the common two – word verbs denoting material and mental processes in english and their vietnamese equivalents at cua lo 2 high school

NGHE AN MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGCUA LO 2 HIGH SCHOOL --------TEACHING EXPERIENCE “THE COMMON TWO – WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL ANDMENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIE

NGHE AN MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

CUA LO 2 HIGH SCHOOL

 TEACHING EXPERIENCE

“THE COMMON TWO – WORD VERBS DENOTING MATERIAL ANDMENTAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS AT CUA LO 2 HIGH SCHOOL.”

(CÁC ĐỘNG TỪ HAI THÀNH TỐ PHỔ BIẾN QUY CHIẾU TIẾN TRÌNH

VẬT CHẤT VÀ TINH THẦN TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ

NGHĨA TIẾNG VIỆT TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG Ở TRƯỜNG THPT CỬA LÒ 2)

Cua Lo, 2020

PART A: INTRODUCTION

" There is another kind of composition more

frequent in our language than perhaps in anyother, from which arises to foreigners the

greatest difficulty."

Samuel Johnson

-Preface, Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

1. Rationale of the study

The two-word verbs, including phrasal verbs (PVs) and prepositional verbs(PreVs), are an interesting linguistic phenomenon in the English language ManyEnglish teachers have realized the importance of this multiword knowledge inhelping their learners use English more fluently and naturally Paradoxically, thesestructures are never easy for non-native learners to acquire, mostly because thesemantic, grammatical and stylistic peculiarities that they possess

The meanings of a two-word verb are not always likely guessed from itsindividuals Many non-native speakers of English must, therefore, memorize them

to be able to understand and use them in the right context However, thousands oftwo-word verbs and many more times of their meanings make the massivelearning unfruitful Consequently, pages are spent to find out which PVs to teachand in what sequences For example, Dilin Liu (2003) suggests 302 items to bemost frequently used idioms, with 104 of them are PVs Gardner and Davies(2007) propose a smaller number - 100 frequent PVs, which the authors claim to

be a manageable number to deal with The problem is two-word verbs are verypolysemous, and corresponding with 100 frequent PVs proposed by Gardner andDavies, (2007), it is not 100 but up to 559 potential meanings (5.6 meanings per

PV on average) learners have to deal with From this view, the number 100 isgetting less manageable

What it if I focus on senses that are used.more often than the other? So, theload of learning English two-word verbs would be reduced This is also what thiscurrent study is aiming at Biber et al (1999) suggest that we classify multiwordverbs according to their core meaning called semantic domains: activity verbs,communication verbs, mental verbs, causative verbs, verbs of simple occurrence,verbs of existence or relationship, and aspectual verbs Halliday (1985; 2004)approaches the matter with different term but the same nature Instead of ‘semanticdomains; Halliday has term ‘processes’ (See section 1.2.1 for types of processes);and what Biber (1999) names ‘activity verb’ is labeled ‘material process’ Thisstudy uses Halliday’s terms for their clarity and systematic nature; and attends tomaterial and mental processes since they are considered most common by both

Halliday (1985; 2004) and Biber (1999).

2. Aims of the study

The primary aims of this paper are:

1 to study English two-word verbs, specifically distinguish two kinds of two-word verbs: PVs and PreVs;

1 to study English processes, focusing on material and mental processes;

2 to investigate some common English two-word verbs denoting material and mental processes and find their Vietnamese equivalents;

3 To suggest some recommendations for teaching and learning two- wordverbs

4. Scope of the study

As far as structural aspects of two-word verbs are concerned, the currentstudy includes both PV (transitive and intransitive) and PreVs ‘Phrasal-prepositional verbs’ would be beyond the scope of this paper

Two-word verbs are rich in both number and meanings For example, inOxford Phrasal verbs Dictionary, 6000 common British and American PVs are

recorded; the verb ‘go’ solely has 31 two-word verbs with 209 different meanings.

So, I am not ambitious to cover all of them Although some verbs have no singlecorrect classification or have multiple meanings belonging to different semanticdomains, Biber (1999) affirms that activity verbs and mental verbs are of mostcommon Among the 12 most common lexical verbs that all occur over 1000times per million words in the LSWE Corpus (Biber et al…, 1999: 373), six are

activity verbs (get, go, make, come, take, give), five are mental verbs (know, think,

see, want, mean) Also by means of corpus, Biber proposes lists of the most

common lexical verbs in each semantic domain, including all verbs that occurover 300 times per million words in at least one register (cf Biber et al…, 1999:367-369) In domain of activity material verbs, we see the notable common of

“make, go, give, come, put”, and “take”; while “see, think, know, want, feel, like”

are distinguished representatives of mental verbs

Therefore, having claimed to be the study of the common two-word verbs

denoting material and mental processes in English though, in the frame of a smallpaper, I only focus on four outstanding representatives of material verbs: COME,GIVE, GO, MAKE (all are in the top 10 most prolific PVs of British NationalCorpus), and three of mental ones: HEAR, SEE, THINK Moreover, only two-word verbs with idiomatic and semi-idiomatic meanings used in material andmental processes are concentrated on.

