Syntactic and semantic features of resulting copular verbs in english and their vietnamese equivalents in a literature work

i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF RESULTING COPULAR VERBS IN ENGLISH

i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

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

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES

OF RESULTING COPULAR VERBS IN ENGLISHAND THEIR

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN A LITERATURE WORK

CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM VỀ CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA ĐỘNG TỪ NỐI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT TRONG

MỘT TÁC PHẨM VĂN HỌC 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

I would also like to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Assoc Prof

Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh and the staff members of Post-graduate Department and the lecturers at Faculty of Foreign Languages – Ha Noi Open University for their valuable lectures, which laid the foundation of this thesis, and for their knowledge as well as their sympathy

I am also grateful to the Thanh Hoa students in group of English language courses K18M, who helpep me overcome difficulties to complete my thesis

Last but not least, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my beloved parents, my brothers, whose support and continual encouragement have been indispensable for the fulfillment of this challenging work

This thesis cannot avoid limitation, so I wish to receive comments and opinions to make it better

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ABSTRACT

The issue of resulting copular verbs in English and in Vietnamese is a very complex one and there are many different views of linguistists The focus of this thesis is to study on syntactic and semantic fetures of resulting copular verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents in Vietnamese in a literature work The research was carried out to answer the research questions:

What are syntactic and semantic features of resulting copular verbs in English?

What are the the similarities and differences between resulting copular verbs in English and their Vietnamses equivalents in a literature work?

What implication is drawn for learning resulting copular verbs effectively?

The differences between the meanings and uses of the different structures are not easy to analyse and describe clearly The study attempts to provide readers, particularly students of English, solutions to their problems when using resulting copular verbs So, in the last chapter, the common errors and mistakes made by Vietnamese learners are highlighted Then the suggestions for each problem are presented with examples to help students understand and overcome their difficulties in using resulting copular verbs And the implications for teaching English grammar better are also given

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Chapter 3: WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES AND

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RESULTING COPULAR

VERBS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS IN A LITERATURE WORK?

3.2 Syntactic features of resulting copular verbs 27

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3.2.1 Syntactic Features of RCVs in English 27 3.2.1.1 General Syntactic Features of RCVs in English 27 3.2.1.2 Specific Syntactic Features of RCVs inEnglish 28 3.2.2 Syntactic Features of RCVS in Vietnamese 34 3.3 Semantic features of resulting copular verbs 39

3.3.1.1 RCVs denoting the process of changing 41 3.3.1.2 RCVs denoting the results of changing 41

3.3.1.5 RCVs expressing changes in people's physical state 42 3.3.1.6 RCVs describing changes in people's mental state 42 3.3.1.7 RCVs designating changes of people's psychological

state

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3.3.1.8 RCVs describing gradual changes in attitude 42 3.3.1.9 RCVs indicating a change of politics 43 3.3.1.10 RCVs talking about a change of religion 43 3.3.1.11 RCVs indicating a change of occupation 43 3.3.1.12 RCVs describing the change of quality 43

3.3.1.14 RCVs describing a change to a better condition 44 3.3.1.15 RCVs expressing a specified state or condition that

the subject enters or reaches

3.6.1 Similarities and Differences in Syntactic Features

Between English RCVs and Vietnamese ones

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3.6.2 Similarities and Differences in Semantic Features

Between English RCVs and Vietnamese ones

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Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE

The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and express actions, events, or states of being The verb or compound verb is the critical element

of the predicate of a sentence.Being aware of its importance will help Vietnamese learners overcome difficulties when learning and using English verbs

World languages, especially English and Vietnamese, are different, so transferring an idea from English into Vietnamese and vice versa in some cases is

not a simple job For example, in Vietnamese, we say ―Anh ta trở nên giàu có‖ or

―Anh ta trở nên mù lòa‖ In both cases, the verbs are the same regardless of the

adjectives following them “giàu có” and “mù lòa” However, in English, we say

―He has got rich.‖ but ―He went blind‖ The verbs in the two sentences are

different

The verbs highlighted above are used to express the result of the process of change so they are called Resulting Copular Verbs (RCVs) Despite this general similarity, these RCVs differ greatly in their specific meanings, collocational preferences, and register distributions In other words, they are different in syntactic and semantic features, therefore, they cause difficulties to Vietnamese learners of

English and translation work For example: You getyoungereveryday

In that sentence, we can use ―become” instead of “get” to express the process of change but “get” is less formal than “become”

What is more, in the practice of teaching English as a foreign language, we have found out that Vietnamese learners often have difficulties when dealing with RCVs For instance, a number of Vietnamese learners of English may make

sentences like “Mary became angrily.” while the right sentence must be “Mary became angry.” or they have encountered more challenges when they translate the

following sentences into Vietnamese:

(*) It went a strange colour (Nó hóa thành một màu kỳ lạ.)

