A study into words, idioms denoting 'richness' and 'poorness' in enghish and their vietnamese equivalents

1.1.1.1.1 VINH UNIVERSITYFOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT NGUYỄN VĂN THIÊNG A STUDY INTO WORDS, IDIOMS DENOTING ‘RICHNESS’ AND ‘POORNESS’ IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS NGHIÊN CỨ

1.1.1.1.1 VINH UNIVERSITY

FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

NGUYỄN VĂN THIÊNG

A STUDY INTO WORDS, IDIOMS DENOTING ‘RICHNESS’ AND ‘POORNESS’ IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC TỪ VÀ THÀNH NGỮ TIẾNG ANH CHỈ SỰ GIÀU, NGHÈO VÀ SỰ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG CỦA CHÚNG TRONG

TIẾNG VIỆT)

GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: SEMANTICS

Vinh, 2010

Thanks to great supports from my lectures, my family and my friends, therefore

I could complete my thesis

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Vo Thi Hong Minh (M.A), who gave me valuable advice, guidance and suggestion in

process of my writing, without which my thesis would have still remaineduncompleted

I would also like too express my sincere thanks to all of my teachers in theForeign Language Department of Vinh University for their Lectures on the area, whichenable me to get a lot of theoretical as well as practical knowledge

Finally, I am very grateful to my parents and my friends who are always by myside in order to help and encourage me

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………. I

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… Ii

ABBREVIATIONS……… V

PART A : INTRODUCTION……… 1

1 Rationale to choosing the subject……… 1

2 Aims of the study……… 1

3 Subjects of the study……… 2

4 Methods of study……… 2

5 Design of the study……… 2

PART B : INVESTIGATION… 4

CHAPTER 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……… 4

1.1 Word……… 4

1.2 Word formation……… 4

1.2.1 Definition……… 4

1.2.2 Types of word formation……… 5

1.2.2.1 Inflection……… 5

1.2.2.2 Derivation ……… 6

1.2.2.3 Compounding ……… 6

1.3 Word meaning……… 6

1.3.1 Grammatical meaning……… 7

1.3.2 Lexical meaning……… 8

1.3.2.1 Denotation ……… 9

1.3.2.2 Connotation……… 9

1.4 Polysemy……… 10

1.5 Synonymy……… 11

1.5.1 Definition……… 11

1.5.2 Types of synonymy……… 11

1.6 Antonymy…… ……… 12

1.6.1 Definition……… 13

1.6.2 Classification……… 13

1.7 Collocation……… 14

1.8 Idioms……… 15

1.9Summary……… 16

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY INTO WORDS, IDIOMS DENOTING RICHNESS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS……… 17

