A comparative study of english and vietnamese modal verbs based on the novel gone with the wind and its vietnamese translated version

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled a comparative study of English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalent

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE MODAL VERBS BASED ON THE NOVEL “GONE WITH THE WIND” AND ITS VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION

(So sánh động từ tình thái tiếng Anh với những tương đương trong tiếng Việt dựa trên tiểu thuyết “Cuốn theo chiều gió” và bản dịch sang tiếng Việt)

DAO THI HONG Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assos Prof Dr Nguyen Dang Suu

Hanoi, 2020

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled a comparative study of English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents based on the novel “gone with the wind” and its Vietnamese translated version 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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from several people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc Prof PhD Nguyen Dang Suu my supervisor, 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 My thanks also go to the faculty of English at Hanoi Open University for their enthusiasm and encouragement in this study Finally, I am greatly indebted to my family and my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

Dao Thi Hong

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Acknowledgement ii

Table of contents iii

Abstract vi

List of abbreviation vii

List of tables viii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Structure of the study 4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Review of Previous Studies 5

2 2 Concept of modality 9

2.2.1 Definition of modality 9

2.2.2 Types of modality……… 11

2.3 Modal verbs in English 13

2.3.1 Concept of modal verbs 13

2.3.2 The syntax of English modal verbs 14

2.3.3 The semantics of English modal verbs 15

2.4 Modal verbs in Vietnamese 19

2.4.2 The syntax of Vietnamese modal verbs 19

2.4.3 The semantics of Vietnamese modal verbs 21

2.5 Contrastive analysis (CA) 23

2.6 Summary 24

Chapter 3: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE MODAL VERBS BASED ON THE NOVEL “GONE WITH THE WIND” AND ITS VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION 25

3.1 Syntactic features of English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents 25

3.1.1 Affirmatives with modal verbs 27

3.1.2 Negatives with Modal verbs 28

3.1.3 Questions with Modal verbs 29

3.2 Semantic features of English modal verbs and their Vienamese equivalents 30 3.2.1 Conventional meaning of modal verbs 30

3.2.1.1 Conventional meaning of can/ could……… …… 30

3.2.1.2 Conventional meaning of may/ might……… … 35

3.2.1.3 Conventional meaning of must ……… …36

3.2.1.4 Conventional meaning of will/ would ……… ….37

3.2.1.5 Conventional meaning of shall/ should ……… 39

3.2.2 Modal verbs and their equivalents in Vietnamese 41

3.2.2.1 Can/ could and their equivalents in Vietnamese 41

3.2.2.2 May/ might and their equivalents in Vietnamese 44

3.2.2.3 Must and their equivalents in Vietnamese 45

3.2.2.4 Will/ would and their equivalents in Vietnames 48

3.2.2.5 Shall/ should and their equivalents in Vietnamese 51

3.3 Discussion on the similarities and differences between English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents 53

3.3.1 On the syntactic and semantic similarities 53

3.3.1.1 Similarities of the syntactic features……… 53

3.3.1.2 Similarities of the semantic features……… 54

3.3.2 On the syntactic and semantic differences 56

3.3.2.1 Differences of the syntactic features……… 56

3.3.2.2 Differences of the semantic features……… 57

3.4 Implications ……… 58

3.5 Summary 61

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION 62

4.1 Recapitulation 62

4.2 Concluding remarks 62

4.3 Limitation of the study 63

4.4 Suggestions for further research 63

REFERENCES 64

APPENDIX i

ABSTRACT

This study is an attempt to explore and investigate the syntactic and semantic similarities and differences between nine English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents based on the novel “Gone with the wind” and its Vietnamese translated version The main aim of the research is to find similarities and differences between the two languages and give some suggested implications for teaching English modal verbs to Vietnamese learners in an effective way The main data used in this study

is taken from the novel Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell – an American

novelist and journalist and its translation by Tran Duong Tuong (1932) – a Vietnamese translator and writer The data collected were then descriptively and qualitatively analyzed to find similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese modal verbs The findings of the study showed that both English and Vietnamese modal verbs have the characteristics to form different types of sentences: Affirmatives, negatives and interrogatives Both English and Vietnamese modal verbs are used to describe obligation, permission, ability, necessity, probability, and possibility etc However, there are some major differences in Vietnamese modal verbs, modal particles and equivalent idioms which are grammaticalized and lexicalized functioned as pragmatic particles conveying subtle,

diversified pragmatic information are placed at the end of the sentence such as à, ư,

nhỉ, nhé, thôi, nấy, chứ, cũng nên, etc In English, modal verbs can be transformed

to express time of action, for instance, can (present action) – could (past action)

While in Vietnamese, time localization of action is expressed by means of lexical

meaning sẽ, cũng, đã, lại đang, đều… It is hoped that the findings from this study

will contribute to further understanding of syntactic and semantic features of English modal verbs compared to Vietnamese Moreover, the findings of similarities and differences between the two languages will be useful in language teaching and learning and translation from English into Vietnamese

Hà Nội, ngày 8 tháng 12 năm 2020

Học viên

Đào Thị Hồng

LIST OF ABBREVIATION

CA : Contrastive analysis

e.g : Exempli gratia ( for example)

Etc : Et cereta

i.e : That is

LI : the first language

L2 : the foreign language being learnt

Table 3.3: The findings of can and could in the data 44

Table 3.4 The findings of may and might in the data 46

Table 3.6 The findings of will and would in the data 51

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In the current time of world-wide explosion of information and cross-cultural communication, there is an urgent need for the Vietnamese peoples to learn and use the English language efficiently as an international means of communication Their sincere desire is to express various aspects of the languages, the cultures, and the knowledge of the Vietnamese peoples’ lives In everyday communication, they do not simply describe events, processes or states of affairs By means of language, they also wish to express their emotions and attitudes; or to influence in some way the addressee’s beliefs, behaviours Usually, the speaker not only says something true, something that will definitely happen or happened, but also says something he/ she does not know for sure The area of semantics that concerns this expressive and social information of statements is modality

It is very interesting and essential to study modality in general and to investigate how much a speaker commits to what he says in particular Modality has gained much popularity among linguists The different ways in which different languages allow speakers to insert themselves into their discourse, expressing their desires or opinions have become a common subject of study From syntax to semantics, the study of modality has spawned innumerable academic papers, namely Bybee (1985), Lyons (1977 ) and others Vietnamese modal system has also been studied by Hoang Phe ( 1984) and Do Huu Chau (1989) The researches in English focus on analyzing both the most common form and content of modality

As a result, in Vietnam, many scholars have also studied modality in general and types of modality However, no attempt has been made to conduct a comparative study on linguistic means of indicating modality in English and Vietnamese Thus, a full and specific description of syntactic and semantic features of English modal verbs and the equivalent expressions in Vietnamese seems to be necessary

In teaching modal verbs at my high school, I realize that a great number of

my students have a lot of difficulties in learning and using English modal verbs Distinguishing among modal verbs and translating modalized expressions from English into Vietnamese also makes them confused This problem is especially more embarrassing when they encounter different modals conveying similar meanings They can produce grammatically correct utterances, but do not understand properly the social and cultural information each modal meaning

conveys Furthermore, due to the structuralist approach to grammar teaching, learners can memorize modals with their meanings given, but do not know how to use them to improve their communicative competence, to mitigate directness, to express politeness or to make assertions in social interaction With an attempt to help my students learn English better, I made up my mind to choose and to go

further into the topic: A comparative study of English and Vietnamese modal verbs

based on the novel “Gone with the wind” and its Vietnamese translated version

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

This study is an attempt to study modal verbs in English and in Vietnamese

so as to find out the similarities and differences between the two languages and give some suggested implications for teaching English modal verbs to Vietnamese

learners in an effective way based on the novel ‘Gone with the wind’ and its

Vietnamese- translated version

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

To achieve the above-mentioned aim, the study must fulfil the following objectives:

- Exploring syntactic and semantic features of English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents based on the novel ‘Gone with the wind’ and its Vietnamese- translated version

- Investigating the syntactic and semantic similarities and differences between English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents

- Suggesting some implications for teaching modal verbs in English to Vietnamese learners in an effective way

1.3 Research questions

The study is to answer the following questions:

- What are syntactic and semantic features of modal verbs in English with reference to Vietnamese equivalents based on the novel ‘Gone with the wind’ and its Vietnamese- translated version?