(**) Her finger went blue with cold

(Ngón tay cô ta tê cóng vì lạnh

“go” in example (*) means “become” not “move or travel” as its common meaning However, the Vietnamese translational equivalents of “go” can be

omitted as in example(**)

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Here and there, there are many studies on verbs with certain linguistic units However, there are not many studies of Resulting Copular Verbs Thus, the topic ― Syntactic and semantic features of Resulting Copular Verbs in English and their Vietnamese equivalents in a literature work‖ is chosen for my study Hopeful, the result of the study will be useful for learners of English and Vietnamese and contribute a small part into the teaching and learning English and Vietnamese as a foreign language in Vietnam

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

AIMS:To help learners of English master Resulting Copular Verbs in

English and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic

1.4 THE SCOPES OF THE STUDY

- To differentiate English Resulting Copular Verbs and their Vietnamese

equivalents according to their experiential meanings concentrating on the most common structures and patterns of Resulting Copular Verbs

- To make contrastive analysis of English Resulting Copular Verbs and their

complementation and the Vietnamese equivalents

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- To evaluate the English - Vietnamese translation in some bilingual books available and teaching English at upper-secondary school

1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

The study consists of four chapters namely: Introduction, Literature review, Finding discussion, and Conclusion, of which major contents are as follows:

Chapter 1 presents the rationale for the research, the aims, the objectives,

thescope of the research, the significances of research as well as the structural organization of the thesis

Chapter 2 discusses some previous studies on different kinds of verb in

Englishand Vietnamese and the theoretical background about ditransitive verb group

Chapter 3 presents the syntactic and semantic features of Resulting Copular

Verbsin English and Vietnamese and finds out the similarities and differences between them

Chapter 4 makes conclusions on each of the research objectives,

implications,limitations and suggestions for further research References come at the end of the study

Downing and Locke express the processes of being and becoming, in which the resulting attribute isdiscussed

Quirk and Greenbaum and assume that copular verbs or linking verbs, are followed by subject complement or a predication adjunct They also state the two main classes of CVs in their works

Nguyen Kim Than presents copular verbs in his work He also stated that CVs are often followed by subject complement

Diep Quang Ban and, Hoang Van Thung, and Le Bien have considered

copular verbs and named them Dependent Verbs They belong to the sub-group

of relational verbs

Ton Nu Xuan Phuong concentrates on the real situation on teaching and learning copular verbs and copulative structures in ESP (English for Specific Purposes) classes

Tran Thi Yen Hoa concentrates on how first-year students at College of Foreign Languages, Danang University understood the concept of copular verb and how it was used

In fact, there have been a lot of studies related to CVs so far However, the syntactic and semantic features of CVs, especially the RCVs, as well as a comparison between English RCVs and Vietnamese ones have not been dealt with

yet For this reason, thestudy entitled “Syntactic and semantic features of

Resulting Copular Verbs in English and their Vietnamese equivalents in a

literature work” is intended to investigate the syntactic and semantic features of

RCVs in English and in Vietnamese, contributing useful knowledge to the teaching, learning English and to the translation work

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1Theory of syntax

In linguistics, syntax (/ˈsɪntæks/) is the set of rules, principles, and processes that

govern the structure of sentences (sentence structure) in a given language, usually

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including word order The term syntax is also used to refer to the study of such

principles and processes

There are a number of theoretical approaches to the discipline of syntax One school

of thought, founded in the works of Derek Bickerton, sees syntax as a branch of biology, since it conceives of syntax as the study of linguistic knowledge as embodied in the human mind Other linguists (e.g., Gerald Gazdar) take a more Platonistic view, since they regard syntax to be the study of an abstract formal system Yet others (e.g., Joseph Greenberg) consider syntax a taxonomical device to reach broad generalizations across languages

Dependency grammar

Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all

based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the constituency relation of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière Dependency is the notion that linguistic units, e.g words, are connected to each other by directed links The (finite) verb is taken to be the structural center of clause structure All other syntactic units (words) are either directly or indirectly connected

to the verb in terms of the directed links, which are called dependencies DGs are distinct from phrase structure grammars, since DGs lack phrasal nodes, although they acknowledge phrases A dependency structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents Dependency structures are flatter than phrase structures in part because they lack a finite verb phrase constituent, and they are thus well suited for the analysis of languages with free word order, such

as Czech or Warlpiri

Dependency grammar is an approach to sentence structure where syntactic units

are arranged according to the dependency relation, as opposed to the constituency relation of phrase structure grammars Dependencies are directed links between words The (finite) verb is seen as the root of all clause structure and all the other words in the clause are either directly or indirectly dependent on this root Some prominent dependency-based theories of syntax are:

• Recursive categorical syntax, or Algebraic syntax

• Functional generative description

• Meaning–text theory

• Operator grammar

• Word grammar

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Lucien Tesnière (1893–1954) is widely seen as the father of modern based theories of syntax and grammar He argued vehemently against the binary division of the clause into subject and predicate that is associated with the grammars

dependency-of his day (S → NP VP) and which remains at the core dependency-of most phrase structure grammars In the place of this division, he positioned the verb as the root of all clause structure

Categorial grammar

Categorial grammar is a term used for a family of formalisms in natural

language syntax motivated by the principle of compositionality and organized according to the view that syntactic constituents should generally combine

as functions or according to a function-argument relationship Most versions of categorial grammar analyze sentence structure in terms of constituencies (as opposed to dependencies) and are therefore phrase structure grammars (as opposed

to dependency grammars)

Categorial grammar is an approach that attributes the syntactic structure not to

rules of grammar, but to the properties of the syntactic categories themselves For example, rather than asserting that sentences are constructed by a rule that combines

a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP) (e.g., the phrase structure rule S → NP VP), in categorial grammar, such principles are embedded in the category of the head word itself So the syntactic category for an intransitive verb is a complex formula representing the fact that the verb acts as a function word requiring an NP

as an input and produces a sentence level structure as an output This complex category is notated as (NP\S) instead of V NP\S is read as "a category that searches

to the left (indicated by \) for an NP (the element on the left) and outputs a sentence (the element on the right)." The category of transitive verb is defined as an element that requires two NPs (its subject and its direct object) to form a sentence This is notated as (NP/(NP\S)) which means "a category that searches to the right (indicated by /) for an NP (the object), and generates a function (equivalent to the VP) which is (NP\S), which in turn represents a function that searches to the left for

an NP and produces a sentence."