2.1 Introduction……… 17

2.2 The investigation into the word ‘rich’……… 17

2.2.1 Grammatical Features of ‘rich’……… 17

2.2.1.1 Syntactic Function……… 17

2.2.1.2 Morphological features……… 18

2.2.2 Semantics of ‘ rich’……… 19

2.2.2.1 Having a lot of money……… 19

2.2.2.2 Yielding large returns productive or fertile……… 20

2.2.2.3 Having an abundant supply……… 20

2.3 The investigation into other words denoting ‘richness’……… 21

2.3.1 Adjectives denoting richness (ADRs)……… 21

2.3.1.1 Having a lot of money……… 21

2.3.1.2 Having a lot abundant supply……… 24

2.3.2 Nouns Denoting Richness (NDRs)……… 26

2.3.3 Verbs Denoting Richness (VDRs)……… 31

2.4 Idioms denoting richness (IDRs)……… 32

2.5Summary……… 33

CHAPTER 3: THE STUDY INTO WORDS , IDIOMS DENOTING POORNESS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS……… 35

3.1 Introduction……… 35

3.2 The investigation into the word ‘poor’……… 35

3.2.1 Grammatical features of ‘poor’……… 35

3.2.1.1 Syntactic functions……… 35

3.2.1.2 Morphological features……… 36

3.2.2 Semantics of ‘poor’……… 37

3.2.2.1 Lacking the money……… 37

3.2.2.2 Lacking resources or the means of subsistence……… 38

3.3 The investigation into other words denoting ‘poorness’……… 38

3.3.1 Adjectives denoting ‘poorness’ (ADPS)……… 38

3.3.1.1 Lacking the money……… 39

3.3.1.2 Lacking resources or the means of subsistence……… 40

3.3.2 Nouns denoting poorness (NDPs)……… 43

3.3.3 Verbs denoting poorness (VDPs)……… 46

3.4 Idioms denoting poorness (IDPs)……… 48

3.5 Summary……… 48

PART C : CONCLUSION… ……… 50

1.Recapitulation……… 50

2 Implications of the study ……… 51

2.1 To EFL teaching and learning……… 52

2.2 To translation from English into Vietnamese and vice versa……… 52

3.Suggestions for further studies……… 53

REFERENCES……… 54

APPENDIX………. 56

adj : adjective

adv : adverb

ADRs : Adjectives denoting richness

ADPs : Adjectives denoting poorness

EFL : English as a Foreign Language

E.g : For example

IDRs : Idioms Denoting Richness

IDPs : Idioms Denoting Poorness

n : noun

NDRs : Nouns denoting richness

NDPs : Nouns denoting poorness

v : verb

VDPs : Verbs denoting poorness

VDRs : Verbs denoting richness

E-V DICT: English – Vietnamese Dictionary

WDRs: Words Denoting Richness

WDPs : Words Denoting Poorness

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of choosing the subject

English has become the world’s global language Around one in five of theworld’s population speaks English, and English has become the language of international commerce, popular culture and the internet English has played a veryimportant role in bringing people from different countries closer and closer, thusyielding great mutual understanding

The vocabulary of English consists of several hundred thousand words, and without an extensive English vocabulary, communication in English just can not occur

in a meaningful way In addition, a good understanding of English is essential for the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language In fact, the status of vocabulary

on a curriculum has been considerably entranced, partly as a result of the development

of the communicative approaches to language teaching and partly through the stimulus

of comprehension based methods

Also, with respect to the translation work from English into Vietnamese or fromVietnamese to English, the author believes that the choice of English words is crucialvalue for creating equivalence on the translation The translators are primarilyconcerned with communicating the overall meaning of a stretch of language Toachieve this, they need start by decoding the units and structures which carry themeaning, of which the words are the smallest units that can stand on their own andpossess individual meanings

Together with the importance of vocabulary in communication, languageteaching and learning and translation, one more reason for the research is that

‘richness’ and ‘poorness’ are the popular daily topics and maybe expressed indifferent ways so the author would like to find out the ways of the English WDRs andWDPs in using in particular situation

The above reason has inspired us to choose the subject entitled “ A study into words, idioms denoting ‘richness’, ‘poorness’ and their Vietnamese equivalents”.

2 Aims of the study

The first aim of this study is to provide readers, especially English learners,with fundamental understandings about real-life using of words, idioms denoting

The second aim is to study the meanings of words, idioms in English and theirVietnamese equivalents.

The third aim is that through this study, we do hope to be able to offer somepossible types of exercises to improve the learners’ understanding and using words,idioms referring to ‘richness’ and ‘poorness’

3 Subjects of the study

a Words, idioms

b English words, idioms denoting richness and poorness

c Their Vietnamese equivalents

4 Methods of study

To achieve the above-mentioned aims, the author uses following methods:

- Collecting words, idioms referring to richness and poorness in English from differentdictionaries and then sorting them out

- Searching, reading and reviewing books, materials related to the study

- Classifying words, idioms according to their semantic features using systematic method

- Giving some applications and suggesting a number of exercises

5 Design of the study.

The study consists of three main parts:

word-Vietnamese equivalents’” are concerned with the grammatical features includingsyntactic functions and morphological features; the semantic structures of ‘rich’ and

‘poor’ contain in chapter 2 and 3 The idioms denoting ‘richness’ and ‘poorness’ andtheir Vietnamese equivalents are also provided in chapter 2,3

Part C: Conclusion

In this part, the author provides the recapitulation, implications of the study to EFLteaching/ learning and to translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa andsome suggestions for further studies

A word has been syntactically defined as “a minimum free sentence” byBloomfield (1933 : 178, quoted in Van Lam 2002 : 7)

According to Arnold (1986), “the word has many different aspects It has a soundform because it is a certain arrangement of morphemes, it has its morphologicalstructure, being also a certain arrangement of morphemes, when used in actual speech,and it may occur in different word forms, different syntactic functions and signalvarious meanings”

The definition that seems to be the most satisfactory is as in Hoang Tat Truong(1993 :11), stating that “A word is a dialectal unity of form and concept, independent

units of language to form a sentence by itself”, for example, book, bookish, unlucky, run, go, white - wash, etc.

