A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in english and vietnamese = phân tích đối chiếu bổ ngữ trước của cụm danh từ trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

vinh university foreign language department=== === trịnh thị minh A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and vietnamese phân tích đối chiếu bổ ngữ trớc

vinh university foreign language department

=== ===

trịnh thị minh

A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun

phrases in English and vietnamese

(phân tích đối chiếu bổ ngữ trớc của cụm danh từ trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt )

encouragement The paper would not have been completed without her

direction, instruction, and especially the generous consultation

I would also like to say my thankfulness to my lecturers, especially Mrs.Cao ThÞ Ph¬ng at the Foreign language Department, Vinh University for herbooks, reference books, and graduation papers From those materials, I couldapproach to different sources of knowledge.

My thanks also go to 32 students from the course 47 of ForeignLanguage Department and pupils from Thanh Hoa Intern Ethenic HighSchool for their enthusiasm and participation in this study

I am also grateful to my family, my relatives, and my friends whocomforted me and helped me a lot My parents advised me to concentrate on

my study and supported me whenever I met some obstacles My friends lent

me lost of useful materials

In my opinion, learning is a long process in which the teachers play animportant role in helping students reach to the final study target I amindebted to the teachers of my university, especially my teachers of Foreignlanguage Department for their comprehensive lessons as well as theirencouragement

Finally, I wish to acknowledge to all

Finally, some suggestions are made for those who may be responsiblefor teaching English as a Foreign Language to younger pupils as well asadults, or to students at universities or colleges

E.g : For example Premo : premodification Postmo : postmodificationetc : et cetera

i.e : it means that

=> : entail

Table of contents

Page

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

Abbreviations iii

Table of contents iv

Part A: Introduction 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Design of the study 3

Part B: Development 4

Chaper 1: Theoretical Background 4

1.1 An overview on Contrastive analysis 4

1.2 Noun phrases in English 5

1.2.1 Definition 5

1.2.2 Parts of the noun phrases 6

1.3 Noun phrases in Vietnamese 9

1.3.1 Definition 9

1.3.2 Part of the noun phrases 9

Chapter 2: Premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 12

2.1 Premodification of noun phrases in English 12

2.1.1 Types of premodification items 12

2.1.2 Premodification by Adjectives 14

2.1.3 Premodification by Participles 14

2.1.4 Premodification by Genitive 15

2.1.5 Premodification by Genitives without Head 16

2.1.6 Premodification by Nouns 16

2.1.7 Multiple premodification 17

2.2 Premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese 18

2.2.1 The classifier c¸i 19

2.2.2 Quantity words 21

2.2.3 Fixed order Words 23

Chapter 3 A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese 25

3.1 Adjectives 26

3.2 Participles 29

3.3 Genitives 32

3.4 Nouns 33

3.5 Quantity 34

Chapter 4 Some suggestions for teaching english noun phrases to Vietnamese learners 36

4.1 Mistakes in using noun phrases 36

4.2 Suggestions to the problem 37

Part C: Conclusion 41

1 Concluding remarks 41

2 Suggestions for further studies 42

References 43

Appendix

Part A: introduction

1 Rationale of the study

English is the most popular language in the world It plays an important role in our social-economic life of human beings Indeed, in the minds of many people, there is no longer an issue They argue that English has already become a world knowledge by virtue of the political and economic progress made by English speaking nations in the past 200 years It is now the main language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and academic conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports, international competition, pop music and advertising

In order to speed up the country’s economy, and to improve living standards as soon as possible, it is very necessary for scientists, technicians and engineers to learn and acquire English so as to keep up date with the latest developments in technology taking place in the world Learning and teaching English, reading with comprehension or translating material from English into Vietnamese or vice versa, always create difficulties for learners particularly because of the differences between English and Vietnamese

There are differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar In order

to help learners acquire a better knowledge of English, it is of greatimportance to predict difficulties arising from the differences between thetwo languages and solve them