Functional grammars

Functionalist models of grammar study the form–function interaction by performing

a structural and a functional analysis

 Functional discourse grammar (Dik)

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 Prague linguistic circle

 Role and reference grammar (RRG)

 Systemic functional grammar

Generative grammar

The hypothesis of generative grammar is that language is a biological structure The difference between structural–functional and generative models is that, in generative grammar, the object is placed into the verb phrase Generative grammar

is meant to be used to describe all human language and to predict whether any given utterance in a hypothetical language would sound correct to a speaker of that language (versus constructions which no human language would use) This approach to language was pioneered by Noam Chomsky Most generative theories (although not all of them) assume that syntax is based upon the constituent structure

of sentences Generative grammars are among the theories that focus primarily on the form of a sentence, rather than its communicative function

Among the many generative theories of linguistics, the Chomskyan theories are:

 Transformational grammar (TG) (Original theory of generative syntax laid out by Chomsky in Syntactic Structures in 1957)

 Government and binding theory (GB) (revised theory in the tradition of TG developed mainly by Chomsky in the 1970s and 1980s)

 Minimalist program (MP) (a reworking of the theory out of the GB framework published by Chomsky in 1995)

Other theories that find their origin in the generative paradigm are:

 Arc pair grammar

 Generalized phrase structure grammar (GPSG; now largely out of date)

 Generative semantics (superseded by semantic syntax)

 Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG)

 Lexical functional grammar (LFG)

 Nanosyntax

 Relational grammar (RG) (now largely out of date)

 Harmonic grammar (HG) (similar to the optimality theory of syntax)

Cognitive and usage-based grammars

The Cognitive Linguistics framework stems from generative grammar, but adheres

to evolutionary rather than Chomskyan linguistics Cognitive models often

Theory of semantics or a semantic theory — is a theory which assigns

semantic contents to expressions of a language

The task of explaining the main approaches to semantic theory in contemporary philosophy of language might seem to face an in-principle stumbling block Given that no two languages have the same semantics—no two languages are comprised of just the same words, with just the same meanings—it may seem hard

to see how we can say anything about different views about semantics in general, as opposed to views about the semantics of this or that language This problem has a relatively straightforward solution While it is of course correct that the semantics for English is one thing and the semantics for French something else, most assume that the various natural languages should all have semantic theories of (in a sense to

be explained) the same form The aim of what follows will, accordingly, be to introduce the reader to the main approaches to natural language semantics—the main views about the right form for a semantics for a natural language to take—rather than to provide a detailed examination of the various views about the semantics of some particular expression (For an overview, see the entry on word meaning For discussion of issues involving particular expression types, see the entries on names, quantifiers and quantification, descriptions, propositional attitude reports, and natural kinds.)

One caveat before we get started: before a semantic theorist sets off to explain the meanings of the expressions of some language, she needs a clear idea of what she is

supposed to explain the meaning of This might not seem to present much of a

problem; aren‘t the bearers of meaning just the sentences of the relevant language, and their parts? This is correct as far as it goes But the task of explaining what the semantically significant parts of a sentence are, and how those parts combine to form the sentence, is as complex as semantics itself, and has important consequences for semantic theory Indeed, most disputes about the right semantic treatment of some class of expressions are intertwined with questions about the

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syntactic form of sentences in which those expressions figure Unfortunately, discussion of theories of this sort, which attempt to explain the syntax, or logical form, of natural language sentences, is well beyond the scope of this entry As a result, figures like Richard Montague, whose work on syntax and its connection to semantics has been central to the development of semantic theory over the past few decades, are passed over in what follows (Montague‘s essays are collected in Montague 1974.) For an excellent introduction to the connections between syntax and semantics, see Heim & Kratzer (1998); for an overview of the relations between philosophy of language and several branches of linguistics, see Moss (2012)

Formal semantics

Formal semantics seeks to identify domain-specific mental operations which speakers perform when they compute a sentence's meaning on the basis of its syntactic structure Theories of formal semantics are typically floated on top of theories of syntax such as generative syntax or Combinatory categorial grammar and provide a model theory based on mathematical tools such as typed lambda calculi The field's central ideas are rooted in early twentieth century philosophical logic as well as later ideas about linguistic syntax It emerged

as its own subfield in the 1970s after the pioneering work of Richard Montague and Barbara Partee and continues to be an active area of research

Conceptual semantics

This theory is an effort to explain properties of argument structure The assumption behind this theory is that syntactic properties of phrases reflect the meanings of the words that head them With this theory, linguists can better deal with the fact that subtle differences in word meaning correlate with other differences in the syntactic structure that the word appears in The way this is gone about is by looking at the internal structure of words These small parts that make up the internal structure of

words are termed semantic primitives.