- What are the similarities and differences of modal verbs between English and Vietnamese?

- What are some suggested implications for teaching modal verbs in English

to Vietnamese learners in an effective way?

1.4 Methods of the study

This paper used the descriptive and qualitative method of writing and quantitative description of the data It is qualitative in nature because it depends heavily on the researcher’s own interpretation of translation texts Qualitative methods offer the opportunities to gain insight into the data during the analysis process (Creswell, 2014) Descriptive and contrastive methods are adapted in this study to have in-depth data analysis and to compare and contrast the strategies used for dealing with on-equivalence problems

With written discourse, data employed for analysis will be extracted from the

novel Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell – an American novelist and

journalist This novel taken from the website 979801825-download The reason for choosing Gone with the wind is that it is a

https://books-library.online/free-well-known literary work in which modal verbs are widely used so that the contrastive analysis can be easily done Based on sixty - three chapters of this novel and its translation by Tran Duong Tuong (1932), the data are chosen at random Then the data are analyzed and systematized to work out a fresh insight into the syntax and semantics expressed by modal verbs and their equivalents in Vietnamese

1.5 Scope of the study

This study focuses on the descriptive account of syntactic and semantic features

of modality in English and Vietnamese used in the novel ‘Gone with the wind’

According to Timberlake (2007) and Coates (1987), modality in English may

be expressed grammatically or semantically by auxiliaries (modal verbs), verbs, adjectives, nouns or adverbs Hiệp (2007) states that means of expressing modality can be categorized grammatically and lexically Prosody is also of modality in language as Palmer (2001, p 6) asserts ‘prosody is a separate study and only rarely interacts in a systemic way with grammatical systems of modality” However, due

to the scope of this present study, we only focus on nine modal verbs which are can

/could, may /might, must, shall /should, will /would" in term of syntactic and

semantic features and translation equivalents

1.6 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study primarily contributes to explore and investigate the syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese modal verbs Through the study, readers can also see the comparison of modal verbs between English and

Vietnamese

Practically, the amount of knowledge provided in the thesis is likely to suggest some implications for teaching modal verbs in English to Vietnamese learners in an effective way

1.7 Structure of the study

This present study consists of four chapters in a close link together

Chapter one is introduction, the initial part briefly introduces the rationale of

the study and the background to which the study is set up The aim and objectives of the study are discussed in the second part followed by the scope of the study and a brief introduction of the methods The design of the study is proposed as the last part of this chapter

Chapter two presents the theoretical framework and the literature review of

the study First, the previous studies on this topic are reviewed Next, it sought to review the concepts of modality After that, it discusses the syntax and semantics of modality in English Lastly, it attempts to represent the syntax and semantics of modality in Vietnamese

Chapter three presents the findings and discusses the findings in comparisons

with previous empirical studies This chapter aims at answering the research questions and validating the findings of the study

Chapter four recaps the whole study project and restates the findings before

proposing some suggestions depending on the findings and the limitations as well as further research directions are offered

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter begins with a review of related research in hope of revealing the gaps that need filling for this present research The section 2.2 discusses the theoretical background and some operational definitions for this study in sections 2.3 and 2.4

2.1 Review of Previous Studies

In this section, other research works related to the theme under study before the current thesis are reviewed The review of concepts and theoretical frameworks

is employed as tools for the current research

Modal verbs are frequently used in every day communication They have simple forms, but a wide variety of semantic connotations and communicative functions In previous studies, modal verbs were studied from different perspectives From the perspective of formal linguistics, researchers focused on the relationship among tense, voice and modality of modal verbs (Clinque, 1999) From the perspective of semantics (Leech, 1981), researchers focused on the relationship between contexts and modal verbs Recently, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers (Gibbs, 1990; Kärkkäinen, 1992) and corpus linguists (Millar, 2009; Römer, 2011) paid their attention to the use of modal verbs by learners and native speakers With the development of computer technology and corpus linguistics, studies on modal uses by second language learners can be based on corpus data analysis This present study attempts to explore the use of modal verbs in English writing by EFL (English as a foreign language) learners based on the corpus data comparison

In the paper in the Journal of Linguistics printed in Great Britain, Boyd and Thorne (1969) propose an analysis of the semantic structure of modal verbs in English Central to this analysis is the notion of 'speech act', which derives principally from the work of J L Austin (1975) The authors extend the notion of speech act to the analysis of modal sentences That is to say the authors treat the modal verbs as indicating the illocutionary potential of the sentences in which they occur

On contrasting the semantics of the modal auxiliaries of German and English, Bouma (1973) attempts to show that the model which I developed elsewhere to explain the semantic structure of the German modal system is also generally applicable to the modals of English The theory underlying his approach is

based on the notion of (grammatical) meaning found in Joos (1964) and Jakobson (1971) The modal auxiliary system in both languages is seen as a grammatical category (relative assertion) which stands in specific opposition to the absence of a modal in a sentence (factual assertion) The general grammatical meaning conveyed

by the modal auxiliary category is that the speaker sees the event as standing in a potential relation to reality

In the new edition of Mood and Modality, Palmer (2001) draws on a wealth

of examples from a wide variety of languages to investigate the category of modal verbs in detail He discusses familiar features in a number of mainly European languages, and also looks at fewer familiar features including 'evidential’ systems and the contrast of realis/irrealis, both to be found in unrelated languages

In Vietnam, several scholars have made studies of modality and modals in general Huệ (2006) conducted a contrastive analysis of the meanings expressed via the three modal verbs can, may, must in English, their semantic features and the equivalent expressions in Vietnamese With written discourse, data employed for

analysis will be extracted from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - a famous

writer in the nineteenth century realistic literature of England Semantically, the

English modals can, may, must express the notion of ability, possibility, permission

and obligation Can and may refer to different types of possibility: can shows theoretical possibility whereas may talks about factual possibility Each modal conveys itself the modal meaning that the speaker implies Must is used when it involves the speaker-imposed compulsion It brings the subjective obligation It is discovered that these modals do not simply convey only one meaning, but there exists a wide range of meanings The specific modal in a certain situation makes clear which meaning is intended Compared with English modal verbs can, may,

must, Vietnamese modal verbs are quite ambiguous in nature Có thể does not tell

whether it is theoretical or factual possibility whereas can and may tell us quite well certain type of possibility Importantly, in clarifying and judging the linguistic

features of Vietnamese modal verbs phải and có thể, the study has revealed the

differences in the type of possibility Có thể does not make clear whether it is theoretical possibility or factual possibility The study, to some extent, displays the ambiguous features in meaning of Vietnamese modal verbs which consequently result in the confusion and difficulty encountered by learners in mastering English modal verbs