In English grammar, word combination in phrase is considered to be one

of the most difficult phenomena

For instance, they can not tell which of the following phrases is true orfalse

E.g The boy selling car“The boy selling car” ”

The boy who sells car“The boy selling car” ”

Noun phrase is one of the most important word groups carrying muchsemantic weight We ourselves sometimes make confusion in using Englishnoun phrases To Vietnamese, noun phrase is different In order todistinguish this issue, in this graduation thesis, we have decided to choose the

topic “The boy selling car”A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese” Through contrastive analysis, we can enrich our

knowledge about premodificaton of noun phrases in both languages in order

to help students learn English well

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

2 Aims of the study

The thesis targets to:

- Giving a systematical presentation of premodification of noun phrases

in English and Vietnamese

- Making a contrast between English and Vietnamese premodification ofnoun phrases and a part from that, find their similarities and differences

- Giving out some suggestions for teaching noun phrases to Vietnameselearners

3 Scope of the study

Noun phrase is an important and complicated part of English Grammar

in English Besides, due to constraints as well as the framework of agraduation thesis, it is impossible to touch all the differences and similarities

in syntactic structures In this study, we only mention some common features

of premodification of English and Vietnamese then a contrastive analysis ofEnglish and Vietnamese language

4 Methods of the study

With the aims above, in the course of writing paper, we have followedthe procedure below:

- Describing theoretical premises of premodification of noun phrases

- Collecting and classifying materials, analyzing and synthesizing allinformation about premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese

- Contrasting English premodification of noun phrases with those inVietnamese to find out the differences and similarities between them

5 Design of the study

Except for the acknowledgement, the abstract, the table of contents aswell as the references,appendix, this study consists of three parts

Part A entitled “The boy selling car”Introduction” outlines the background of the

Graduation Thesis In this part, we present some information about thereasons for choosing the subject, the aims, the scope, the methods and thedesign of the study

Part B entitled “The boy selling car”Development” includes four chapters Chapter 1 deals

with the theoretical background Chapter 2 is about Premodification of nounphrases in English and Vietnamese Chapter 3 gives out A contrastiveanalysis of Premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese.Chapter 4 provides Some suggestions for Teaching noun phrases toVietnamese learners

Part C entitled “The boy selling car”Conclusion” expresses a brief overview on the

achievements of the thesis and gives some suggestions for further studies

References

Appendix

Part B: development

Chapter 1 Theoretical Background

1.1 An overview on Contrastive analysis

Nowadays, the distances among countries are day by day shortened bythe development of technology and information and exchanges are greatlyincreasing, which lead to the demand for learning and teaching of foreignlanguages and interpretation

Contrastive Analysis (CA) is to compare two or more languagesregardless of whether they are related to each other and of course, to find outthe differences and similarities between them Thus, it plays an importantrole in translating, teaching and learning a foreign language

There are two kinds of CA: the contrast of languages and the contrast ofsigns The contrast of languages is comparing one language to another, ofwhich is the base and the other is the means of contrast This kind aims atfinding out their specific features The contrast of signs is the study on theinside relationships of languages such as categories, structural systems and

so on

In practice, CA has its usages as follows:

- The ability of discovering a great number of structural features ofcontrasted languages

- The ability of discovering the new interesting language phenomenawhich can not be recognized if not compared

Especially, by comparing the languages, CA can point out somesolutions to pedagogical problems as follows:

- Solving difficulties in all aspects of languages that the learners oftenencounter when they learn a foreign language

- Collecting and selecting materials for language teaching

- Establishing an appropriate order of materials for learning foreignlanguages

- Forming a system of effective methods for teaching and explaining thematerials

- Editing a system of suitable exercises and textbooks on foreignlanguages

1.2 Noun phrases in English

1.2.1 Definition

There are different definitions of noun phrases

As far as the noun phrase in English is concerned, it is defined byQuirk,R and other grammarians (1972:127) as follow:

The noun phrase is the element in the sentence which typically

“The boy selling car”

functions as subject, object and complement”.