Cognitive semantics

Cognitive semantics approaches meaning from the perspective of cognitive linguistics In this framework, language is explained via general human cognitive abilities rather than a domain-specific language module The techniques native to cognitive semantics are typically used in lexical studies such as those put forth

by Leonard Talmy, George Lakoff, Dirk Geeraerts, and Bruce Wayne Hawkins Some cognitive semantic frameworks, such as that developed by Talmy, take into

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account syntactic structures as well Semantics, through modern researchers can be linked to the Wernicke's area of the brain and can be measured using the event-related potential (ERP) ERP is the rapid electrical response recorded with small disc electrodes which are placed on a person's scalp

Lexical semantics

A linguistic theory that investigates word meaning This theory understands that the meaning of a word is fully reflected by its context Here, the meaning of a word is constituted by its contextual relations Therefore, a distinction between degrees of participation as well as modes of participation are made.[6] In order to accomplish this distinction any part of a sentence that bears a meaning and combines with the meanings of other constituents is labeled as a semantic constituent Semantic constituents that cannot be broken down into more elementary constituents are labeled minimal semantic constituents

Cross-cultural semantics

Various fields or disciplines have long been contributing to cross-cultural

semantics Are words like love, truth, and hate universals?[7] Is even the

word sense – so central to semantics – a universal, or a concept entrenched in a

long-standing but culture-specific tradition?[8] These are the kind of crucial questions that are discussed in cross-cultural semantics Translation theory, ethnolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and cultural linguistics specialize in the field of comparing, contrasting, and translating words, terms and meanings from one language to another (see Herder, W von Humboldt, Boas, Sapir, and Whorf) But philosophy, sociology, and anthropology have long established traditions in contrasting the different nuances of the terms and concepts we use And online encyclopaedias such as the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu, and more and more Wikipedia itself have greatly facilitated the possibilities of comparing the background and usages of key cultural terms In recent years the question of whether key terms are translatable or untranslatable has increasingly come to the fore of global discussions, especially

since the publication of Barbara Cassin's Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, in 2014

Computational semantics

Computational semantics is focused on the processing of linguistic meaning In order to do this concrete algorithms and architectures are described Within this

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framework the algorithms and architectures are also analyzed in terms of decidability, time/space complexity, data structures that they require and communication protocols

2.2.3 Overview of English verbs

2.2.3.1 Verbs Definition

A verb is a word that expresses an action ( to run), occurrence ( to happen), or state

of being ( to appear) It is one of the nine parts of speech in English grammar action verbs are also referred to as linking or stative verbs, such as to be, to seem, to sound Verbs comprise the third largest group of words in English (about 10%) and

Non-appear in any sentence as a major mandatory element tying the subject and predicate together Verbs indicate time (past, present, future) and are used in English in relatively many verb tenses The verb can be thought of as the center, heart, or anchor of an English sentence

Verbs of Examples

action Maria dances at the studio and performs every Sunday

occurrence occurrence Maria became a professional dancer

state of being Maria's studio has stood there ever since she was a child

Tests for verbs: A good way to identify a verb when a word is in doubt is to

ask, Can I do it? I can succeed (do it) is correct but I can success is incorrect This

means succeed is a verb and the related part of speech success is not a verb; in this case, success is a noun

Another test for verbs is to use the word in question in a different verb tense If the sentence still makes sense, the word is a verb

Original: That‘s the updated version of the software

Test: That‘s the will update version of the software

[the word updated here is not a verb because using it in the future simple tense in

the second sentence does not result in a logical sentence; It is an adjective

describing the noun version]

Verbs can also be recognized by some common verb suffixes and prefixes

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differentiate -fy or -ify to transform into to signify, to clarify

- ize (British -ise) to make like to realize, to criticize

be- forms transitive verbs that mean

"cause"

to befriend, to beseech

en- to bring into the condition of to encode, to engender

Verbs in English indicate the following grammatical categories:

2nd person 3rd person

I go You go She goes

plural

He has written They have written

past future

I study every day

I am studying today

I have studied for years

I have been studying for hours

imperative subjunctive

I am always on time

Be there on time !

If I were on time, I would…

As there are relatively many English verb tenses, verbs in English come in many forms that provide different shades of meaning However, English verbs comprise a

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much easier verb system than that of other languages that have distinct inflectional verb endings for different persons and number, or even change the verb stem with various tenses and aspects In English only one verb ending remained, for verbs in the third person singular in the Present Simple tense

Dan cooks dinner for us 3 times a week

[3rd person, singular, present, simple, indicative, active,

meaning: habit in the present]

Yesterday we were cooking for hours on end

[1st person, plural, past, progressive, indicative, active,

meaning: action in the past that continued over an extended period of time]

She would have cooked if you had asked her to

(but in reality you didn‘t ask so she didn‘t cook)

[ would have cooked: 3rd person, singular, past, conditional, active,

meaning: hypothetic outcome in the past, contrary to fact]

[ had asked: 2nd person, singular, past, perfect, subjunctive, active,

meaning: hypothetic assumption in the past, contrary to fact]

I suggest that dinner be cooked no later than 20:00

[3rd person, singular, present, subjunctive, passive,

meaning: strong recommendation which will not necessarily be fulfilled]

English verbs have 5 principal parts with which other forms are derived

using verb auxiliaries: base/stem, simple past/preterit, past participle, present

participle and the infinitive (the ―name‖ of the verb) Some also include the third person singular in the present tense as a principle part, as it is the only verb form that kept its inflectional ending in Modern English