5. Method of the study

The study aims to find out, in the limitation of seven lexical verbs, “howmany” and ”how often” two-word verbs belong to material and mental processesare there are, comparing with the other four processes Thus, quantitative researchmethods, which give much focus on the collection and analysis of numerical dataand statistics, appear to be appropriate

6. Design of the study

This study is designed in three parts: Introduction, Development, andConclusion The Introduction gives an overview of the study The Developmentconsists of three chapters: Chapter 1 - Theoretical Background, provides thefundamental concepts used in the paper; Chapter 2 - Methodology, describesthoroughly the methodology acquired in the study; Chapter 3 presents lists of two-word combinations of seven common verbs belonging to material and mentalprocesses with their particles/prepositions and their Vietnamese equivalents.Finally, the Conclusion offers the review of the study with its implication andapplication concerning teaching and learning English two-word verbs in general atCua Lo 2 school

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter represents the issues of two-word verbs and Processes ofMaterial and Mental in details Section 1.1 examines some aspects of PVs andPreVs such as their definitions and their semantic and syntactic aspects Particles -the vital component of PVs, are also defined and classified Section 1.2 looks intothe matter of process types with the focus is on Material and Mental processes,their definition and characteristics

1.1. Two word verbs

Quirk and his partner (1972) clarify that multi-word verbs consist of PVs,PreVs, and phrasal- prepositional verbs Biber et al (1999: 403) add other multi-word verb constructions like V + noun phrase (+ preposition); V + prepositionalphrase or V + V to complete the classification of four major kinds of multi-wordcombinations that comprise “relatively idiomatic units and function like singleverbs”

In this study, I focus on multi-word verbs which comprise two elements.Though Taka (1960, cited Waibel 2007) and Meyer (1975, cited Waibel 2007) use

term “two-word verb” to mean PV, and Celce-Murcia et al (1999) note that PVs

are sometimes called two-word verbs, both PVs and PreVs are taken intoconsideration when we refer to two-word verbs

1.1.1 Definition of PVs and PreVs

Biber et al., (1999: 403) assert: “PVs are multi-word units consisting of averb followed by an adverbial particle” which all have spatial or locative meaningsand “commonly used with extended meanings”

Halliday (1985: 207; 2004: 351) sees PVs as “lexical verbs which consist

of more than just the verb word itself’, which can be verb + adverb, verb +

1 It is noted that the author mentions to prepositions, but particles There is possibility that the so-call PreVs by most

of linguists is defined by Dixon as PVs, or he uses the name PVs to refer to both.

preposition, and verb + adverb + preposition David (2002) seems to meetHalliday when this author insists the existence of two definitions of PVs, the broadsense and the narrow sense The broad sense includes both PreVs

and PVs, spatial or figurative, transitive or intransitive while the narrow sense excludes PreVs This study prefers looking at PV from its narrow sense

Before turning to PreVs, it is necessary to clarify that the term ‘phrasal

verb’ is not favored by all linguistics Said as Waibel (2007: 15), “the very

name for this type of verb is controversial” For example, Fraser (1947) calls it

“verb-particle combination”, Zandvoort (1962) talks about it as “verb-adverb combination”, Live (1965) “discontinuous verb”, Lipka (1992) labels them

“verb-particle construction”, Francis (1958) “separable verb”, etc However,

Mc Arthur (1989: 38, cited Waibel, 2007: 15) notes that “the term ‘phrasal verb’appears ( ) to be the winning term”, and Rot (1988: 183, cited David, 2002:112) remarks that the term PV is the most appropriate for verb-particlecombinations because “it expresses the linguistic essence of this lexical-grammar collocation, and it has its terminological parallels in the location

‘phrasal prepositions’ ” And the term familiar with both teachers and students

is also used in this study

1.1.1.2 PreVs

About PreVs, the matter of term and definition is less controversial thanthat of PVs Scholars seem to be satisfied with the term ‘PreV’, which refers tothe kind of verb that “consists of a verb followed by a preposition” (Biber et al.,1999: 403) and that “forms a semantic and syntactic unit” (Leech, 1992: 264).The problem, if it has, is whether or not to see PreV as a subtype of PV or anindependent kind of verb from PV This study would like to look at PreV as anindependent item that exists parallel with PV

1.1.1.3 Particles

1.1.1.3.1 Definition and classification

The term ‘particle’ refers to a word that has a grammatical function butdoes not fit into the main parts of speech like noun, verb, or adverb, etc.(Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, 1985) The exact status of theparticle is still being debated; scholars are being divided on whether it is anadverb, preposition, postpositional prefix, special part of speech, etc.Encyclopedia Wikipedia (2010) provides seven types of word serving as

particle: ‘Articles’ (the), ‘Infinitival’ (to), ‘Preposition’ (in, on), ‘Adverbial particles’ (off, down), ‘Interjections‘(oh, wow), ‘Sentence connectors’ (so, well), Tags ( , did they?) and ‘Conjunctions’ (and, or, nor) However, dictionaries

like Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2006) or MacMillanPhrasal Verbs Plus (2005) just consider adverbs and prepositions to be particle;and some scholars (e.g Celce-Murcia, 1999; Quirk et al., 1985) even narrow

term particles to adverbs2 In this study, particles are also seen in its adverbialnature and some differences between particles and prepositions will be noted insection 1.1.1.3.3.

