marginal prepositions that have affinities with verbs

which belong here: concerning, regarding, and touching <formal>

Concerning the recent proposal by the chairperson, I suggest us

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 707)

* Prepositions of exception, addition:

Exception: except for, with the exception of, apart from, aside from, excepting, excluding, but save (formal)

The most common prepositions denoting exception are except for, with the

exception of, apart from, except, excepting, excluding, but save (formal)

We had a pleasant time, except for the weather

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 707)

Further, the noun phrase with but- modification must contain a determiner or

indefinite pronoun of absolute meaning (positive or negative): no, all, any, every, each, nobody, anywhere, everything, etc or interrogative wh- word (who? where?

etc) Hence one may say all but one, but not, eg: some but one, or many but one

Other examples:

We've bought everything but milk

Who should turn up but our old friend Tom?

Bar and barring are rarer substitutes for except and excepting:

This is the most versatile microcomputer on the market, bar none

Barring accidents, we'll be there on time

Besides, beyond is sometimes used in nonassertive contexts in the sense of except (for):

Beyond the press release, there are no further comments

(Quirk, et al, 1985: 708)

Addition: besides, as well as, in addition to

Addition can be expressed by the prepositions: besides, as well as, and in

addition to For examples:

Besides his interest in anthropology, he had a flair for language

There some definitions of prepositional phrases in English as the followings:

According Quirk, R & Greenbaum, S, 2002: 142, a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition followed by a prepositional complement, which

is characteristically a noun phrase or a wh-clause or v-ing clause:

at the bus stop from what he said

by signing a peace treaty

These above prepositional phrases are the combinations of prepositions:

at, from, by and prepositional complements: the bus stop (noun phrase), what he said (wh-clause), signing a peace treaty (v-ing clause), respectively

Another definition by Richard Nordquist: A prepositional phrase is a group of words made up of a preposition, its object and many of the object's modifiers

She left her early in order to get to the bank

Moreover, a prepositional phrase is defined as a phrase that has both a preposition and it objects or complement; may be used as an adjunct or modifier (http:// www.allwords.com)

The man in the story walked along the beach

b Internal structure of prepositional phrases

In adjective phrases, adverb phrases, noun phrases, there is one main element called the head, to which the other elements (modifier, qualifier, determiner) are subordinate For this reason, the head element- a noun, an adjective, an adverb, can be alone without other elements, in presentation of the whole phrase

out of along at near

date this road that moment here

However, PPs are completely different A preposition itself can't occur without a nominal unit and nominal unit is not part of PP if there is no preposition Both are equally necessary to form the PP Therefore, a PP consists

of three elements The first element (such as straight in straight to bed) which is

optional and usually realized by an adverb is call modifier The main element is the preposition which gives its name to the phrase and for simplicity is called the head This element is followed by the third element called prepositional complement, which is needed to complete the structure of PP Prepositional complement normally is realized by a noun phrase, a clause, a PP, an adverb or adjective phrase In the PP, both the preposition and the complement are obligatory

The internal structure of a PP can be represented by the figure below:

Figure 2 1 Internal structure of a prepositional phrase

2.2.2.5 Prepositional phrases denoting positions and their Vietnamese equivalents

Vietnamese also has a category of word which is similar to preposition It is considered as an empty word called “hư từ” We may call this category Vietnamese equivalent of English preposition Although some linguists have claimed that prepositions do not exist in Vietnamese, according to Tuc (2003) “although the distinction between prepositions and serial verbs in Vietnamese is not always clear-

Page 31

cut, Vietnamese prepositions do exist” In his book, he also gave many examples to prove his opinion Moreover, nowadays, in many books of teaching Vietnamese for foreigners, the name preposition is often used Therefore, to be convenient, the name Vietnamese preposition is used for equivalent of English preposition in Vietnamese in this thesis Nguyen Kim Than in “Viet Nam văn pham”, defines prepositions as a category of word and that “prepositions, a kind of empty words, are used to connect to link the sub – word with the main word to show the relationship between the two words There is a small amount of prepositions in Vietnamese, but they are used frequently every day and play an important role in organizing sentences

In Vietnamese language, there are some different points of view of prepositions Some grammarians name prepositions as linking words that comprise prepositions and conjunctions Tran Ngoc Them (1985) The reason why prepositions and conjunctions are categorized in the same word class because it is difficult to distinguish prepositions from conjunctions in some circumstances in Viernamese Nguyen Van Thanh However, other grammarians such as Bui Duc Tinh consider prepositions as typical syntactic category in Vietnamese Syntactically, Nguyen Van Thanh states that “Prepositions is used to link with noun, pronoun and numerals” He also confirms that conjunctions should be considered at sentence levels, especially at complex sentences It is really problematic in order to identify the syntactic categories that follow Vietnamese prepositions For examples, the Vietnamese prepositional phrase “để thay thế cho”

is constructed as „preposition plus a verb‟ It is the complexity of the syntactic categories in Vietnamese collocate with the preceding prepositions in Vietnamese that we made up our mind to deal with the meaning of the collocation between English complex prepositions with their following collocates and their equivalents

in Vietnamese The syntactic of English complex prepositions and their following collocates as well as their equivalents in Vietnamese are not taken into consideration in this thesis and will be discussed for further studies