Present Simple third person singular V1+s watches Sees

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Similarity, in Vietnamese, Diep Quang Ban stated that verbs are lexical words, which have process meaning (including active meaning, dynamic state) and stative state, understood as direct characteristics of things and nature That can

combine with preceding words hãy, đừng, chớ and with following words rồi, xong

and normally play role as direct predicates in sentences

- Intransitive

According to Greenbaum and Quirk, there are three main verb classes which are intransitive, transitive and copular verbs Meanwhile, in Vietnamese, Diep Quang Ban and Le Bien tend to sort Vietnamese verbs into two main categories: Independent and Dependent

In short, CVs in English are one of the three main types of verbs, apart from intransitive and transitive verbs There is such kind of CVs in Vietnamese grammar, though in Vietnamese, CVs are among dependent verbs

2.2.4 Copular Verbs

2.2.4.1 Definition

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A copular verb is a special kind of verb used to join an adjective or noun

complement to a subject Common examples are: be (is, am, are, was, were),

appear, seem, look, sound, smell, taste, feel, become and get

A copular verb expresses either that the subject and its complement denote the same thing or that the subject has the property denoted by its complement

For example in the sentence ‗Peter is my boyfriend‘ the copular verb is asserts that

Peter and my boyfriend are the same person whereas in the sentence ‗Peter is

British‘ the copular verb is assigns the quality of Britishness to Peter

More examples are given below:

- Honey is sweet (Here the copular verb is assigns the quality of sweetness to

honey.)

- The stew smells good

- The milk turned sour

- The night grew dark

- She became a writer

After copular verbs we use adjectives, not adverbs

Compare:

- She spoke intelligently (Here the adverb intelligently modifies the ordinary verb

spoke.)

- She appears intelligent (NOT She appears intelligently Appears is a copular

verb It should be followed by an adjective, not an adverb.)

The copular verbs like become, get, grow, go, turn, stay, remain, keep etc., are used

to talk about change or the absence of change

- I am becoming older

- I am getting older

- I am growing older

- The leaves are going yellow

- The leaves are turning yellow

According to Quirk and Greenbaum and Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and

Svarivik, the term “copular” or “copular verb” or “linking verb” or “intensive

verbs” is used to refer to “a verb when it is followed by a subject complement or a

predication adjunct and when this element cannot be dropped without changing the meaning of the verb”

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Copular verb is also defined by Biber, Conrad, and Leech, that is, “a verb

that is used to associate an attribute with the subject of the clause The attribute is usually expressed by the subject predicative following the verb”

The definition of the copular verb according to Leech (2006, 29) is as

follows: ―A main verb which, like the verb be, links or „couples‟ a subject to a subject complement.‖ (2006, 29) Be is the most common copula and its meaning is

neutral; the other copular verbs are ―equivalent in function to the principal copula,

the verb be‖ (Quirk et al 1985, 1171) and have an extra meaning in addition

The copular verbs are also called copulative or linking verbs according to Leech

(2006, 29)

Prototypical copular usage

Horton (1995, 319) points out that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the copular and non-copular construction, because the borders between them are not sharp; it is more likely a question of degree It would be a good idea

to describe a prototypical copular verb and its most typical usage

All the linguistic literature cited in this work mentions the verb be as the principal copula in English, although be has a few non-copular usages as a main verb, meaning to exist, as in phrase ―God is.‖ It can also be used as an auxiliary verb and in ―equative‖ constructions (Joe is my teacher), which differs from

copular usage in two ways: first, both noun phrases (NP) are referential in

―equative‖ constructions, while in case of copular verb the subject is non-

referential, and secondly the two NPs can be reversed (My teacher is Joe) with

almost no difference in meaning On the other hand, the copular clauses cannot be reversed at all, as illustrated by the example (Horton 1995, 320-321):

(1) Joe is a teacher

(2) *A teacher is Joe

Now the syntactic and semantic characteristics of copulas will be examined According to Horton (1995, 320), ―a copula is a verb followed by a special

grammatical category, one usually called a predicate (which is said to function as a

subject complement) Predicates are most characteristically made up of a predicate

adjective (Joe is tall) or a predicate noun (Joe is a liar).‖ However, as Horton argues, other elements are possible, such as a predicate prepositional phrase (Joe‟s

in trouble) Also the complementation by an infinitival phrase is possible (Joe seems to be in trouble)

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As for semantic properties, the copular verb is said to be ―semantically empty‖ (Horton 1995, 320) without its own specific meaning According to Quirk

et al (1985, 1174) the verb be is the most neutral in meaning I propose two

examples to illustrate this claim:

(3) John is alive

(4) John is dead

In both examples, the verb is the same, yet the meaning of both phrases is the exact opposite However, some of the copulas have meanings of their own and

so they can be followed only by a limited number of complements For example

the verb blush is followed normally by the phrases denoting a red or similar colour; the verb burst by adjectives open and close

Copular verb complementation

The principal characteristic of all the copular verbs is that they require a complement The complement ―cannot be dropped without changing the meaning

of the verb.‖ (Quirk et al, 1985, 1771) These complements can be of a different nature They can be formed by an adjective phrase, by a noun phrase or by an adjunct

The adjective phrase (AP) is the most common type of the copular complementation The majority of the copular verbs can take an AP as their

complement An AP can consist simply of one single adjective (be proud)

However, the adjective in an AP can be pre-modified by an adverb or post-

modified by other elements (be very proud of himself) The complete AP has in its

premodifying field an adverb (grading or intensifying), or a measure phrase In its postmodifying field it can have a prepositional phrase, a that-clause or a verb in the infinitive (Veselovská et al 2005, 97)