1.1.1.3.2 Characteristics of particles

Particles are typically found in PVs where most of them are place adjucts

or can function as such (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973) Particles form cohesive unitswith verbs and normally cannot be separated from the verb by another adverb.Moreover, they play an important role in complementation by completing themeaning of the head-phrase, and creating a dominant conceptual meaning for PVs

Particles have pragmatic meaning and obviously have impact on themeaning of the verb they follows even if the meanings of the verb are notnecessary destroyed or lost Briton (1988: 4, cited David, 2002: 127) claims thatthe addition of a particle to a verb produces the following three meanings:

perfective meaning (drink up, calm down, wait out, die off, put over), ingressive meaning (doze off, go away, set out), or continuative/iterative meaning (drive on,

hammer away) (See aspectual PVs, section 1.1.2.1)

1.1.1.3.3 Particles vs prepositions

Particles look like prepositions and actually have some common featureswith prepositions Both of them are invariable in form, i.e they do not changetheir form in accordance with words they accompany Particles can sometimes beconsidered a special type of prepositions3, but they are still distinctive terms.Certain syntactic features separate them from each other A great deal ofdifferences is about their position, the sentence constituents they are linked to4,and their function5, etc Moreover, particles usually affect the meanings of theirproceeding verbs while prepositions usually do not and even independent of them.(See section 1.1.2.3.1)

To separate adverbial particles from prepositions, objects might be helpful

As Swan (1980: 95, cited David, 2002: 115) points out, prepositions must haveobjects while adverbs particle need not Celce-Murcia (1999: 429) proposessyntactic tests (adopted from O’Dowd, 1994: 19) to set apart particles andprepositions Accordingly,

Only prepositions allow:

2 While Celce-Murcia (1999) explains the author’s selection is to show the close association of particle with the verb, and to distinguish it from preposition as well as other adverbs, other scholars who consider solely adverbs to be particles argue, “particles are commonly treated either as adverbs or else assigned to a special class” because of their distinct behaviour, especially their variable position and the lack of an object of their own (Langacker, 1987: 243, cited David, 2002: 125).

3 Many words can be used both as adverbs and prepositions except back and away (they are only adverb), while other words like from and during can only be treated as prepositions (David, 2002: 115- 116).

4 A preposition denotes a semantic relationship between two entities as to place, time, instrument or cause etc (Quirk et al., 1972) while a particle is part of the verb.

5 A dverbial particles function as adverbs and modify the preceding verb.

Adverb insertion (e.g We turned quickly off the road, but not we turned

quickly off the light)

Phrase fronting (e.g Up the hill John ran, not Up the bill John ran)

Wh-fronting (e.g About what does he write?, not Up what does he write?)

Only particles in separable PVs allow:

Passivization (e.g The light was turned off, not The road was turned out) Verb substitution (e.g The light was extinguished (= turned off))

NP insertion (e.g We turned the light off, not We turned the road off)

1.1.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs and PreVs

2.1.2.1 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PVs

Regarding syntactical aspects of PVs, PVs’ subcategories and PVs’separation need to be dealt with In MacMillan Phrasal Verb Plus by Rundell andFox (2005), PVs are divided into three types: transitive, intransitive, and thosewhich is both transitive and intransitive But it seems to be simpler to set PVs into

intransitive and transitive like the way Quirk and Greenbaum (1973), Biber et al.

(1999), or Celce-Murcia et al (1999) do; noting that some combinations can have

“dual function” (Celce-Murcia et al., 1999: 427), i.e., they can be either transitive

or intransitive, with or without a difference of meaning (Quirk & Greenbaum,1973) Most of the challenge is assumed to fall into transitive PVs because of itspeculiar syntactic characteristic, its separability As Celce-Murcia (1999) puts it, inspite of being part of the PV, particle does not have to be adjacent with it Listedhere are three subcategories of separation:

The largest, most productive category is optional separable PV,

where particle can stand either before of after direct object exceptwhen the direct object is a pronoun6

E.g put on = wear: Anne put on her coat and went out

or Anne put her coat on and went out.

The smaller category is inseparable phrasal verb In this kind, the

particle is forced to follow right after the verb7.E.g I came on (= encounter) this beautiful vase in the attic

Sometimes, the separation is obligatory and we will name this obligatory separable PV In this kind, the particles are always separated8

6 If the direct object is not a pronoun or if it is a long and complicate noun phrase, it would prefer the position after the particle or as (Celce-Murcia, 1999: 435) put it, “the conventional position for new, discourse salient information” The insertion of complex noun phrase between verb and the particle is believed to interrupt the cognitive unity of the verb and particle and make it difficult to understand.