Đào (2013) has attempted to carry out a contrastive analysis of deontic modality expressions in terms of syntactic and semantic features in English and Vietnamese

In doing this the author has treated three specific types of deontic: commissives,

voilitives and directives in 421 declarative and interrogative sentences in English

and 422 declarative and interrogative sentences in Vietnamese The main findings

of the study show that while categories of deontic modality are universal across languages, linguistic means available to speakers of different languages may differ, for example, Vietnamese has an intricate system of sentence or utterance particles which have no equivalences in English Furthermore, English and Vietnamese also differ in the frequencies of usage of such linguistic means in expressing deontic modality

Thuỷ (2015) attempted to describe, analyze and compare/ contrast English and Vietnamese root and epistemic modality as realized by modal verbs from cognitive perspective, more specifically in terms of force dynamic framework The study is both descriptive and contrastive in nature The main aim of the research is

to find similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese root senses (including obligation, permission, ability and volition) and epistemic senses (including necessity, probability and possibility) of modal verbs from force dynamics The findings of the study show that both English and Vietnamese writers/ conceptualizers use the modality of obligation, permission, ability, volition, necessity, probability, and possibility with different force structures and barriers to express their different opinions or attitudes towards the propositions/ state of affairs

or events It can be inferred from the results of the study that there exists one common core across English and Vietnamese modal verbs, i.e., the force opposition between the Agonist and the Antagonist The force can be the one which impinges upon the participant or the state of affair or the event, making the situation

necessary (e.g must in English and phải in Vietnamese) The force may be the one that prevents the participant or the situation from taking place (e.g can’t in English and không thể in Vietnamese) There may be absence of force, or removal of restraint or no barrier so something is possible (though not necessary) (e.g can in English and có thể in Vietnamese) However, there are a number of differences

between the two languages under study when the conceptualizers/ writers express their own embodied scientific experiences in communication by using various modals with different levels of strength of cognitive, sociophysical and rational

forces One of the typical differences is that in English, low strength forces of

modals such as can, could, may, might, predominate over median (will/ would/

should/ ought) and high strength (must/ have to/ need/ cannot), which indicates a

tendency for modality to be used to mitigate than to strengthen assertations in

academic writing In contrast, in Vietnamese, high strength modals (phải, cần,

không thể) predominate over median (nên, sẽ, muốn, định, toan) and low (có thể),

which can be inferred that the Vietnamese writers/ conceptualizers when writing their papers in social science journals have a tendency of expressing strong obligation and necessity The overweight of high dynamic value in Vietnamese may

be due to the fact that the three major philosophical traditions: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have exerted their influence on the “subjective culture” of the Vietnamese (cf Bochner 1986 & Marr 1981, cited in Ellis 1994 & T.N.Thêm 1998: 25) The main data used in this study are taken from the two corpora: one in English with a total of 500,000 words in 91 social science texts and the other in Vietnamese with 500,000 words in 119 social science texts

In conclusion, studying all things about modal verbs will be too broad themes and, therefore, it is an impossible task for any researchers In previous studies, from the perspective of formal linguistics, researchers focused on the relationship among tense, voice and modality of modal verbs (Clinque, 1999) From the perspective of semantics, researchers focused on the relationship between contexts and modal verbs (Leech, 1981; Thomas, 1983) In Vietnam, most of the scholars focused on one type of modal verbs: Dao (2013) focused on the contrastive analyses of deontic modality, Thuy (2015) study on epistemic modality, and Lien (2010) analyzed the necessity, certainty and ability perspectives of English modals Especially, Hue (2006) conducted a contrastive analysis of the meanings expressed via the three

modal verbs can, may, must based on the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

However, no attempt has been made to conduct a comparative study on linguistic means of indicating modality in English and Vietnamese My study primarily contributes to explore and investigate the syntactic and semantic similarities and differences between nine English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents

based on the novel “Gone with the wind” and its Vietnamese translated version

The amount of knowledge provided in the thesis is likely to suggest some implications for teaching modal verbs in English to Vietnamese learners in an effective way

2.2 Concept of modality

This section will discuss the definition of modality in English and in

Vietnamese and the theoretical background to the study of modal verbs

2.2.1 Definition of modality

Traditionally, the concept of modality and the modal concepts of possibility, probability and necessity These notions seem to derive from the fact that human beings often categorize their attitudes and experiences in terms of the ways things might or must be or might have been, other than they actually are or were

According to Palmer (2001), modality is defined as an interesting issue, which can be divided into two kinds: the first contains an element of will, which corresponds to deontic modality and the second contains no element of will, i.e epistemic modality

Perkins (1983) establishes his classification of the types of modality by reference to conceptual domain of modality He suggested four categories: epistemic modality which is defined in terms of rational laws; deontic modality which is defined in terms of social laws; dynamic modality defined in terms of natural laws and temporal modality

Searle (1979) approach to modality is different from the above discussions

He concerns the issues of modality in terms of speech act theory According to him, there are five categories of illocutionary acts: (1) assertives: where we tell our hearers how things are; (2) directives: where we get them to do things; (3) commisives: where we commit ourselves to doing things; (4) declaration: where we bring about changes in the world with our utterances; and (5) expressives: where we express our feelings and attitudes While assertives are described in terms of the speaker’s belief or commitment to the truth of a proposition, directives and commissives correspond very largely to deontic modality Commissives are speaker-oriented whereas directives are hearer-oriented Declaratives come close to assertives and therefore they are connected to epistemic modality Expressives may belong to epistemic modality

Modality in a broad sense is what the speaker is doing with the whole proposition whereas modality in the view point is defined as semantic information associated with the speaker’s attitude or opinion about what s/he says

McCarthy (1991, p 91) defines “modality as a kind of thought often

consisting of the closed class of modal verbs (must, can, will, may, etc.) and being

treated as part of grammar of English, but a large number of lexical words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs) carry the same or similar meanings to the modal verbs”

Lyons (1977) recognizes two kinds of modality using von Wright’s terms:

Epistemic modality and deontic modality While the term ‘epistemic’ coming from

a Greek word meaning “knowledge” is concerned with matters of knowledge, belief

or opinion rather than fact, the term ‘deontic’ coming from a Greek word relating to the imposition of obligations is concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents Modality is claimed to express subjectivity of the speaker (Lyons, 1977; Palmer, 2001) However, Palmer (2001) argues that it is not possible to decide whether modals are subjective or not, as in

‘You must leave at once’ This sentence can indicate that it is the speaker’s

insistence or general (objective) necessity for leaving, or it is indeterminate between the two readings It is in principle not possible to justify the one interpretation rather

than the other Therefore, it needs a specific context to clarify its meaning ‘You

must leave at once’ could be construed in an alternative analysis, i.e., in terms of

force dynamics from Cognitive perspective

The definition of modality applied in this study is used most widely, agreeing

with the view of Lyons (1977, p 452), i.e modality is defined as “the speaker’s

opinion or attitude toward the proposition that sentence expresses or the situation that the proposition describes’ Moreover, the study mainly follows the narrow

definition of modality defined by Lock (1996, p 193), “A narrow definition of

modality encompasses only modal auxiliaries and their uses ” For the purpose of

the study, modality will be considered as a semantic system expressed by the modal verbs which enable a speaker/ conceptualizer to signal and express his/ her own point of view, his/ her opinion or his/ her commitment to the truth of the proposition/ state of affair or the event