The other type of the copular complement is a noun phrase Although this sort of complementation is not as frequent as the preceding one, it occurs with the

most frequent copular verbs be (for the current copulas) and become (for the

resulting copulas) As well as the AP, the NP can consist of one single noun, or the noun can be premodified and postmodified by other elements The structure of an

NP can be much more complicated than the structure of an AP The complex nominal phrase, according to Veselovská et al (2005, 76) is composed of a quantifier, a determinant/possessive and another quantifier in its determination field In its modification field it can take several adjectives (central and peripheral),

complementation will not be discussed in this work; however, it is said to be

similar as with the verb be (Dušková et al 1994, 416)

Then there is complementation by an adjunct (Quirk et al 1985, 1174):

―The principal copula that allows an adverbial as complementation is once again

be The complementing adverbials, termed predication adjuncts in this function,

are mainly space adjuncts.‖ Also the time adjunct and others can occur with some copulas Also some resulting copulas can take complementation by an adjunct Syntactically these adjuncts are often prepositional phrases:

(5) The children are at zoo (Quirk et al 1985, 1174)

(6) He turned into a monster (Quirk et al 1985, 1175)

(7) She grew into a fine woman (Quirk et al 1985, 1175)

Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 263) point out that the copular verb can take

infinitival complements (she looked to be happy) There is a difference between

the complementation with an infinitive and the complementation with an adjective

(she looked happy): as suggested by Huddleston and Pullum, the signs of

happiness are more visible in the second example, complemented by an adjective, than in the first one with the infinitive

In Vietnamese, Nguyen Kim Than called CVs under the name Động từ hệ

từ According to him, these verbs often require a subject complement following

the verb and they are used to denote the changing of a thing

Diep Quang Ban, Hoang Van Thung, and Le Bien have considered CVs and

named them Dependent Verbs They belong to the sub-group of relational verbs denoting the changing

In this research, the definition by Biber, Conrad, and Leech in English and the one by Diep Quang Ban, Hoang Van Thung and Le Bien in Vietnamese are chosen to mention a CV whenever the term is used

2.2.4.2 Classification

In the classification of Quirk and Greenbaum, there are two main classes

of CVs:

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Current copulas include appear, be, feel, look, seem, smell, sound, taste,

remain, keep, stay

―Copular verbs fall into two main clauses, according to whether the subject

complement has the role of current attribute or of a resulting attribute This

distinction corresponds to that between current copulas and resulting copulas.‖ (Quirk et al 1985, 1171-1172)

The current copulas are normally stative and cannot cooccur with the progressive

aspect (Quirk et al 1985, 172) Dušková et al consider them all basically as the

synonyms of the verb be (1994, 413) This group include verbs of sensory perception such as look, feel, taste, smell, sound, then some other verbs such as seem, appear, prove, turn out, which express the degree of certitude of the speaker

The last group of current copulas are the verbs expressing remaining in some state:

remain, stay, keep, go, continue, stand and rest (Dušková et al 1994, 415)

(i) Current copular verbs have two subclasses The 1st subclass identifies

attributes that are in a continuing state of existence This includes: be, seem, appear, keep, remain, stay The other one reports sensory perceptions, including look, feel, sound, smell, taste

(ii) Result copular verbs identify an attribute that is the result of a

process of change This includes become, get, go, grow, prove, come, turn, turn out, end up, wind up

Resulting copulas consist of become, come, get, go, grow, prove, turn, turn

out, wind up, end up

They fall into these two main classes, according to whether the subject complement has the role of current attribute, or of resulting attribute Normally, current copulas are stative verbs and cannot co- occur with progressive aspect Biber, Conrad and Leech have another type of classification, there are many verbs that can function as copular verbs They fall into two main categories:

In Vietnamese, Le Bien classifies CVs into three kinds:

- verbs denoting identity (là, làm),

- verbs denoting process of changing (trở nên, hóa, thành, …),

- verbs denoting comparison (như, giống, khác, tựa, …)

Diep Quang Ban and Hoang Van Thung have another type of classification, there are many verbs that can function as copular verbs They fall into seven sub-groups:

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- verbs denoting identity: là, làm,

- verbs denoting esixtence: còn, mất, biến, …

- verbs denoting possesion: có

- verbs denoting the changing: hóa, thành, hóa ra, …

- verbs denoting process of time: bắt đầu, tiếp tục, …

- verbs denoting process of space: gần, xa, gần gũi, …

- verbs denoting comparison: giống, khác, hơn, kém

From the presentation above, it is obvious that there have been a lot of different ways of classifying CVs However, this study bases on the classification of Biber, Conrad and Leech and Biep Quang Ban, Hoang Van Thung to investigate the linguistic features of RCVs in English and in Vietnamese

2.2.4.3 Chief Patterns of Copular Verbs

There are seven main patterns of CVs which most of the CVs follow They are summarized in the table 2.2

Table 2.2: Chief Patterns of Copular Verbs

S + CV + ADJ.P

It makes your teeth and your bones grow strong

and healthy

S + CV + NP Yes, it can become an obsession

S + CV + ADV.P I was in the kitchen

S + CV + BE + C He appears to be the only solution

S + CV + LIKE + NP It feels like autumn

S + CV + AS

+ IF/THOUGH + Cl

Jill looked as if she had been a ghost

It sounds as though you‘re getting the best

treatment money can buy

S + CV + to infinitive After a few weeks I got to like the job better

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2.2.4.4 Rules of Realization