7 Celce-Murcia (1999) said this phenomenon is because what we are calling a particle is actually a preposition and thus would naturally go before its object

8 The obligatory separation is presumed to avoid the ambiguity with the inseparable phrasal verbs, which have

E.g put through = test:

We put the machines through a series of tests

From semantic view, we see three important aspects: the polysemy,productivity, and idiomaticity

Like single-word verbs, PVs are polysemous in that one form of PVs canhave various meaning, and simultaneously, one meaning can also be expressed bymore than one form Additionally, English continually generates new PVs9 as well

as new meanings of existed PVs Celce-Murcia (1999: 431) describes PV as “ahighly productive lexical category in English” (431), while Bolinger (1974: xi,cited Celce-Murcia, 1999) comments the phenomenon as “an outpouring of lexicalcreativeness that surpasses anything else in our language” Explaining thepopularity of PVs in English, Bolinger (1971: xii, cited Stephens, 2008) said,

"They are words The everyday inventor is not required to reach forelements such as roots and affixes that have no reality for him It takes only a

rough familiarity with other uses of head and off to make them available for head off, virtually self- suggesting when the occasion for them comes up, which is not true of learned formations like intercept" (xii).

Yet it seems impossible to know exactly which verb will join with whichparticle to form a new PV There usually needs a semantic coordination betweenverbs and particles In other words, verbs limit their choice of adverbial particle bytheir semantic content Nevertheless, it does not mean PVs cannot be systematized.Supported by the idea that the semantic of PVs is not as “arbitrary” as it is oftenheld to be (Smclair, Moon et al., 1939, cited David, 2002), Celce- Murcia (1999)claims the existence of some systemeticity in how meaning is represented in PVs;and to understand that systematicity, we familiarize ourselves with three semantic

categories of PVs: literal, aspectual, and idiomatic (See Quirk et al., 1972,

Celce-Murcia et al., 1999)

Literal PVs: comprise a verb and a directional preposition, function

syntactically like verb-particle constructions, except that particle keeps its

prepositional meaning and the result is a PV whose meaning is fully

compositional (e.g sit down).

Aspectual PVs10: certain particles can add consistent aspectual meaning tothe verb without changing the origin meaning of that verb Thus, the meaning of

the same form but different meaning (Celce-Murcia et al., 1999).

9 Mc Arthur and Atkins (1974: 6, cited David, 2002: 128) claim 6 types of verbs that can be phrasalized,

including: a/ verbs of movement (go, come); b/ verbs of invitation and ordering (invite, let); c/ the so-called ‘empty verb’, verbs of indefinite meaning (get, make); d/ verbs formed with or without the suffix -en, from simple monosyllabic adjectives (brighten); e/ verbs formed unchanged from simple, usually monosyllabic nouns with such paraphrase patterns as chalk up = mark up with chalk; f/ a random scattering of two-syllable verbs of Latin origin, with which some kind of direction or emphasis is required (measure (up), level (off)).

10 Some authors suggest grouping PVs based on the particle instead of the verb element as we usually do We think it is applicable for aspectual PVs only Moreover, aspectual particles do not go with every verb Certain

aspectual particles co-occur with certain verbs That is why we have fade out but do not accept fade up.

the whole is neither literal nor idiomatic For Celce-Murcia (1999: 432- 433), fourmain types of aspectual PVs are distinguished:

- Inceptive PVs (signal a beginning state): take off, set out, start up

- Continuative: (show that the action continues) Activity verbs + on/ along

(come along, keep on), away (sleep away), around (mess around), through (thinkthrough)

- Iterative PVs (activity verbs + over show repetition ): think over

- Completive PVs (show complete action with up, out, off and down): wear

out, mix up, cut off, check over, etc

Idiomatic PVs: are those that we cannot infer their meaning from theircomponents 11 For instance, in the sentence I hope you will get over your

operation quickly, the literal meaning of ‘get over’, in sense of ‘to climb over st to get to the other side’ no longer applies to explain the subject’s enduring an

operation

2.1.2.2 Syntactic and semantic characteristics of PreVs

Syntactically, PreVs always has its preposition followed by a nominalobject (Biber et al 1999) They, however, do not coincide with inseparabletransitive PVs because the object still follows the preposition when it is a pronoun.Moreover, the verb can have its own object which usually precedes thepreposition Two structural patterns for PreVs are:

an adverbial Arguments supporting this view are based on the fact that we caninsert another adverbial between the verb and the preposition In the secondapproach, both the verb and the preposition are seen as a single unit followed by anoun phrase which acts as the object of V+ preposition Supporters of this ideacount on the fact that the combination verb plus preposition functions as a singlesemantic unit that has idiomatic meaning and, therefore, is replaceable by a simpletransitive verb

Semantically, PreVs are also polysemous, idiomatic and productive

11 The meaning of this kind is believed to have relation with underlying logic of the language and cultural traditions Langacker (1991, cited David, 2002) defend that the vast majority PVs rely at least in part on the literal

or aspectual meaning of the particle and thus they can help to figure out figurative meaning.