1.2 Word formation

1.2.1 Definition

According to Hoang Tat Truong (1993: 15), “word–formation is the process ofbuilding new words from the material already existing in the language according tocertain structural and semantic patterns and formulate.”

“Word formation is that branch of the science of language which studies the pattern onwhich a language forms new lexical units, i.e words Word formation can only beconcerned with composites, which are analyzing both formally and semantically.”

(Marchand, 1969: 2)The subject matter of word-formation is of course not simple words but theones that are analyzable structurally and semantically

There are some types of word formation such as compounding, shortening, borrowing,conversion, etc

1.2.2 Types of word formation

According to Hoang Tat Truong (1993:14), morpheme can be divided into twotypes: root morpheme and affixational morpheme The root morpheme is also calledthe lexical morpheme or simply the root It is the primary element of the word andconveys its essential lexical meaning He also states that “root morpheme are, ingeneral, free morphemes because they can function independently” Affixationalmorpheme falls into two types: inflectional and derivational morphemes We willdiscuss these types in turn:

1.2.2.1 Inflection

According to Nguyen Thi Van Lam (2002:13), “inflectional morpheme help toproduce from the root of a given lexeme all the word-forms of that lexeme, with aresyntactically determined.”

“Inflection is a general grammatical process which combines words and inflectionalaffixes (always suffixes in English) to produce alternative grammatical forms ofwords

There are some characteristics of inflection, which can be attached to adjective

and some adverbs (-er; comparative, and – est; superlative), nouns (-s; plural and-’s: possessive), verbs (-s: third person present singular, -ing: present participle, -ed: past tense and-ed/ -en: past participle) One of most important characteristics of inflectional

suffixes is that they tend to lend themselves to paradigms that apply to the language asbellow:

Base form Stem + plural Stem + possessive Plural + possessive

Adjectives :

Base form stem + comparative stem + superlative

Verbs:

Base form Stem + third person Stem + progressive Stem + part participle

E.g Rich (adj) – richness (n)

Poor (adj) – poorness ( n)

However, the addition of derivational morphemes sometimes does not result in

a grammatical change

E.g Like (v) – dislike (v)

Happy (adj) – unhappy (adj)

Secondly, they are inner with respect to inflections, so that if derivations andinflections co-occur, derivations are inner, closer to the stem and inflections are outer.E.g dirtied = dirt (base form) + y (derivation) + ed (inflection)

Finally, they typically occur with only some members of word class, i.e a derivation can be only added to some word of the same word class

1.2.2.3 Compounding

Another very productive word- formation process in English is compounding It is the formation of compound words which consist of a least two roots, with or without

Hoang Tat Truong (1993: 28) states “compounding or word-composition is the building of a new word by joining two or more words A compound word (or just

“compound” for short) is therefore a word that consists of at least two root morphemes” For example, the compound hand- wash is formed by joining the two roots hand and wash, or goal- keeper is formed by joining the two roots goal and keep and a derivational morpheme – er.

In other words, compound, compounding, or word- compounding occurs when aperson attaches two or more words together to make them work as one word Themeanings of the words interrelate in such a way that a new meaning comes out which

is very different from the meaning of the words in isolation

We can see clearly a compound word by the joke :

Patient: They tell me, you are a perfect lady- killer

Doctor: oh, no, no! I assure you, my dear madam, I make no distinctionbetween the sexes

(Quoted in Nguyen Manh Hung, 2006: 36)

Inflection, derivation and compounding are the productive word-formationprocesses of the English vocabulary Apart from them, there are some others such asborrowing, blending and acronyms, which are not dealt with here The focus of thenext section is, therefore, word meaning

1.3 Word meaning

In Nguyen Hoa (2004), “words are regarded as the smallest indivisiblemeaningful units of a language which can operate independently It is generally agreedthat the words, phrases and sentences of language have meanings”

In this section, word-meaning is focused There are two types of meaning:grammatical and lexical meaning We shall deal with two types in the next section

1.3.1 Grammatical meaning

“A lexeme may have different word-forms and these word-forms will generallydiffer in meaning: their grammatical meaning-the meaning in term of grammar.”