Resulting Copular Verbs

Resulting Copular Verbs in English

Resulting Copulas

Resulting copulas are the verbs that take resultative predicative

complements ―They all are the verbs of becoming.‖ (Huddleston and Pullum

2002, 264)

They can be simply seen as the synonyms of become, nevertheless there are

some differences between them This is the point where all the grammars, cited in this thesis, are in accord However, there is not an absolute consensus on which verbs are the resulting copulas Each of the three main sources of this work present its own list of the resulting copulas, however, these lists are not absolutely identical

Lists of resulting copulas

The verbs regularly used as copulas according Quirk et al (1985, 1172) are:

become, come, end up, get, go, grow, prove, turn, turn out and wind up

Then other verbs, ―with severe restrictions on the words occurring in the complement,‖ (Quirk et al 1985, 1172) are added, together with their typical

complements: blush (bright red), fall (silent), fall down (dead), freeze (solid), run (wild), slam (shut), spring (open) and one archaic verb, wax (eloquent)

Huddleston and Pullum‟s list of the main resulting copulas is considerably

shorter; there are no additional verbs However, prove, which is considered to be

resulting by Quirk et al., is classed as ―complex-intransitive with depictive PCs‖, which is an equivalent to the term ―current copulas,‖ used by Quirk et al (2004) The most frequent resulting copulas according to Huddleston and Pullum are as

follows (2002, 264): become, come, fall, get, go, grow, turn

The other copular verbs, ―found only with one or two items,‖ (Huddleston

and Pullum 2002, 264) are: blush (scarlet), break (loose), burst (open), drop (dead), freeze (solid), run (hot/ cold)), slide (open), spring (open), walk (free), wax (eloquent), wear (thin) and work (loose)

Only four of the verbs are the same as proposed by Quirk et al.: blush, freeze, run and wax

Dušková et al (1994, 416) propose also a list of resulting copular verbs They are basically the same as proposed by Huddleston and Pullum, but one is

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added: make The list proposed by Dušková et al is following: become, turn, grow, get, go, come, fall, make

Like in the grammar books cited above, there are other verbs with a

restricted usage: blow (open), fly (open/ into a rage), run (dry/ short), wear (thin), break (loose/ into a run)

The Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 7 th edition makes a short list of some of the resulting copulas as well They are classified as synonyms of become

and a few notes on them are added, as well as some of their most frequent

complements The verbs are as follows: become, get, go and turn

In addition to all of these verbs, also the main copula, be, can be used in a

resulting meaning in some special cases

Now I will present some notes on the specific resulting copulas according to linguistic literature Quirk et al (1985, 1174) states that ―the resulting verbs are in

the main verbs of becoming” but their meanings differ in detail.‖ Similarities

and the differences between individual resulting copular verbs, mentioned in linguistic literature, will be summarised in this part Then, in the practical part, these statements will be tested on corpus data

Become and get

The verb become is compared to and placed in opposition with get According to Quirk et al (1985, 1174) ―become is a process verb, placing emphasis on the duration of the change, whereas get places more emphasis on the agency behind the event or on the result of the change: Get ready! but not

*Become ready!‖

Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 264) go even into more detail with their

comparison of the two verbs: ―Get differs from become in three respects: it belongs

to relatively informal style; it is for most speakers restricted to adjectival PCs; and

it more readily accommodates an agentive subject, as in The dog tried to get free

In particular we find get rather than become with ready: Get ready.‖ They also indicate that get is restricted to adjectival and infinitival complements

Dušková et al (1994, 416) are not much interested in the particularities of

the verb become; they merely suggest that not only an adjective, but also a noun

can be used with this verb

According to OALD (2005) ―become is more formal than get Both describe

changes in people‟s emotional or psychical state, or natural or social changes.‖

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Thus we can expect that become takes as its complements adjectives and

nouns (or more precisely APs and NPs), that these complements belong to a formal

style and that the emphasis is placed on duration On the other hand, get is

expected to occur with adjectival complements of a rather informal style, with an emphasis on the agency and result of the action of a change

leaves]; turn fine/cold [of weather]; turn ripe <BrE>‖ (Quirk et al 1985, 1174)

Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 264) indicate that the verbs go and turn are

mostly completed by an adjective and they make a list of the most frequent ones

Go is often followed by bad, mad, wrong and colour adjectives Turn is usually complemented by bad, nasty, sour and colour adjectives

However, they add: ―Although we have marked go and turn as taking adjectival complements, they can also take an NP denoting a colour: It went/turned

a strange colour‖ (2002, 264)

Dušková et al make only one remark on the verb go: ―Go patří jednak k skupině remain, např the remark went unnoticed poznámka prošla bez povšimnutí, jednak k become, např I shall go mad já se z toho zblázním‖ (Dušková et al 1994, 416) OALD (2005) states that: ―Go is usually used for negative changes Go and turn are both used for changes of colour Turn is also used for changes in the

weather.‖

According to the literature, both go and turn is expected to occur with

adjectives (or nouns) denoting colours and often with negative adjectives

Moreover, the combinations of turn with adjectives can denote a natural change, often a change of weather It is also important to verify if the complements of go

are really resulting, as they might be as well current

Grow, come and fall Then there is grow Accordingly to Quirk et al (1985, 1174) ―grow is also

associated with natural changes, especially with gradual changes (grow old, grow tall) and is likely to occur with comparative adjectives as in grow cooler, grow more content.‖