When modality is treated as a purely logical notion, it concerns logical possibility and necessity In these logical discussions, one finds inquiries into the

nature of terms such as “possible” and “necessity” in statements of the following sort: “It is necessary that p = it is impossible that not - p = it is not possible that not

- p,” and, “It is necessary that not - p = it is impossible that p = it is not possible that p” (Johnson, 1987: 48-49)

In contrast with this logical analysis of modality, there are “other senses of

modal verbs that are intimately related to our everyday experience, insofar as they represent our pervasive experience of things, events and relations as being actual, possible or necessary” (Johnson, 1987, p 49) Langacker (1991, 2003) developed

an alternative analysis of semantics of modals based on force dynamic frameworks

Therefore, modals in this study “are grammaticized grounding elements, in which the ground - the speech event and its participants - are ‘offstage’ and subjectively

construed’, and have ‘two crucial properties: (1) they are force- dynamic and (2) the

event marked by the complement remains potential rather than actual’ (Langacker,

2003, p.3).The force dynamics are ‘inherent in the conceptualizer’s mental activity,

hence subjectively construed in the strong sense.’ (ibid.)

In Vietnam, for the past few years, modality has been the focus of many linguists and researchers such as Hoang Phe, Do Huu Chau and others Hoang Trong Phien broadly explains modality as a grammatical category which appears in all kinds of sentence

From the definition of modality mentioned above, we can see that to some extent linguists have one thing in common seeing that modality describes the speaker’s attitude or judgement toward the proposition and not the proposition itself The notional content of modality highlights its association with entire statements Modality concerns the factual status of information; it signals the relative actuality, validity, or believability of the content of an expression Modality reflects the overall assertability of an expression and thus takes the entire

proposition within its scope In the utterance ‘It may be raining’, for example, the

speaker is not committing himself wholeheartedly to the truth of the proposition He

is not making a categorical assertion, but rather modifying his commitment to some degree by expressing a judgement of the truth of the situation

2.2.2 Types of modality

Types of modality are classified differently according to different linguists Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Startvik (1985, pp 219-221) suggest 2 types: Intrinsic and Extrinsic modality

Halliday ’s view on types of modality could be summed up as follow

“Polarity is the choice between positive and negative, as in is/ isn’t, do! don’t

However, the possibilities are not limited to a choice between yes and no There are intermediate degrees: various kinds of indeterminacy that fall in between, like

“sometimes or “maybe” The intermediate degrees between the positive and negative poles, are known collectively as modality” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014,

pp 85-86)

He further expresses the commodity exchanged & the speech function and the types of intermediacy in this chart:

Table 2.1 The commodity exchanged & the speech function and the types of

intermediacy ( Halliday M.A.K, 1985)

Frequency(sometimes/ usually/ always)

Offer Inclination(willing/

anxious/determined)

As can be seen from the chart, in a proposition, the meaning of positive and negative poles is asserting “It is so” and denying “It isn’t so” He observes two kinds of intermediate possibilities: (1) degree of probability (possible -> probable -> certain) which is equivalent to may be “yes”, may be “no” with different degrees of likelihood attached and (2) degree of usuality (i.e sometimes “yes” sometimes “no”)

In a proposal, there are two kinds of intermediate possibilities: (1) in a command, the intermediate points represent degrees of obligation and (2) in an offer, they represent degrees of described duty

However, the classification made by Sweetser and Palmer, in my opinion, seems the most acceptable for its clarity and generalization which can be applied to the linguistic study from different angles: semantic, logic and pragmatic They are

Epistemic & Deontic modality Analyzing such a sentence as “He must be in his

office”, we can see this may have two interpretations, depending on the modality

assigned to the modal verb “must”

In one sense, it means “I am certain that he is in his office” (By my reasoning and judgement) In another sense, it has the interpretation of “He is

obliged to be in his office” (He has no choice but to be in his office) In the formal

sense, the modal auxiliary “must” is epistemic and in the latter it is deontic

Lyons (1977, p 793) (in conjunction with other scholars) states: “Epistemic

modality is concerned with matters of knowledge, belief” or “opinion rather than fact” Palmer (1990, p 7) considers that epistemic modality in language is often,

may be always, subjective in a way it is associated with the deduction of the speakers and not only simply interest in the subjective judgment in the light of reality

And “Deontic modality is concerned with the necessity of possibility of acts

performed by morally responsible agents” (Lyons, pp 1977-823) By means of this,

speakers intervene in or bring about changes in events

2.3 Modal verbs in English

2.3.1 Concept of modal verbs

Language is not always used just to exchange information by making simple statements and asking questions Sometimes, we want to make requests, offers, or suggestions We may also want to express our wishes, intentions or indicate our feelings about what we are saying In English, we do all these things by using a set

of verbs called modal verbs or modal auxiliaries The modal auxiliaries such as can, could, may, might, will, would, must, should and ought to express different types of modal meanings These modal auxiliaries or modals for short are one of the most

complicated problems of the English verbs Lewis (1986, p 99) stated “There is no

doubt that the overall picture of the modals is extremely “messy” and untidy and that the most the linguists can do is to impose some order, point some regularities, correspondences, parallelisms This subject is not one that lends itself to any simple explanation.”

Semantically, modal auxiliaries allow the speaker to introduce a personal interpretation of the non- factual and non-temporal elements of the event In other words, modals are one way for a speaker to encode modality into what (s)he says such ideas as necessity, possibility, obligation, etc Some of the modals may also express the same kinds of semantic colorings in the subjunctive mood

2.3.2 The syntax of English modal verbs

According to Michael Swan (2016, p.68), the syntax of modal verbs in English is as follows:

(a) Modals do not inflect This means they have no “-s” form in the third person singular of the present tense, or no “-ing” and “-ed” forms

e.g She can swim very well (NOT: She cans )

(b) They occupy the first place in a complex verb phrase and followed by the form base of a verb They do not co-occur

e.g “He may come” or “He will come” instead of “He may will come”

(c) Both the present and past forms of modals can be used in past tense sequence

e.g I think he may/ might stay now

(d) They are used as operators in the formation of, for example, questions and negatives

e.g negatives: We might not be home before midnight

questions: May I help you?

(e) There are some modals such as ‘will’ and ‘would’ differ from main verbs and other auxiliaries in that ‘will’ and ‘would’ can form contraction with subject pronouns Contractions with ‘will’ are: I’ll, you’ll, he’ll, she’ll, it’ll, they’ll Those

with would are: I’d, you’d, he’d, she’d, it’d, we’d, they’d But it is worth mentioning

that these contractions are never used in sentence final position

(f) Only some of these modal auxiliaries have corresponding present and past forms as follows:

Table 2.2: Modal auxiliaries have corresponding present and past forms

Shall Should Will/ ‘ll Would/ ‘d

2.3.3 The semantics of English modal verbs

According to Quirk, R., Greenbaum (1973, p.52), the semantics of modal verbs in English is as follows

2.3.3.1 Conventional meaning of can/ could

Can and could are used to describes ability, possibility and permission

CAN

(1) Ability= be able to, be capable of, know how to

E.g: He can speak English but he can’t write it very well (‘He is able to speak/

capable of speaking ’)

(2) Permission = be allowed to, be permitted to (Can is less formal than may

in this sense)

E.g: Can/ May I smoke in here? (‘Am I allowed to smoke in here?’)