(Lyons, 1977:52)

For example, the forms of boy and boys differ in respect of their grammatical

meaning, in that one is the singular form (of a noun of a particular class) and the other

is plural form (of a noun of a particular class); and the difference between singularforms and plural forms is semantically relevant: it affects sentence-meaning Themeaning of a sentence is determined partly by the meaning of the words of which itconsists and partly by it grammatical meaning

According to Nguyen Thi Van Lam (2002:16), “all lexemes with full word-formshave a grammatical, more particularly a categorical, meaning.”

For example, the lexemes ‘wealthy’ and ‘propertied’ have the same categoricalmeaning: they are both adjectives The two word-forms ‘wealthy’ and ‘wealthier’ ofthe lexeme ‘wealth’, though sharing some part of their categorical meaning, differgrammatically in that: one is the absolute form and the other the comparative form

‘Wealthy’ and ‘propertied’ belong to the same category of adjective, having the samecategorical meaning They do not share all the grammatical features Thus, all thelexemes sharing categorical meaning do not have all the grammatical meanings

Student – student’s – students – students’

Go – goes – went – gone – going

(Hoang Tat Truong, 1993 : 53)

He also claims that objects, actions, qualities etc, are called notional wordsbecause their lexical meaning is clear The words whose prevailing meaning isgrammatical are called functional words They are particles articles, preposition etc

The lexical meaning of a lexeme, therefore, may be analyzed into descriptiveand non-descriptive meaning The following sections are dealing with denotation asdescriptive meaning and connotation as non-descriptive meaning

1.3.2.2 Connotation

According to Hoang Tat Truong (1993), “The connotational meaning shows ushow things, concepts etc are indicated (denoted) It conveys the speaker’s attitude,emotions and so on”

He also claims that the same denotational meaning but different connotationalmeaning

For example, ‘father’, ‘dad’, ‘daddy’ which have the same denotational meaningdenote the male parent but different connotational meaning

Connotation may consist of emotive charge (emotion), evaluation, intensity, andstylistic colouring Part of the connotation of a lexeme is its expressive meaning,(sometimes called emotive, attitudinal, or affective meaning), which communicates thespeaker’ evaluation or their attitudes

For example, with the positive connotation of friendship and loyalty, the word

‘dog’ is accepted in British culture while it is not in Arabic with negative connotation:dirty and inferiority Or having the same descriptive meaning, but ‘whine’communicates the speaker’s annoyance when complaining while ‘complain’ does not.Thus, the same word or same meaning may have different expression

Connotation plays an important role in such spheres of life as advertising, politics,literature Many synonyms differ greatly due to their favorable and unfavorableconnotations

For example, ‘cheap’ and ‘inexpensive’ have similar meaning, but they usually use

‘inexpensive’ instead of ‘cheap’ in advertising because ‘cheap’ has some connotation

of poor quality This aspect will be discussed in the next chapter of WDRs and WDPs

So, connotation can be considered as an additional meaning to denotation

1.4 Polysemy

“The majority of English vocabulary is polysemantic (having more than onemeaning)”

(Hoang Tat Truong, 1993 : 59)

Not only do different lexemes have different senses; it is also the case that thesame lexeme may have a set of senses This is polysemy and such a lexeme ispolysemous Polysemy is a property of single lexeme, which is characteristic of mostlexeme in English As Nguyen Manh Hung (2006: 50) affirmed that “most Englishwords are polysemantic It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of alanguage largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in thelanguage.”

For example, the adjective ‘poor’ is treated in standard English dictionaries as a single lexeme with several distinguishable senses:

 “lacking excellence or worth, below average, inferior, bad”,

 “lacking material possessions; having little or no means to support oneself”,

 “lacking abundant; scanty”,

 “lacking in some quality or thing”,

 “lacking pleasure, comfort, or satisfaction”, etc

The lexeme ‘poor’ is thus polysemous At a certain stage of language developmentthe production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemybecomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary.Hoang Tat Truong (1993) states that “all the meaning of a word (either primary orsecondary) form its semantic structure” He also points out the more common theword, is the more meanings it has The more frequently the word is used the morevariants it has to form its semantic structure

Yet, the general tendency with English vocabulary at the modern stage of its history is

to increase the total number of its meaning and in this way to provide for a quantitativeand qualitative growth of the language’s expressive resources

1.5 Synonymy

1.5.1 Definition

One of the substitutional sense-relations is synonymy- the “ sameness of meaning”between two or more lexemes or expressions

In the discussion of synonymy, Nguyen Manh Hung (2006:71) defined that

“synonymy are words which belong to the same part of speech and possess one ormore identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in somecontexts”

According to Hoang Tat Truong (1993:72), “synonyms are phonetically andmorphologically different words belonging to same part of speech, possessing similardenotation but differing in connotation, combinability etc”

In the discussion of synonymy, Lyons (1995:60, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam,2002:23) claims that the relations of synonymy are not restricted to lexemes, but it ispossible that lexically simple expressions and lexically complex ones may have thesame meaning

Thus, synonymy can be seen as the different words which belong to same part ofspeech and have the same meaning For example:

“I have always liked you very much, I admire your talent, but, forgive me, - I could never love you as a wife should love her husband.”