What’s more, there are more definitions about noun phrases from other

grammarians such as: According to Jacobs (1995), noun phrases are word phrases which are used to refer to things people want to talk about Referring is important, speakers need to refer to people, objects, concepts, processes, and all kinds of entities, and noun phrases serve this function And Schmidt (1999) said that: A noun phrase is one or more words which we use in a sentence as subject, direct, indirect object, complement or as prepositional complement In addition to, In Quirk and Greenbaum’ viewpoint (1973), the complex noun phrases consist of three components: the head, the premodification, and the postmodification.

We see that there are many different attitudes about noun phrasesbecause this is studied from different aspects like: the function of nounphrases, role of noun phrases, or components of noun phrases However, alldefinitions include some common features such as components and theirrelationships of noun phrases

E.g (a-c) are noun phrases

a The pretty girl.

b The pretty girl in the corner.

c The pretty girl who is standing in the corner.

1.2.2 Parts of the noun phrases

A noun phrase is thus composed of three potential parts One of theseparts, the head, is generally obligatory; its presence is the minimalrequirement of the occurrence of a noun phrase The other two parts occuroptionally The head may be preceded by some pre-modification, and it may

be followed by some postmodification

E.g

- That old bus in the drive.

Premo Head Postmo

- The headmaster of the school.

Premo Head Postmo

- Each of the heavy glass doors of the building.

Premo Head Postmo

- The new secretary in this office.

Premo Head Postmo

- The very tall education consultant with the roving eye.

Premo Head Postmo

- The pretty girl in the corner who become angry because you waved

Premo Head Postmo

to her when you entered.

To describe noun phrases like those cited above, such as the subject of

“The boy selling car”is”, first of all we need to distinguish three component parts:

a The head

Like “The boy selling car”girl”, “The boy selling car”bus” in the above examples, around which dictates concord

and other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the nounphrases

Thus - The new dictionary on the table …is is

But - The new dictionaries on the table …is are

Similarly:

- He frightened the boy in the corner.

But not - He frightened the table in the corner.

b The premodification: comprises all the items placed before the

head-notably adjectives and nouns, determiners

E.g - The pretty girl

- Some pretty university girls

c The postmodification consists of all the items placed after the

head-notably prepositional phrases, non-finite clauses and relative clauses;

E.g - The girl in the corner (prepositional phrase)

- The girl standing in the corner (non-finite clause)

- The girl who stood in the corner (relative clause)

Another point we should mention before we deal with premodification

in English and Vietnamese in more details is that modification can be

restrictive or non-restrictive This means that the head of a noun phrase can

be viewed as a member of a class which can be linguistically identified only

through the modification that has been supplied (restrictive) Or the head can

be viewed as unique or as a member of a class that has been independentlyidentified This type of modification which just gives additional information

about such as a head and which is not essential for identifying is called restrictive.

non-E.g - Come and meet my beautiful girl friend.

The modification beautiful“The boy selling car” ” must be non-restrictive unless we imaginethat he is distinguishing her from another of his girl friends who is notbeautiful

Or - Mary Smith, who is upstairs, wants to see you.

“The boy selling car”Who is upstairs” is a non-restrictive clause because Mary Smith’s

identity is independent of whether or not she is upstairs, though theinformation on her location is useful enough In these two examples themodification is non-restrictive because the heads in the sentences are unique.Quirk, R and other grammarians (1973:377) have pointed out the value of thedistinction of non-restrictive and restrictive modification as follow:

First, modification at its most restrictive tends to come after the head: that is, our

“The boy selling car”

decision to use an item as a premodifier (such as silly in The silly boy got lost ) often“The boy selling car” ”

reflects our wish that it be taken for granted and not be interpreted as a specific identifier Secondly, restrictive modification tends to be given more prosodic emphasis than the head; non-restrictive modification, on the other hand, tends to be unstressed in pre-head position, while in post-head position, its parenthetic relation is endorsed by‘parenthetic’ relation is endorsed by ’

being given a separate tone unit, or in writing, by being enclosed by commas ”

1.3 Noun phrases in Vietnamese

1.3.1 Definition

In Vietnamese, when a noun is used to perform some functions in asentence, some modification is often added to form a phrase Such phrases inwhich there is a noun acting as a head are called noun phrases

To make more clearly, we give more defenitions from Vietnamese

grammarians: According to §ç ThÞ Kim Liªn: A noun phrase is combination

of words in which the noun is a central element and it has one or more subordinate elements around to supplement grammatical meanings to itself And in Lª Dòng’s viewpoint (2002), A noun phrase is a group of words in which the beginning is a noun and its function is appositive.