(3) Theoretical possibility contrast

E.g: Anybody can make mistakes

The road can be blocked (‘It is possible to block the road’)

COULD

(1) Past ability

E.g: I never could play the banjo

(2) Present or future permission

E.g: Could I smoke in here?

(3) Present possibility (theoretical or factual)

E.g: We could go to the concert

The road could be blocked

(4) Contingent possibility or ability in unreal conditions

E.g: If we had more money, we could buy a car

Note

[a] Ability can bring in the implication of willingness (especially in spoken English):

Could you do me a favour?

[b] Past permission is sometimes expressed by could:

This used to be the children’s room but they couldn’t make a noise there because of the neighbours

More generally, the past can/could for permission and possibility is could have+ V-ed:

Tonight, you can dance if you wish but you could have danced last night equally

[c] With some perception verbs, can Vcorresponds to the progressive aspect

be V-ing with dynamic verbs:

I can hear footsteps; who’s coming?

2.3.3.2 Conventional meaning of may/ might

May and might are used to refer to possibility and permission

MAY

(1) Permission =be allowed to (In this sense may is more formal than can Instead of may not or rare mayn't, the stronger mustn't is often used in the negative

to express prohibition.)

You may borrow my car if you like

You mustn’t / may not/ are not allowed to borrow my car

(2) Possibility (usually factual)

The road may be blocked (‘ It is possible that the road is blocked’; less probably:

‘It is possible to block the road’)

MIGHT

(1) Permission (rare)

Might I smoke in here?

(2) Possibility (theoretical or factual)

We might go to the concert

What you say might be true

2.3.3.3 Conventional meaning of must

Must is used to describes obligation and necessity

(1) Obligation or compulsion in the present tense (=be obliged to, have (got) to); except in reported speech, only had to (not must) is used in the past There are two negatives: (1) =‘not be obliged to’: needn't, don't have to; (2) = ‘be obliged not to’: mustn't

You must be back by 10 o’clock

Yesterday you had to/ must be back by 10 o’clock

Yesterday you said you had to/ must be back by 10 o’clock

You needn’t / don’t have to/ are not obliged to/ be back by 10 o’clock

(2) (Logical) necessity

Must is not used in sentences with negative or interrogative meanings, can being used instead

There must be a mistake but: There cannot be a mistake

Must can occur in superficially interrogative but answer- assuming sentences

Mustn’t there be another reason for his behaviour?

2.3.3.4 Conventional meaning of shall/ should

Shall/ should are used to describes willingness, intention, obligation and logical necessity

SHALL

(1) Willingness on the part of the speaker in 2nd and 3rd person Restricted use

He shall get his money

You shall do exactly as you wish

(2) Intention on the part of the speaker, only in 1st person

I shan’t be long

We shall let you know our decision

We shall overcome

(3) Insistence Restricted use

You shall do as I say

He shall be punished

Legal and quasi-legal injunction

The vendor shall maintain the equipment in good repair

SHOULD

(1) Obligation and logical necessity (=ought to)

You should do as he says

They should be home by now

(2) ‘Putative’ use after certain expressions, eg: it is a pity that, I am surprised that

It is odd that you should say this to me

I am sorry that this should have happened

(3) Contingent use (1st person only and especially BrE) in the main clause (= would)

We love to go abroad (if we had the chance)

(4) In rather formal real conditions

If you should change your mind, please let us know

2.3.3.5 Conventional meaning of will/ would

Will/ would are used to describes willingness, intention, prediction and probability

WILL

(1) Willingness Used in polite requests

He’ll help you if you ask him

Will you have another cup of coffee?

Will you (please, kindly, etc.) open the window?

(2) Intention Usually contracted ‘ll; mainly 1st person

I’ll write as soon as I can

We won’t stay longer than two hours

(3) Insistence Stressed, hence no‘ll contraction

He 'will do it, whatever you say (‘ He insists on doing it ’)

He 'shall do it, whatever you say = ‘I insist on his doing it ’)

He 'will keep interrupting me

(4) Prediction

The similar meanings of other expressions for logical necessity and habitual

present The contracted form ‘ll is common

He’ll (always) talk for hours if you give him the chance

WOULD

(1) Willingness

Would you excuse me?

(2) Insistence

It’s your own fault; you 'would take the baby with you

(3) Characteristic activity in the past (often aspectual in effect)

Every morning he would go for a long walk (ie ‘it was customary’)

John 'would make a mess of it (informal = ‘it was typical’)

(4) Contingent use in the main clause of a conditional sentence

He would smoke too much if I didn’t stop him

(5) Probability that would be his mother

In conclusion, this section discusses the syntactic and semantic features of nine English modal verbs which are studied in this study This section is used to analyze the data and discuss the findings

2.4 Modal verbs in Vietnamese

2.4.1 Concept of Vietnamese modal verbs

In this section, we are going to present the theoretical concepts and previous studies into modality in Vietnamese Each term used needs Vietnamese translation and citing The author is going to review the following works

In Vietnam, for the past few years, modality has been the focus of many linguists and researchers such as Hoàng Phê, Đỗ Hữu Châu and others Hoang Trong Phien broadly explains modality as a grammatical category which appears in all kinds of sentence

From the definition of modality mentioned above, we can see that to some extent linguists have one thing in common seeing that modality describes the speaker’s attitude or judgement toward the proposition and not the proposition itself

The notional content of modality highlights its association with entire statements Modality concerns the factual status of information; it signals the relative actuality, validity, or believability of the content of an expression Modality reflects the overall assertability of an expression and thus takes the entire proposition within its scope In the utterance ‘It may be raining’, for example, the speaker is not committing himself wholeheartedly to the truth of the proposition He

is not making a categorical assertion, but rather modifying his commitment to some degree by expressing a judgement of the truth of the situation

On definition of modal verbs, Ban (2005) states that in Vietnamese, modal verbs are group of verbs that express subjectivity such as attitudes, evaluation, expectations, evidentiality… he categorizes modal verbs into the following groups:

+ Modal verbs expressing necessity: nên, cần, phải, cần phải

+ Modal verbs expressing possibility: có thể, không thể/chưa thể

+ Modal verbs expressing luck: bị (tai nạn), được (nhà), mắc, phải

For example: Mắc căn bệnh nhà giàu, phải một trận đòn (On showing off, he was beaten)

+ Modal verbs expressing expectations: trông, mong, chúc, ước, cầu, muốn + Modal verbs expressing evidentiality: dám, định, nỡ, buồn, thôi, đành

2.4.2 The syntax of Vietnamese modal verbs

We are all aware that Vietnamese is a non-inflectional language A word keeps its own form in various places in a sentence This feature is also recognized

by most linguists dealing with Vietnamese (Đông & Hiệp, 2001; Hiệp, 2017; Mạnh,

2006) Verbs in Vietnamese have no endings to show the categories of tense, person and finiteness When necessary, these categories are expressed by “form word” such

as pronouns or adverbs Vietnamese grammar is limited in rules of word usage The action is understood as taking place in the past or at present depending on the adverb of time or adverb of tense- aspect in the clause or on the context On the syntax of Vietnamese modal verbs,