1.1.2.3 Comparison of PVs and PreVs

1.1.2.3.1 Similarities

As already pointed out, PVs and PreVs are both varied in theiridiomaticity Their meanings range from literal to idiomatic Therefore, the two

can be substituted by a single-word verb (e.g PreV ‘looked after’ in She looked

after her son can be replaced by single word ‘ tended’ ).

1.1.2.3.2 Dissimilarities

According to Quirk et al (1972), the differences between PVs and PreVsare regarding to stress, adverb insertion and particle/ preposition position Lamont(2005) agrees they are syntactic tests12 to clear away our confusion about PVs orPreVs, and emphasize knowledge of such tests is “indispensable” for anyonestudying phrasal verbs These are generalized in the following table:

Table 1: PVs and PreVs dissimilarities

Spoken stress Stress is on the particles The stress is on the verb, not

on the prepositionAdverb insertion/

intervention Adverb cannot enter betweenverb- particle combinations

It must be placed before theverb or at the end

PreVs allow insertion ofadverb into verb-prepositioncombination

Particle/ preposition

movement Particle of transitive PVs canmove

either before or after thedirect object 13

Preposition cannot moveafter its object

Position Particle of transitive PVs can

moveeither before or after thedirect object 14

Preposition cannot moveafter its object

Particle can stand before orafter the NP following theverb (except when the nounphrase following the verb is

13 This test, however, is restricted with pronoun, gerund and unhelpful with intransitive PVs as there is no complementary noun phrase to facilitate movement.

14 This test, however, is restricted with pronoun, gerund and unhelpful with intransitive PVs as there is no complementary noun phrase to facilitate movement.

Particle cannot be placedbefore a relative pronoun Preposition canPronoun-object

replacement

Particle must go afterpronoun Preposition must precedepronoun

1.2. Process types

1.2.1 Overview of process types

As Martin et al (1997: 102) says, “Process type is the resource for sortingout human experiences of all kinds into a small number of types These differ bothwith respect to the Process itself and the number and kind of participantsinvolved.”

In the view of Halliday (1985; 2004) and systemic-functional linguistssuch as Bloor, T & Bloor, M (1995), Martin et al (1997), there are 6 types of

process in English: Material, Mental, Relational, Behavioural, Existential, and

Verbal.

Material processes denote doings and happenings They represent our

‘outer experiences’: those we pick up from the life when we do or observe otherpeople do things, or see things happen

Mental processes involve conscious processing They express our ‘inner

experience’, or our consciousness of the world around us Members of metalprocesses include perception, cognition and affection

Relational processes are processes of being which denote our logical link

between the new to the old experiences They have two different modes:attribution and identification

Behavioural processes construe (mental and verbal) behaviour Like the

active version of verbal and mental processes, they represent the acting out ofprocesses of consciousness (like laughing), and physiological states (likesleeping) They have similarities to both material and mental processes Likemental processes, one of their participants must be human consciousness (inmental we call it ‘Senser’ while in behavioural, it is known as ‘Behaver’) Theyresemble material processes in: (i) they prefer present-in-present tense, and (ii)they cannot occur with a reported clause in a projecting clause complex

Existential processes are concerned with existence - things recognized to

be, to exist, or to happen They appear like the relational processes in that theyconstrue a participant which involves a process of being But what separates them

is that existential processes have only one participant

Verbal processes, which stand between mental and relational processes,

cover saying of different modes (asking, commanding, offering, stating) andsemiotic processes that are not necessary verbal (showing, indicating) They

symbolize relationships constructed in human consciousness and enacted in theform of language like saying and meaning ‘Sayer’ can be human or human-likespeaker or any other symbolic source.

Among the six processes, material, mental and relational are primary;behavioural, existential, and verbal are said to be secondary processes which lie onthe border of the three major ones However, Halliday (2004: 171) said: “there is

no priority or domination of one kind of process over another” For this reason, heused a circle but not a line to demonstrate the relation among types of process inEnglish (see Halliday, 2004: 172, fig 5.2) In that figure, process types arerepresented as a semiotic space with different regions representing different types.The regions have core areas and these represent prototypical members of theprocess types, but the regions are continuous, shading into one another That iswhy Halliday (2004: 172) asserts: “the process types are fuzzy categories”, whichbase on ‘the principle of systemic indeterminacy’15

Now we have a general picture of six processes in English functional grammar As mentioned above, material and mental processes areamong basic processes and account the largest proportion in 6 processes They arealso subject investigated in this paper and will be looked closely in the nextsections

systemic-1.2.2 Material processes

Material processes cover doings and happenings Prototypically, these areconcrete changes in the material world that can be perceived But such concretematerial processes have also come to serve as a model for construing our

experience of change in abstract phenomena For instance, the verb fall’ realizing material processes can construe motion in space as in Lizzie fell down and hurt her

knee or motion in an abstract, space of measurement as in London share process fell sharply yesterday.