1.3.2 Part of the noun phrases

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

a The head, in the middle of a phrase

b Modification is divided into two parts:

PhÇn cuèiPostmodification

E.g 1 Ba ngêi nµy

Three people this(These three people)

E.g 2 C¶ hai tØnh nhá Êy

Both province small that(Both those small provinces)

E.g 3 TÊt c¶ nh÷ng c¸i chñ tr¬ng chÝnh x¸c

All classifier policy exact that(All exact policies)

These noun phrases consist of three parts In some cases, such phrasescan be seen to have only two parts:

a Those with premodification and the head

PhÇn ®Çu

Premodificatio

n

PhÇn trung t©mHead

(Three bowls of underdone soup)

d Those with premodification only

English and Vietnamese

2.1 Premodification of noun phrases in English

2.1.1 Types of premodification items

In English we see that lexical and grammatical items of a wide range ofcomplexity can precede a noun head to form a noun phrase Thepremodification, which comprises all the items placed before the head It can

be formed by:

a Predeterminers

- All, both, half

These prederterminers can occur only before articles or demonstraticesbut, since they are themselves quantifiers, they do not occur with the

following ‘parenthetic’ relation is endorsed byquantitatives’ determiners: every, (n)either, some, any, no, enough.

All, both, and half have of-constructions, which are optional with nouns

and obligatory with personal pronouns:

all (of) the meat all of it

both (of) the students both of (them)

half (of) the time half of it

- Double, twice, three/ four…timestimes

- One-third, two-fifths, etc

b Determiners

- Article: the, a, an

- Possessive adjectives: my, our, their, etc

- Interrogative pronouns: which,who, that, etc

- Demonstrative pronouns: this, that, etc

c Postdeterminers

- Cardinal numerals: Apart from one, which can co-occur only with

singular count nouns, all cardinal numerals (two, three, etc) co-occur onlywith plural count nouns:

E.gs He has one sister and three brothers

The two blue cars belong to me

- Ordinal numerals: except first, co-occur only with count nouns All

ordinals usually precede any cardinal numbers in the noun phrase:

E.g The first three planes were American

- Quantifiers

There are two small groups of closed-system quantifiers:

many, (a) few, and several co-occur only with plural count nouns: The few words he spoke were well chosen

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

There hasn t been much good weather recently’

Several is rarely (and much virtually never) preceded by a determiner, and in the case of few and little there is a possitive/negative contrast

according as the indefinite article is or is not used:

a few biscuits (=several)

few biscuits (=not many)

He took

a little butter (=some)

little butter (=not much)

d Adjective

E.g - I saw a handsome man.

e Participle

E.g - The boiling water

- The boiled water

E.g - I don t know ’ how many peolpe he asked.

Although there are a lot of above-mentioned premodification, weconcentrate on studying some following typical types:

2.1.2 Premodification by Adjectives

A premodifying adjective, especially when it is the first item after thedeterminer, can itself be premodified in the same way as it can in predicativeposition

E.g - Her really quite unbelievably delightful house.

- These two beautiful magazines.

There are cases where adjectives can be used as attribute only

E.g - An utter fool.

But not: - The fool is utter.

2.1.3 Premodification by Participles

a Present participle

This depends on the potentiality of the participle to indicate a permanent

or characteristic feature

E.g - He has a very interesting mind.