V Halt (quoted in Nguyen Manh Hung 2006: 71)

In above example, a young man rejects a proposal of marriage, the verbs like, admire and love, all describe feelings of attraction, fondness.

Similarly, ‘to help’, ‘to aid’, ‘to assist’, ‘to succor’ usually stay in such a

synonymic group There is a synonymic dominant which is the most general, neutral

word The synonymic here is ‘to help’”

Ideographic synonyms are words which convey the same notion but differ inshades of meaning Stylistic synonyms are different in stylistic characteristic Absolutesynonyms coincide in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylisticcharacteristics.

Nguyen Manh Hung (2006) claims that “it seems not to be necessary to includeabsolute synonyms, which are a temporary exception, in the system of classification”.Because, absolute synonyms are rare in the vocabulary and, on the diachronic level,the phenomenon of absolute synonym is anomalous and consequently temporary: thevocabulary system invariably tends to abolish it either by rejecting one of the absolutesynonyms or by developing differentiation characteristics in one or both of them

He also expresses absolutely synonymous according to three conditions:

Firstly, all their meanings are identical

Secondly, they are synonymous in all contexts

Finally, they are semantically equivalent (i.e., their meaning or meanings are identical) on all dimensions of meaning, descriptive and non- descriptive.

Although absolute synonyms of this type are almost non-existent in English, wemay find more English words that have identical meanings which maybe are notsynonymous in all of their meanings, but maybe to meet the first condition of absolutesynonyms They are called partial synonyms

“Partial synonyms meet the criterion of identity of meaning; but fail to meet theconditions of what is generally referred to as absolute synonymy.”

( Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002:24)

Lyons (1995: 60, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 23), distinguishes synonymy from absolute and partial, or non-absolute, synonymy Near-synonyms areexpressions that are more or les similar, but not identical in meaning Near – synonymsmay be found in many dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms

near-Because there exist no absolute synonyms in English, the study focuses on partialsynonyms (descriptive, cognitive or propositional synonyms)

In the contrast with the synonymy, the term of antonymy will be discussed in the next section

1.6 Antonymy

Another kind of substitutional sense-relations is antonymy- the standardtechnical term for the ‘oppositeness of meaning’

(Hoang Tat Truong, 1993:76)

As the definition of Hoang Tat Truong (1993), the term antonyms are used to indicatewords of the same category of parts of speech that have contrasting meanings

For examples: In – out here – there

Thin – fat big – small

(Nguyen Manh Hung, 2006:97)

More clearly, Hoang Tat Truong (1993) states that “root-word antonyms arealso called antonyms proper or absolute antonyms but in our opinion these terms areinaccurate and misleading”

For example: old – young

War – peace Give – take

(Hoang Tat Truong, 1993:77)

The second type, derivational antonyms is definited “as words formed byderivation (words of the same roots)”

For example: like – dislike

Useful – useless

(Hoang Tat Truong, 1993:77)

As the example above, we can see that ‘like’ is a word as a root and ‘dislike’ is combined by a root ‘like’ and an affix – dis In the same way, ‘useful’ and ‘useless’ are combined by the same root ‘ use’ and suffix – ful and – less.

In conclusion, we have discussed synonymy and antonymy – two of thesubstitutional sense – relations holding between lexemes These sense – relations can

be found in the same semantic or lexical field

For example:

“white paint’: is common enough to say, but ‘white milk’ : is not , though milk is white”.

(Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 28)

From above definitions, we can see a collocation is two or more words that often

go together These combinations just sound “right” to native English speakers, whouse them all the time On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and justsound “wrong”

Collocative meaning comprises the associations a word acquires by virtue of themeanings of words which are likely to occur in its environment

“every lexeme can be said to have a collocational range which refers to the set ofcollocation or other words typically associated with the word in question”

Baker (1992 :49, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 28)

According to Beckman and Callow (1974, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam 2002:29), there are two factors that can influence the collocational range of a word They are

‘its level of specificity’ and ‘the number of senses the word has’

The first factor, as Nguyen Thi Van Lam (2002), is the more general a lexeme is, thebroader its collocational range; the more specific it is, the more restricted itscollocational range.