Typical verbs realizing material processes are: happen, create, make, set

up, give, get, etc (See Halliday, 2004: 187- 189, table 5(5))

Material processes have participants of ‘Actor’, ‘Goal’, ‘Range’, and

‘Beneficiary’, “the functions assumed by the participants in any clause aredetermined by the type of process that involved”, noted Halliday (2004: 1997)

‘Actor’ is the ‘Who’ doing the action

‘Goal’ is the ‘What’ brought to existence by the doing (build the house) or impacted by the doing (fix the car).

15 This principle has influence over six processes It says that “the world of our experience is highly indeterminate” and the grammar describe it in the system of process types in the same way Thus, one and the same text may offer alternative models of what would appear to be the same domain

of experience , construing, for example, the domain of emotion both as a process in a mental clause, and as a participant in a relational one.” (Halliday, 2004)

‘Range’ or ‘Scope’ is a participant specifying the scope of happening and

is the only one being out of the influence of the performance of the process Ittypically occurs in ‘transitive’ processes where there is solely one participant(Actor)

‘Beneficiary’ is the ‘Whom’ getting benefit from the doing It has two

subtypes: the ‘Recipient’- marked by preposition to and signs the transfer of

existing goods; and the ‘Client’ - marked by preposition for, indicates a provision

of service

E.g (1) He gave a teapot to his aunt

Actor Goal Beneficiary (recipient)

(2) She made a cup of tea for him

Actor Goal Beneficiary (client)

(3) We crossed the hall

Material processes are distinguished into transitive and intransitiveprocesses (Halliday, 1985; 2004) Usually, if there is only one participant in aclause, the process is said to represent happening and is named intransitivematerial clause If the process extends to another participant, say, the ‘Goal’, theprocess represents a doing and is known as transitive material clause For example,

‘Oil is coming down in price is intransitive material processes with intransitive PV

‘come down’; ‘Mary put on her coat is transitive clause with the phrasal verb ‘put on’ serving as transitive process Furthermore, if there is ‘Goal’, the represent may

have 2 forms: operative (active) and receptive (passive)

E.g (1) The lion caught the tourist

Actor Process: active Goal

(2) The tourist was caught by the lion.

Goal Process: passive ActorAbout the subtypes of doings and happening, Halliday (2004) clarifiestransformative and creative In the former, the goal does exist before the processbegins and is transformed in the course of the unfolding This subtype is often

indicated by the particle of a PV (use up turn down), or has separate element representing the outcome as in She painted the house red, where red serves as

attribute specifying the resultant state of the goal Creative subtype, on the otherhand, has the outcome brought into existence by the doing

E.g (1) She painted a portrait of the artist (is ‘creative’ since the

outcome is the creation of the portrait)

(2) She painted the house red (is ‘transformative’ since the outcome

is the transformation of the colour of the house)

All types of processes change form though time and so do materialprocesses However, process types are varied in ways of unfolding Material

processes prefer ‘present-in-present’ (or present continuous) (e.g is going) to simple present (e.g does).

1.2.3 Mental processes

Mental processes construe sensing and concerned with the world inside

our mind ”Think, know, hear, look, see, feel, like” are typical verbs which can be

served as mental processes

Mental processes involve participants of ‘Senser’ and ‘Phenomenon’.Senser is the one that senses, feels, thinks, wants or perceives which is alwayshuman or human-like It is said to be born with consciousness, hence, it is often

substituted by pronoun he/ she rather than it Besides, creatures like pets or

domestic animals and entities can be personified to be human or treated asconscious

‘Phenomenon’ is the participant being sensed Unlike ‘Senser’,

‘Phenomenon’ covers a wide range of units It can be things (any kind of entitycreated by consciousness such as a conscious being, and object, a substance, an

institution, or an abstraction), macro-things (acts) like getting up early, and things (facts) like the information that people can travel to outer space.

meta-Mental processes differentiate mental processes of perception, cognition,and emotion with their distinctive features A perceptive verb is often

accompanied by a modal verb (e.g can feel, can see) Verbs like ‘remember’,

‘remind’ or ‘think’ often indicate cognitive mental processes and are able to begin

another clause or a set of clause as the content of them (I think that, I remember

that ) Meanwhile, property owned by mental clause construing emotions is that

the verb serving as process are gradable in lexical and grammar (detest-

loathe-hate- dislikelike- love) In general, all subtypes follow the principle of

indetermination in that different types of sensing can shade into each other

Therefore, “I see ” not only means ‘7 perceive visually’ but also is interpreted as

‘I understand’.