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Huddleston and Pullum do not make any commentary on the verb grow, however, they provide a few examples of its complements (2002, 264): long, old, tall, adjectives denoting psychological states (bored, impatient, tired), and comparative APs (You grow more beautiful each day)

No information on the verb grow is provided by Dušková et al., the verb is

only classed as a resulting copula

The verb grow is thus anticipated to occur considerably often with a comparative form of the adjective The combinations of grow with adjectives are

expected to denote mainly the natural and gradual changes, or the states of mind

The verb come is more deeply discussed by Dušková et al (1994, 416) It is

stated there that this verb occurs mostly with a past participle with a prefix un: the seam came unstitched, the knot came untied Then it occurs in some idioms: our dream has come true, the handle has come loose According to Dušková et al come to be implicates a longer duration and a sort of randomness Furthermore, it

can be complemented with a noun in a

prepositional phrase: to come to a halt, to come to an end, where the verb come can

be replaced by a respective verb: to halt, to end

Quirk et al (1985, 1174) make a remark about the restrictions on

complements of come: ―Come is a very restricted verb, but it makes an interesting contrast with go in examples like go wrong/come right The association of go with deterioration (go rotten, etc) is complemented by the association of come with improvement in come true, etc These associations may be connected with the

positive and negative direction (from the speaker‟s viewpoint) of come and go as verbs of motion.‖

As well as in case of the verb grow, Huddleston and Pullum restrict come to

only adjectival complementation and then they propose only a set of most typical

complements of come (2002, 264): loose, open, right, true and the ordinal adjectives (I came third)

There is my résumé of the complements of the verb come: Its complements

are expected to have a rather positive meaning Also the verb will be followed by

some past participles with prefix un-, the verb to be and ordinal adjectives Among the most frequent complements there will be loose and true, which are said to be

fixed phrases or idioms

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Fall can take an adjective and also a noun for its complements According

to Huddleston and Pullum (2002, 264), among the most typical complements there

are: asleep, ill, pregnant, prey (to NP), sick, silent and victim

In their work, Downing and Locke mentioned RCVs in English under the

name “verbs of becoming” They are dynamic and introduce resulting complements

According to Biber, Conrad and Leech, result copular verbs identify an attribute that is the result of a process of change For example:

(9) My heart grew sick and I couldn‘t eat

Resulting Copular Verbs in Vietnamese

In Le Bien‘s view, result copular verbs are all used to denote the changing of a thing For instance:

(10) Cô ấy trở thành giáo viên ngoại ngữ

Result copular verbs are also defined by Diep Quang Ban, that are, verbs are used

to refer to the same thing having a quality to be changed

(11) Cá chép hóa rồng (Truyện dân gian)

- verbs denoting identity (là, làm),

- verbs denoting process of changing (trở nên, hóa, thành, …),

- verbs denoting comparison (như, giống, khác, tựa, …)

Diep Quang Ban and Hoang Van Thung have another type of classification, there are many verbs that can function as copular verbs They fall into seven sub-groups:

- verbs denoting identity: là, làm,

- verbs denoting esixtence: còn, mất, biến, …

- verbs denoting possesion: có

- verbs denoting the changing: hóa, thành, hóa ra, …

- verbs denoting process of time: bắt đầu, tiếp tục, …

- verbs denoting process of space: gần, xa, gần gũi, …

- verbs denoting comparison: giống, khác, hơn, kém

2.4 SUMMARY

This chapter has just investigated the definition of resulting copuar verbs in English This study basically bases on by Biber, Conrad, and Leech‘s points of view

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And, the concept of resulting copular verbs in Vietnamese This study

basically bases on Diep Quang Ban‘s points of view

All the investigations are the sources for the following chapters in this study

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Chapter 3: WHAT ARE THE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETQEEN RESULTING COPULAR VERBS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS IN A LITERATURE WORK?

3.1 OVERVIEW

This chaper is designed as a core of study, aiming at three targets First, the

syntactic features in England and Vietnamese are described Then, an overview of the sample and population of RCVs in English and Vietnamese literary works is presented to comment on the frequency of occurrenceof these RCVs Finally, a comparison between the English RCVs and the Vietnamese ones is made to find out similarities and differences of RCVs in these two languages

3.2 SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF RESULTING COPULAR VERBS

In this section of the study, the syntactic features of seven English result copular verbs and six Vietnamese ones will be dealt with We begin with synactic features

of seven RCVs in English

3.2.1 Syntactic Features of RCVs in English

According to Yule, syntax is the study of relationships between linguistic forms, how they are arranged in sequences, and which in sequences are well-formed This type of study generally takes place without considering any world of reference or any user of the forms Finch defined ''Syntax is a term used for the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences" In other words, syntax described the way words are put together to make larger units such as phrases, clauses or sentences It also illustrates the order of subjects, the positions of modal auxiliaries, verbs, complements, objects and the relationship of modifiers to the words they modify Therefore, studying the syntactic features is a necessary part in the course of studying verbs in general and RCVs in particular to know how they work in sectences

3.2.1.1 General Syntactic Features of RCVs in English

According to Biber, Conrad, and Leech, most RCVs occur with an abjective phrase

as the subject predicative

The above comment is proved by the following examples in which we have

highlighted RVCs and italicized complements:

(3.1) "You're drinking far too much, Bernard It's becoming impossible to have a

conversation with you; you turn them all into diatribles.''