For example: ‘bury’ can collocates with ‘people’, ‘a treasure’, ‘one’s head’,

‘feelings’, and ‘memories’ However, ‘inter’ only can collocates with ‘people’ only

(Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 29)

In the second one, the word tends to attract a different set for each sense

For example: ‘run’ can collocate with ‘company’, ‘institution’, and ‘business’ in its sense of “manage” It collocates with ‘service’ and ‘course’ in its sense of “operate and provide”

(Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002:29)

Collocation, which can be predicted from the meaning of individual lexemes,involves the associations of ideas, and the meaning of the entire expression

In brief, it can be said that “collocation can be unrestricted with a wide

collocational range, but restricted with a limited collocational range”

1.8 Idioms

Hoang Tat Truong (1993:97) argued that idioms are set expressions or shortsaying They are usually characterized by the fact that their meaning cannot easily bededuced from their components He also said that the idioms which are not

“instructive, moral” in nature are constructions peculiar to a language

Although idioms are considered as a special kind of collocation, the meaning of anidiom cannot be deduced from the meaning of its constituents

Lyons (1977, 1981, and 1995, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 29) alsotreats idioms as phrasal lexemes with their peculiar meaning, formally identical withthe lexically composite phrases formed by the grammatical rules of a language

For example: Give way; in order to…

Kick the bucketLet the cat out of the bag

(Hoang Tat Truong, 1993: 98)

From an idiom above “kick the bucket”, it is the collocation of ‘kick’ and ‘thebucket’, and its meaning is “die” It is very clear that it is not systematicallydeterminable from the meanings of the ‘kick’ and ‘the bucket’.

“An idiom is ‘lexically complex’, consisting of more than one lexicalconstituent, and ‘semantically simple, a single minimal semantic constituent An idiom

is distinguished from a collocation; for a collocation is a sequence of lexical itemswhich habitually co-occur and each lexical constituent of a collocation is a semanticconstituent”

Cruse (1986: 37, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 30)

Idioms are composed of more than one word: their constituents show to someextent the sort of internal cohesion and re-ordering of its constituents, they displaytheir status as phrase in various ways While words can have more functions, idioms

do not

“An idiom is semantically like a word, but it does not function like words”

Palmer (1981, quoted in Nguyen Thi Van Lam, 2002: 30)

For example, word can have grammatical function and can be inflected Idioms,

however, do not accept the inflected, e.g.: the bag in “Let the cat out of the bag” cannot be inflected with –s (plural) to make the new idiom “Let the cat out of the bags”.

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY INTO WORDS, IDIOMS

DENOTING ‘RICHNESS’ AND THEIR VIETNAMESE

EQUIVALENTS

2.1 Introduction

“Richness” which is focused in this study is on the grammatical features andsemantic structures of the English Words and Idioms denoting richness and theirVietnamese equivalents

We shall deal with 18 words The words are classified according to their parts ofspeech:

 Adjectives: Rich, wealthy, affluent, prosperous, well-off, abundant, copious,ample, plentiful;

 Nouns: wealth, affluence, prosperity, money, fortune, millionaire

 Verbs: Enrich, prosper

These words belong to a semantic field denoting ‘richness’ and have beencollected on the several dictionaries

In this chapter, the author shall first deal with features of “rich” in term of thegrammatical functions and morphological structures, semantics

2.2 The investigation into the word ‘rich’

2.2.1 Grammatical Features of ‘Rich’

2.2.1.1 Syntactic Function

‘Rich’ is a typical adjective, sharing the following syntactic functions ofadjective as follows:

(a) The head of an adjectival phrase, pre-modified by such intensifiers of degree as

‘very’, ‘so’, ‘too’, ‘extremely’, as in:

You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade

(Albert Camud, quoted in Nhan van 2009)

(b) Attributive as pre-modifier in a noun phrase, as in:

Bill Gates is a very rich man to day…and do you want to know why?

(Dave Barry, quoted in Dung Hanh 1998)

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

(Bible: St Matthew)

(c) Predicative as Subject complement with such verbs as ‘be’, ‘become’, ‘get’, as in:

“You can get rich making fun of me I know I’ve made lots of money making fun of me.”