When the clause refers to present time, the tense of the verb realizing mental

process is the simple present rather than the ‘present-in-present’ (E.g I see the

stars, not I am seeing the stars)

1.2.4 Material vs mental processes

Halliday et al (2004: 201- 207) suggests three criteria to distinguishmaterial processes from mental processes, including: the participants, the tense ofprocess or verb serving as process, and the substitute of verb

Participants: the two typical participants of material are ‘Actor’ and ‘Goal’whereas the two distinctive participant roles for mental are ‘Senser’ and

‘Phenomenon’ Moreover, if ‘Senser’ is highly constrained, there is no limitationfor what can act as ‘Phenomenon’ of mental processes Meanwhile, all participants

in material processes must be a ‘thing’ (person, object, substance, abstraction)

Tense: material processes are present-in-present unmarked while mentalprocesses tend to use simple present tense16

Substitution: material processes can be substitute by verb do, whereas mental

processes do not allow this

This chapter has already supplied the key concepts acquired in the study:two-word verbs and process types, in respect of how they are defined, theircharacteristics and how to separate them from one another The next chapterrepresents the details of how the research is implemented

16 Both tenses are still used with these two processes, but in those cases, they will carry special interpretation The simple tense with a material process is general or habitual; while the present-in-present tense with a mental process is rather highly condition kind of inceptive aspect (See Halliday, 1985; 2004).

chosen, data analyses, as well as two-word verbs’ selection and extraction.

2.1 Data collection instrument

The study used three sources of dictionaries on PVs to collect data ofEnglish two-word verbs:

(1) Chambers of Dictionary of Phrasal Verb

(2) Oxford Phrasal Verbs Dictionary for Learners of English

(3) MacMillan Phrasal Verbs Plus

These dictionaries contain thousands of (B.E and A.E) PVs with clearexplanations, corpus-based examples, make them easy to use and to be stimulusfor natural-sounding English The third source even claims to have original extrafeatures that help to make it an ideal reference to help learners lose their fear ofPVs and start using them with confidence

The study also employed WordNet 3.0 (Miller, 2003) to recognize

distinctive senses of the same word forms Type ‘make out, for instance, WordNet results 10 different senses (to recognize, issue, comprehend, manage, complete, try

to establish, etc), from which we choose the appropriate ones.

2.2. Corpus choice

The following are lists of frequent PVs (2 A.E corpus-based and 2 B.Ecorpus-based) put forth by different authors They are sources that were accessible

at the time of conducting this research

Liu (2003) analyzed three spoken A.E corpora to establish the author’ lists

of the most frequently used idioms Only idioms and semi-literal or non-literalPVs are chosen Selected items must have at least 2 occurrences in all threecorpora combined (i.e., 2 tokens per million words)

- Professional (Corpus of Spoken Professional American English (Barlow,2000)) consists of speeches at professional meetings and white house pressconferences

- Miscase (Michigan corpus of Academic Spoken English (Simpson, BriggsOvens, & Swales, 2002)) comprises academic speech events (lectures, colloquia)

- Media (Spoken American media English (Liu, 2002)) involves speakerswith diverse social and educational background

Waibel uses LOCNESS, which consists of essays by American universitystudents from Marquette University, Indiana University at Indianapolis

Gardner & Davies analyses BNC, which contains about 4000 samples (bothspoken and written) from the widest possible range of linguistic productions

Biber analyses LSWE Corpus and includes all PVs and PreVs that occurover 40 times/ millions word in at least 1 register.

2.3. Data Analyses

First, all two-word verbs and their potential meanings were counted Thegrammar pattern in Oxford Phrasal verbs Dictionary is used to decide whether atwo-word verb is PV or PreV With sources of dictionaries, together with the help

of Wordnet 3.0, the raw number of two-word combinations with seven selectedverbs is set out as followed:

Note: 32 —152: 32 combinations and 152 meanings In which,

(24/8) (126/26) 24 PVs (with 126 meanings) and 8 PreVs (with 26

meanings)

The three sources differ somewhat in the numbers of two-word verbs andtheir meanings as we can see in table 3 Some figures are approximate Total is not

the sum of PVs and PreVs If a two-word verb can be both PV and PreV (come off,

go off, etc), it is counted one form For example, 31 two-word verbs with Come are

recorded, but it is not the sum of 22 PVs and 17 PreVs Furthermore, if there ismore than one form for a meaning due to the difference between A.E and B.E, e.g

come around/come about or come round, it is also counted one form.

Second, the long lists of frequently used idioms and PVs are filtered to PVsand PreVs concerned in the following table

Verbs Chambers

Dictionary ofPhrasal verbs

MacMillan Phrasalverbs Plus verbs DictionaryOxford Phrasal

Table 3: Frequent two-word verbs in studies of Gardner & Davies (2007), Liu (2003), Waibel (2002),

and Biber (1999)

Give up

Go on

go through

Give up

give away

Go on

go through

Give up

give awaygive in

Give in

give outgive back

Go on

go through

Think of

think about

Hear of

From the table, the first thing to see is that two-word verbs realizing mentalprocesses are not as common as material ones There is even no two-word verb

with ‘See ’ in the list of these authors (the other two are recorded with small

proportion) Second, there is coincidence in the lists of two-word verbs despite thedifferences in criteria of selecting them For instance, up to 4-5 out of 6 lists have

come up, come about, come on, give up, go on, make up, go through, go off, etc).