- Anne used the boiling water to make tea.

b Past participle

The past participle can be active or passive but the active is rarely used

in premodification Contrast

E.g The immigrant who has arrived

With * The arrived immigrant

E.g The vanished treasure (‘parenthetic’ relation is endorsed byThe treasure which has vanished’) and A retired teacher are exceptional, but exceptions are somewhat more general

when an active participle is adverbially modified:

E.g

- The newly-elected president

- The recently-made friend

Here belongs also “The boy selling car”born” and some uses of “The boy selling car”hidden”, “The boy selling car”married”,

“The boy selling car”troubled”, “The boy selling car”darkend”, ect, but in premodification, participles must either

have “The boy selling car”permanent” reference or be adverbially modified:

E.g - The teacher’s house

The sentence can be interpreted as:

- The house of the teacher

However, we should distinguish:

(a) These nasty women s clothing’

And (b) These women s nasty clothing’

Sentence (a) must mean The clothing of these nasty women“The boy selling car” ” and sentence

(b) means “The boy selling car”The nasty clothing of these women”

Or other ambiguous sentences such as

- An old woman s hat’

Contrast: - A woman s old hat’

2.1.5 Premodification by Genitives without Head

In English, there is a genitive premodification with the deletion of thehead especially when this denotes premises or establishment

E.g - I ll see you at ’ the dentist s ’

This refers to the dentist’s professional establishment and the sameapplies to proper names where they refer to commercial firms, somebody’splace or home.

E.g

- She got these medicines at the chemist s’ (=chemist’s shop)

- I ll see you at ’ Lan s ’ (= Lan’s house)

2.1.6 Premodification by Nouns

This type of premodification is so closely associated with the head as to

be regarded as a part of a compound noun

E.g

- The cupboard door

- His life story

- The war story

These phrases mean:

- The door of the cupboard

- The story of his life

- The story of war

But not all noun premodifiers have prepositional phrase analogues:

E.g - Mary Brown was both actor and producer (the actor-producer).

- As my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbor s’ (both fellow andservant)

Some features should be paid attention to here Plural nouns usuallybecome singular

E.g

- A chair with arms = An arm chair.

- The leg of the trousers = The trouser leg.

But singularization is by no means universal, especially with nounpremodification that is not hardening into a fixed phrase or compound

E.g The committee on promotions = The promotions committee

2.1.7 Multiple premodification

a With single head

More than one modification may be related to adjective single head.E.g - Her brilliant novel.

- Her last novel.

- His lucid, forceful remarks.

= Her last brilliant novel.

- His dirty but handsome face.

b With multiple heads

One modification applies to more than one head

E.g - The new hat

- The new dress

c With modified modifier

E.g - The nasty women s employer s’ ’ clothing

- The small office furniture

- The food price rise warning system

In short, the premodification of noun phrases in English consists ofvarious types These include adjective, participle, S-genetive, genetivewithout head, nouns and multiple premodification

2.2 Premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese

In the premodification of noun phrases in Vietnamese, there arefollowing types of modification

a Unit word c¸i“The boy selling car” ”

E.g C¸i cËu häc sinh Êy.

c Words denoting totality

E.g TÊt c¶ mÊy c¸i cËu häc sinh Êy.

1 2 3 4 5 6

All some classifier uncle pupil that

1 2 3 4 5 6

=>All those pupils

2.2.1 The classifier c¸i

= The new hat and dress.

It is used to express the individual, and it is in the position of head one.That is why it can be replaced by different classifiers, but these can not be

placed before c¸i This classifier is often placed before words denoting things

which belong to the same class It can not be, in this case, replaced by anyother word

E.g

- c¸i chiÕc bµn nµy: This table

- c¸i d·y bµn nµy: This row of tables The word c¸i can be placed before head 2 which denotes things only.

(determiner) is used as premodification, postmodification is necessary

E.g We can say:

C¸i cËu häc sinh nµy.

1 2 3 4

Classifier uncle pupil this

1 2 3 4

=>This pupil

*But we can not say:

C¸i cËu häc sinh.

1 2 3

Classifier uncle pupil

A table

bµn: A table ghÕ: A chair C¸i

ch©n: A leg tay : A hand

C¸i