Ban (2005) defines that modal verbs in Vietnamese requires other verbs to

go with them For example, đành, bị, được, dám, toan, định, có Quỳnh (2001, p

144) defines that that group of modals verbs are used to combine with other (main) verbs to express attitudes or expectations towards the acts He also states that in some contexts, the main verbs can be omitted Quỳnh (2001, p 144) goes on to list ten modal verbs in Vietnamese: muốn, toan, định, có thể, có, nên, cần, phải, chịu,

dám… He also states that bị, được, chịu… can also combine with other verbs in the

sentence

In study follows the syntactical framework proposed by Thuận (2003), in

which she analyzes five modal verbs in Vietnamese including nên, cần, phải, bị,

được on their syntactic features and she concludes that:

(1) modal verbs in Vietnamese can go with a nominal phrase or a clause after them; (2) modal verbs in Vietnamese can go together;

(3) modal verbs can go with adjectival phrases when they share the same subject; (4) some elements can go missing without changing the meaning when the context

is obvious

Altogether, a modal verb has the following properties: (a) The modal verb can go with another verb (a lexical one) to express the speaker’s desire or wish or opinion/attitudes toward the reality Only in the context can the main verb be omitted; (b) The modal verb is the one which expresses the relation(s) between the agent/ participant of the subject (of the sentence) and the content of the lexical verb, which stands after the modal verb (D.Q Ban, cited in N.T Thuận, 2003: 30-31) A modal verb which often goes with a lexical or main verb constitutes a verb phrase and functions as a predicate (N.K Thản, 1999: 175); (c) In terms of syntax, a modal verb is always placed before another verb or a noun or a subject-verb clause and the subjects of these two verbs (the modal verb and the lexical verb) coincide (a co-referent case) Therefore, the general form is as follows:

CN + Modal verb + {VP/ N/ Subject-V clause} + {another modal verb}

In interrogatives, the modal verb can be placed between có …… không? or đã … chưa? Eg: - Đồng chí có muốn viết thư cho họ không?

- Tôi rất muốn (N.K Thản, 1999: 176)

2.4.3 The semantics of Vietnamese modal verbs

Giáp (2012, pp 503-504) states that epistemic modality as ‘tình thái nhận thức’ to express attitudes towards truthfulness of an act Deontic modality is defined

as ‘tình thái đạo lý’ to express

Thuận (2003) states that two modal verbs in Vietnamese can go together to emphasize the meaning

The results of the works done by Toán and Lương (2008) and Châu and Toán (2003) show that there are two main types of modality in Vietnamese language: the

subjective modality and the objective modality

Subjective modality includes two main subtypes:

(1) Subjective modality denoting the attitude, psychological status and

emotion/ feeling of the speaker towards the proposition: In terms of expressing the attitudes of the speaker, Vietnamese language has a variety of ways showing

modality with high belief such as these modality set expressions: quả thật (là), chắc

chắn, … In expressing their low belief, doubt, uncertainty, the speaker can use

these modality markers: chẳng lẽ, có lẽ, … and others In expressing surprise and suddenness, the speaker can use: té ra, ồ, ơ, In expressing gladness and happiness, the speaker can use: may quá, ơn trời, … In expressing worry, the speaker can use: e rằng, không khéo, etc

(2) Subjective modality expressing the speaker’s judgement towards the

proposition: When showing judgement, the speaker often expresses their subjective assessments about the proposition or state of affair The speaker can express their satisfaction or unsatisfation, happiness or anger, admiration or criticism of the

proposition When judging the realis and irrealis, the speaker often use: đáng lẽ, lẽ

ra, etc When judging the positive and negative things, the speaker can use: được cái, phải mỗi tội, etc And when judging the quantity or amount/ figures of

something, the speaker can use: mỗi, chỉ có/thôi, …

Some authors such as Ban (2005) and Toán and Lương (2008) claim that

objective modality consists of affirmative and negative modality:

(1) Affirmative modality seems to confirm that the statement/ proposition is right or real in the reality (with affirmative modality markers/ devices such as đúng,

đúng là, etc.)

(2) Negative modality is used to state that the situation/ proposition does not exist Negative modality markers are like không, chưa, chẳng, chả, đâu, đâu phải,

không phải, đâu có, mà, không bao giờ, etc Toán and Lương (2008, p 202)

Moreover, according to Ban and Dân (2000, pp 111-113), objective modality is the one whose truth of value can be checked, whereas subjective

modality is used to express the speaker’s attitudes or opinions about the things, the objects or situation The objective modality can be divided into two main types: affirmative modality, which states that the thing or the object or the situation or phenomenon or the case is true/ right and negative modality, which uses the negative words to state that the thing or state of affair or the case or the situation does not exist or is not true/ right Ban and Dân (2000) also state that the subjective modality cannot be checked to see whether it is right/ wrong or true/ false However, the subjectivity modality can express the speaker’s belief, assessments of what is said in the sentence, (in other words, it can be called probability modality or possibility modality) If it is analyzed from pragmatic perspective of the utterance,

such kinds of these modalities can be called hedging devices, for example, hình

như, có lẽ, etc

Apart from the objective modality and subjective modality, which have a close relation with logics, there have been two more “meanings”, which can be put into the modality of the sentence:

(1) Modality of opinion is the one which expresses the speaker’s opinion of what is said in the sentence Many of them are said to be the hedging devices or

modal set expressions such as Theo chỗ tôi được biết, trộm nghĩ, etc

(2) Modality of the speaker’s relation with the hearer is the one which shows how the speaker establishes his/her social relations and expresses her/himself In other words, it is the way the speaker plays his/her social roles in communication This kind of modality often goes together with vocatives, and/or special modal

particles such as à, á, ạ, ừ, ư, …

Ban and Dân (2000) argue that modality consists of objectivity and subjectivity modality However, she further analyses objective modality in four main categories:

(1) Inevitability or randomness of the relations between S (speaker) and P

(proposition), which are realised by modalizers such as tất yếu, tất nhiên, tình cờ, etc

(2) Realis or irrealis of the relations between S and P, which is expressed by

modal particles such as không, chưa, chẳng, etc.;

(3) Probability of the event, which is predicted by (S-P) with modal expressions

like không thể, chắc chắn, nhất thiết, etc.; and

(4) Continuum, repetition, degree, … of the proposition, which is indicated by

modal particles such as vẫn, còn, nữa, mãi, etc (These words must go with the central

predicates of the sentence)

In conclusion, this section discusses the syntactic and semantic features of Vietnamese modal verbs which are studied in this study This section is used to analyze the data and discuss the findings

2.5 Contrastive analysis (CA)

As one of the main aims of this paper is to carry out a contrastive analysis on

the meanings expressed via the modals can, may, must in English and the equivalent

expressions in Vietnamese Hence, the theoretical account on Contrastive Analysis

is necessary

Regarding the definition of CA, James (1980, p 3) states: “CA is a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted two -valued typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared”