The biggest difference may lie in the number of two-word verbs that the authorsconsider frequent Waibel suggests number 14 for common two-word verbs with

‘Go’, while Liu gives 9 and Biber says 4 Thence, I decide not to count on any

single list of frequent PVs, but search all of two-word verbs relating to concernedverbs in dictionaries on hand Though, comparing with the numbers in table 2, Iunderstand that these authors really got achievement in reducing the workloadfrom learners’ mind

Last, Vietnamese equivalents are taken from English- Vietnamesedictionaries about PVs and idioms Meanings of PVs or PreVs that are notavailable in these dictionaries will be translated All examples are also fromdifferent sources of dictionaries

2.4. The selection and extraction of two-word verbs

Many linguists regarded only idiomatic verb-particle combinations as

‘proper’ PVs17 Dixon (1991) excluded literal meaning from his definition aboutPVs Longman dictionary of contemporary English (2006: 974) even emphasizes

“If a verb still keeps its ordinary meaning, even though it is followed by severaldifferent prepositions, it is not a phrasal verb” However, McArthur (cited

17 Combinations where each element retains its distinctive meaning are seen as ‘free combinations ’ (Quirk et

al.,

1985; Biber et al., 1999)

Stephens, 2008) assesses this is the “holistic or semantic view”, which focusesmainly on the meaning of the verb combination In his treatment of PVs, he statesthat PVs cover both the literal and figurative/idiomatic uses Waibel (2007: 63)also argues that “a clear-cut differentiation between what is literal and what isidiomatic or figurative is in many cases unfeasible ( ) in part due to thepolysemous meanings PVs which often fade into one another” Admitting bothliteral and figurative meaning as the property of PVs and PreVs though, this studyattends to idiomatic/ semi-idiomatic meaning of PVs and PreVs; because it isproved to cause biggest challenge to ESL/EFL learners18 (see Liao & Fukuya,2004; David, 2002) In addition, meanings appearing in all sources or in onesource are both taken into account, but those which do not belong to material andmental processes was removed.

So, this chapter has described method of doing this research, in terms oftools used to collect data, way to analyze data, and criteria of selecting data Thenext chapter will display the results of the study specifically

18 The commonly accepted reason is that the figurative uses are deeply rooted in cultural traditions which are also tightly linked with what is believed about the physical world itself In most cases, this ‘rather opaque meaning’ cause problems for learners (David, 2002: 131) There are also studies proving that second language learners struggle more with figurative PVs than literal PVs (Liao & Fukuya, 2004).

PROCESSES AND VIETNAMSESE EQUIVALENTS

This is the analytical, data-based part of the present study, the quantitativeanalyses of linguistic data The aim of this chapter is to present and discussquantitative results from the data Before analyzing the data quantitatively, thepertinent problem relating to two-word verbs quantification requires classification

The fact that most of two-word verbs are polysemous raises the questionwhether a two- word verb should be quantified as a whole or according to itsdifferent semantic meanings Instead of counting all instances of ‘come along’, forexample, this PV could be broken down into its different semantic constituentsand quantified as ‘happen, appear’, and ‘improve’, etc Several researchers say thequantification by semantic criteria is not feasible and that there are too many cases

in which the meaning of a two-word verb deviates from one of the variousdictionary meanings and where a clear-cut semantic differentiation is not possible.They quantify PVs as independent of inherent semantic differences, so that theycan set up the list of frequently used two-word verbs In the present study, two-word verbs are quantified according to their semantic criteria

The semantic analysis of some common English two- word verbs will bereported in this chapter As stated in previous sections, the study concentrates on

PVs and PreVs of ‘Come, Give, Go, Make’ and ‘Hear, See, Think’ They are

among the 12 most common lexical verbs that all occur over 1000 times permillion words in the LSWE Corpus (Biber et al., 1999), and listed in categories of

20 lexical verbs combines with eight adverbial particles to account for more thanone half of the 518, 923 PV occurrences identified in the megacorpus (Gardner &David, 2007) The first four are lexical verbs belonging to material processes Theremains are lexical verbs realizing mental processes However, two-word verbs of

a lexical verb, e.g ‘Come’, can still denoting both processes, e.g ‘Come around’:

'đến chơi’ (material process), and ‘đổi ý’ (mental process) Therefore, it would be

so complicated to arrange two-word verbs of all chosen verbs and their meanings

in one process at a time Instead, two-word verbs of seven selected verbs aredisplayed in seven separate tables, and put into separate columns named materialprocesses and mental processes which run parallel19 This makes it easier to seeand compare material processes and mental processes at the same time

3.1 COME

The single-word verb 'Come’ can go with 32 particles/ prepositions and

create 32 PVs and PreVs with hundreds meanings Among them, 26 (15 PVs and

11 PreVs) have meanings that denote material and/ or mental processes Three

19 The entire list of some common two-word verbs deriving from ‘Come ’, ‘Give ’, ‘Go ’, ‘Make

’, ‘Hear ’, ‘See ’, and ‘Think’ can be found in Appendixes.