Of the two types of CA - theoretical CA and applied CA, James (1980) focuses on the second type which are preoccupied with the problem of how the universal category X realised in language A as Y, is rendered in language B ” He considers CA as a form of interlanguage study and as a central and substantial component of applied linguistics As a matter of fact, CA has had much to offer to practical teaching as well as translation theory, the description of languages, language typology and language universal In relation to bilingualism, CA is concerned with how monolingual becomes bilingual or in other words, it deals with the effects exerted by the first language (LI) on the foreign language being learnt

(L2) This is because of the fact that the similarities and differences between two languages have much contribution to foreign language teaching

According to James (1980) and Lado (1957), the psychological foundation of

CA is Transfer theory (Transfer is defined as the hypothesis that the learning of LI will affect the subsequent learning of L2) They claim that CA is founded on the assumption that L2 learners will tend to transfer to their L2 utterances the formal features of their LI

There are two types of transfer which may occur during the process of learning a foreign language by learners who have already possessed a considerable degree of competence in their first language The first type is Positive Transfer (or Facilitation) This transfer enables the learners to acquire the language easier The second type is Negative Transfer (or Interference) which is the constraint of LI or the borrowing of a first language pattern or rule that leads to an error or inappropriate form in L2

As one of the goals of CA is the effective teaching and the learning of the L2, to minimize the negative transfer it would be necessary for teachers to realize the potential transfer problem areas and support strategies that would help the learners to avoid errors

In a nutshell, CA plays an important role in the teaching and learning of a foreign language It is CA which can work out the similarities and differences between two languages involved, and as a result, it makes it possible to predict trouble areas due to LI interference, and therefore, it helps learners overcome the predictable problems

2.6 Summary

To sum up, this chapter has given a brief description of previous studies overseas and in Viet Nam about modality, which is considered a valuable source of reference for the research Moreover, some theoretical background of the study are presented, including not only the definition of modality, English and Vietnamese modal verbs, CA, but also more detail about the syntax and semantics of English

modal verbs, as well as syntax and semantics of Vietnamese modal verbs The

review of literature dealt with so far as an significant importance in terms of providing the solid theoretical background as well as setting up the analytical framework, which are the major sources for dealing with the main goals of the study

in the following chapter

CHAPTER 3: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE MODAL VERBS BASED ON THE NOVEL “GONE WITH THE WIND” AND ITS VIETNAMESE TRANSLATED VERSION

This chapter will focus on analyzing the syntactic and semantic features

of English and Vietnamese modal verbs based on the novel “ Gone with the wind” written by Margaret Mitchel and its translation by Tran Duong Tuong The novel is chosen as they contain conversations, utterances and sentences that have modal verbs All the data collected and categorized into types of modal verbs to find out their syntactic and semantic features

3.1 Syntactic features of English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents

After investigating the data, the total 274 English modal verbs are found and

collected in the novel “ Gone with the wind” written by Margaret Mitchel and its translation by Tran Duong Tuong., in which the frequency of modal verb can is 32,

could is 47, may 20, might 18, must 46, will 43, would 29, shall 21 and should 18

The table below shows the findings of English modal verbs in the data in which (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) refers to the syntactical framework discussed in section 2.3.2

Table 3.1 The findings of English modal verbs in the data

Not inflect

Not co – occur

Form

of tense

ors

Operat-Contr- action

Corres pondi

ng tense form

274 100%

0 0%

68 24,75%

8 2.9%

94 34,3%

The table below shows the syntactical structures of Vietnamese modal verbs

following the framework proposed by Thuan discussed in section 2.4.2

Table 3.2 The syntactical structures of Vietnamese modal verbs

No

Vietnamese

modal verbs

Number

of modal verbs founds

Going with a nominal phrase

or a clause

Going together

Going with adjective phrases

Missing some elements

- The symbol (+) refers to the occurrence

- The symbol (-) refers to the absence

Most linguists believe that modal verbs have the characteristics to form different types of sentences: Affirmatives, negatives, questions Palmer (2001) believes that modal verbs are very important in English sentences because they are the carriers of the tense in these sentences Thus, modal verbs must be contained in the verb phrase part of the sentence not in the noun phrase Moreover, modal verbs, cannot occur alone in a verb phrase except in the special case of ellipsis (Swan, 2016) For example, in a sentence such as:

1 - … when they’d be better spending their time hunting and playing poker as

proper men should (7).” (p.71)

… trong khi đáng lý ra phải dùng thì giờ đó để săn bắn và đánh phé như bao nhiêu người bình thường khác.

2 - Ellen’s tired mouth smiled into the tumult as she ad- dressed herself first to her

husband, as a wife should (7) (p.133)

Ellen mỉm cười mệt nhọc Giữa những sự ồn ào đó, bà trả lời câu hỏi của chồng

trước, đúng theo bổn phận của một người vợ[7]

Proper men should and a wife should are grammatically incomplete unless we understand it to be elliptical Yet, it is stated that the main difference between the

syntactic use of modal verbs and main verbs is in "the behavior of the modals in the

interrogative and negative sentences" (ibid), which is going to be discussed in the

following sections

3.1.1 Affirmatives with modal verbs

In terms of syntax, a modal verb is always placed before another verb or a noun or a subject-verb clause and the subjects of these two verbs (the modal verb and the lexical verb) coincide (a co-referent case) Therefore, the general form is as follows:

In English: N1 (CN) + can/ could/ may/ might/ must ….+ VP

In Vietnamese: N1 (CN) + có thể/ có lẽ/ phải/ sẽ … + VP

For example:

3 - … Look, Brent! I know where we can (1) go for supper

Ê, Brent, tao biết chỗ mình có thể [1] tới kiếm ăn rồi.(p.35)

4 - I could (2) swear she was glad to see us when we came and was aiming to ask us

to supper (p.25)

Tao dám chắc là [2] con nhỏ rất hài lòng khi thấy bọn mình tới và đã có ý định

mời bọn mình ăn tối

5 - Nothing is worth what is happening to us now and what may (3) happen, for if

the Yankees whip us the future will be one of incredible horror And, my dear, they may (3) yet whip us

Không có gì trả giá được những điều đang và có lẽ sẽ [3] tới với chúng ta, và nếu

bọn Yankee thắng tương lai chúng ta sẽ thảm khốc không ngờ được Nhưng em ơi,

họ rất có thể [3] đánh bại ta

6 - And Stuart might (4) have made the match, but Brent had not been satisfied

(p.29)

Stuart có lẽ [4] cũng thành hôn rồi nếu Brent không bất mãn

7- you must (5) tell your pa to come over and see him right away (p.14)

Cô phải [5] nói với ba cô qua xem cho biết

8- Scarlett should (7) have taken her troubles to her (p.67)

Lẽ ra, Scarlett nên [7] đặt những vụ rắc rối đó với vợ ông.

9-“Give me your gown, Scarlett, I will (8) whip the lace for you after prayers

(p.133)

Đưa cái áo con cho má, Scarlett, má sẽ [8] vắt đăng ten lại khi cầu nguyện xong.

10 - … and there were sounds of footsteps going out the back way toward the

smoke- house where Ellen would (9) ration out the food to the home-coming hands

(p.18)

… và có tiếng bước chân đi ra cửa sau, tiến lần về phòng xông khói nơi bà Ellen

sắp sửa [9] chia khẩu phần cho những nô lệ vừa về tới)

Apart from the above general form, in some cases, modal verbs in the Vietnamese equivalent expressions can be found in the first place in front of subject,

as in:

11 – Có lẽ đây là chuyến xe đạn cuối cùng, Rhett bình tĩnh nói

“That must (5) be the last of the ammunition trains,” Rhett said calmly (p.731)

3.1.2 Negatives with Modal verbs

In English: N1 (CN) + can not (can’t)/ could not (couldn’t )/ will not (won’t)/

would (wouldn’t), … + VP

In Vietnamese: N1 (CN) + không thể/ không nên/ chẳng/ sẽ không … + VP

Negation of affirmative sentences containing modal verbs is simply formed

by placing the negative particle ‘not’ immediately after the modal verbs Modal

verbs (except ‘may’) can form contraction with ‘not’ The common ones being used are: can’t/ couldn’t / won’t/ wouldn’t, shan’t/ shouldn’t, mightn’t, mustn’t, as in:

12 - There hasn’t been any fun at any party this spring because the boys can’t (1)

talk about anything else (p.13)

Cứ vậy mà mùa xuân này chẳng có một hội hè nào cho ra đám, bởi vì bọn con trai

chẳng [1] có gì để nói khác hơn

13- We could n’t (2)get home soon enough (p.35)

Làm sao [2] mình về sớm kịp?

14 - I want my girl to be happy and you would n’t (9)be happy with him (p.69)

Ba muốn con gái của ba được sung sướng, nhưng chắc chắn con sẽ [9] không tìm thấy hạnh phúc khi chung sống với Ashley

15 - You must not (5) interrupt gentle- men when they are speaking, even if you do

think you know more about matters than they do (p.118)

Con không nên [5] ngắt lời những người thanh lịch, ngay cả khi con nghĩ rằng

con hiểu biết nhiều hơn họ

16 - … Cousins should n’t (7)marry, even second cousins (p.177)

… họ hàng không thể [7] lấy nhau, dù là họ hàng xa đi nữa

3.1.3 Questions with Modal verbs

Questions with modal verbs are formed by placing the modal verbs before the subjects of the sentences Main types of questions are tackled in this study: wh-questions and yes/no questions

3.1.3.1 Wh- Questions with Modal verbs

In English: W - H WORD + can/ could/ may/ might/ will … + N1 (CN) + VP?

In Vietnamese: W - H WORD + N1 (CN) + lại/ có thể/ sẽ/ vẫn + … + VP?

Wh-questions, sometimes called information questions, are formed by placing the modal verbs immediately after the question words and before the subjects, as in:

17 - … for how can (1) a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a

scoundrel? (p.75)

… chớ làm sao một đứa bé nông nổi giống như con mà có thể [1] biết được đứa

nào tốt, đứa nào đểu cán?

18 - Why can’t (1)she wear my pink and let me wear her green? (p.132)

Tại sao chỉ không [1] mặc màu hồng và để cho con cái màu xanh của chỉ?

19 - How could (2) he be planning to marry Melanie when he really loved her,

Scarlett? (p.138)

Tại sao chàng lại [2] định cưới Melanie trong khi thật lòng yêu nàng, Scarlett?

20 - “And where will (8) I be getting another overseer who would (9)n’t be cheating

Chỉ còn một vấn đề rắc rối nữa thôi: nàng sẽ [7] mặc áo gì trong dã yến?

22 - What dress would (9) best set off her charms and make her most irresistible to

Ashley? (p.148)

Mặc chiếc áo nào để [9] làm nổi bật lên và khiến cho Ashley không cầm lòng

được trước sắc đẹp của nàng?

3.1.3.2 Yes/ No Questions with Modal verbs

In English: Can/ Could/ May/ Might/ Will … + N1 (CN) + VP?

In Vietnamese: N1 (CN) + có/ có thể/ chịu + + VP + không/ sao?

Yes/no questions are formed by shifting the modal auxiliaries to the beginning of the sentences and before the subjects, as in:

23 - Can (1)’t you see he’s nervous, the big darling? (p.15)

Bộ tụi bây không thấy con ngựa cưng của tao bực mình đó sao? [1]

24 - “Will (8) your mother ride the new horse to the Wilkes barbecue tomorrow?”

− Má, con có thể [1]dự dạ vũ được không? Con mười ba tuổi rồi!

27 - will (8) you be quiet and let me be hearing me own voice? (p.132)

Mấy đứa bây có chịu im để tao còn được nghe tiếng nói của tao hay không?

3.2 Semantic features of English modal verbs and their Vietnamese equivalents

This section involves the presentation on semantic features of modal verbs in English All the examples for illustration would be accompanied by their translation into Vietnamese in order to facilitate the contrastive analysis thereafter

3.2.1 Conventional meaning of modal verbs

3.2.1.1 Conventional meaning of can/ could

Can and could are used to describes ability, possibility and permission They also express uncertainty and doubt

 Ability

Present, past ability to do something is expressed with the modals ‘can’ and

‘could’/ Both can’ and ‘could’ are used to indicate that a person has/ had the

general ability to do something, as in

28 - Ashley can (1) ride with the best and play poker with the best–that’s me,… (p.71)

Ashley có thể [1] cỡi ngựa hay so với người hay nhứt và đánh phé giỏi với người giỏi nhứt – và người đó chính là ba…

29 - “And we can (1) hear all the news of the Troop and find out what color they

finally decided on for the uniforms.” (p.35)

Bọn mình còn biết [1] thêm tất cả các tin tức liên quan tới Bộ đội và coi họ đã

chọn màu sắc nào cho quân phục

In (28) and (29) can expresses the ability to perform an action We use can to talk about present or general ability; in other words, can is used to say that someone has

a particular skill or ability

In this use can is more like a full verb than any other modal There is a past tense form with past time reference We use could for general ability to say that

somebody could do something at any time, whenever he/ she wanted

E.g 30 - … Moreover, Able was the best shot in the Troop, a real sharpshooter who

could (2) pick out the eye of a squirrel at seventy-five yards, … (p.38)

… Hơn nữa, Able là tay súng thiện xạ nhứt trong Bộ đội, có thể [2] bắn trúng

phóc con mắt của một chú sóc ở cách xa khoảng bảy mươi thước, …

We also use can if we are declaring now about the future

E.g 31 - “No, Carreen, next year, dear Then you can (1) stay up for balls and

wear grown-up dresses, and what a good time my little pink cheeks will have! … (p.133)

− Không, Carreen, hãy đợi sang năm, con gái cưng Lúc đó con mới có thể [1] thức

khuya để khiêu vũ, mặc quần áo người lớn, và con sẽ có một đôi má hồng thật đẹp…

Can is also used to say that someone is aware of something through one of their

senses In this case, can is used with verbs of sensation but can here seems often to add nothing to the meaning of the sentence without can It loses the sense of modality If someone does something, he has an ability to do it The function of can turns into the

one of helping the main verb to denote a state rather than an event

E.g 32 - “… This sun is broiling me and I can (1) just hear freckles popping out on

my neck.” (p.180)

… Mặt trời luộc chín con rồi nè Cổ con phồng da rồi đây.[1]

Similarly, could is used to say that someone was aware of something through one of their senses on a particular occasion in the past

E.g 33 - … He could (2) feel his own daughters snickering behind his back as they

remembered in what condition he had come home from the Wilkeses’ last barbecue the au- tumn before (p.173)