(Glenn Beck, quoted in Dung Hanh 1998)

(d) Object complement, as in:

“Content makes poor men rich, discontent makes rich men poor.”

(Benjamin Franklin, quoted in Nhan Van2009)

When ‘rich’ plays the predicative function, it can take complementation types

of prepositional phrases with ‘ in’, as in:

Oranges are rich in vitamin C

(E-V Dict P.1474)

Also, it has comparison structures of:

Equality:

“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”

(William Shakespeare, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

Comparative:

“There’s always somebody older, richer, more desperate than you.”

(Kirstie Alley, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

Superlative:

“As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.”

(Victor Hugo, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

“Every morning, I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America If I’m not there, I go to work.”

(Robert Orben, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

2.2.1.2 Morphological Features

The lexeme ‘rich’ consists of one morpheme as a root It has two inflected forms: ‘richer’ (comparative) and ‘richest’ ( superlative) by means of inflection; and

word-three derivatives ‘richness’(n), ‘ riches’ ( n), ‘ richly’ ( adv), by means of derivation andsuch compounds as ‘ filthy rich’ (adj), ‘stinking rich’ (adj), ‘ eco-rich’ (adj), ‘roll-in-riches’ (v), ‘wallow-in-riches’(v), by means of compounding ‘Filthy rich’ consists of

two roots: filthy and rich; ‘ stinking rich’ two roots stinking and rich and suffix –ing and

it is informal; ‘ eco-rich’ two roots eco and rich; ‘ roll-in-riches’ three roots roll, in, rich and a suffix –es; ‘ wallow in riches’ three roots wallow, in, rich and a suffix- es;

2.2.2 Semantics of ‘rich’

Semantically, ‘rich’ is a polysemous word, having at least three senses:

(a) Having a lot of money

(b) Yielding large returns, productive or fertile

(c) Having an abundant supply

2.2.2.1 Having a lot of money

‘Rich’ in this sense usually means having a lot of money For example:

America is a rich country

( Mỹ là một nước giàu)

(E-V dict P 1474)

This sense of ‘rich’ is commonly used not only in daily life but in literacy work

as well

In this sense, it is descriptively synonymous with ‘ wealth’, ‘prosperous’, ‘affluent’,

‘opulent’, ‘well-off’, ‘ well-heeded’, ‘moneyed’, which will be discussed in thefollowing section, whereas it is antonymous with ‘ poor’, which will be also discussed

in the following chapter As ‘rich’ denotes the meaning of having a lot of money, itcan collocate with nouns denoting people or thing, etc e.g ‘ man’, ‘ country’, etc., asin:

“Taxes are important President Bush’s tax proposals leave no rich person behind.”

( Thuế rất quan trọng Tổng thống Bush đề xuất không loại trừ người giàu ở phía sau.)

( Andy Rooney, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

If you can actually count your money, then you’re not a rich man

( Nếu anh thưc sự có thể đếm được số tiền mình có, anh không phải là người giàu)

(J Paul Getty, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

In this sense, its Vietnamese equivalent is “giàu” The following are some more

illustrations

The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it The boy asked in flat

voice, “ lady….are you rich?”

“Am I rich? Mercy, no” I looked at my shabby slipcovers

(Cụ bộ đang cầm chiếc tỏch đó uống cạn trờn tay, ngắm nhỡn một cỏch say mờ Cậu bộ

đi cựng rụt rố: “ Thưa cụ, cụ giàu cú phải khụng ạ?”

“Cụ giàu cú ư? Khụng, khụng đõu chỏu ạ!” Vừa núi, tụi vừa ngao ngỏn nhỡn tấm khăn trải bàn đó sờn cũ của mỡnh.)

http:// www.Vnsay.com/hoctienganh/

"I, too, am rich!I am worth two hundred thousand francs."

(Ta đõy cũng giàu cú Ta cú hai trăm ngàn quan.).

( http://www.vnsay.com/hoctienganh/thread-26508.html )

2.2.2.2 Yielding large returns productive or fertile

In the second sense, ‘rich’ means ‘productive or fertile’

Rich soil: đất giàu khụng cú khoảng sản.

Rich supply of idea: ý kiến phong phỳ.

Rich display of talent: phụ bày tài năng dồi dào.

(E-Vdict P.1474)

Exchange unsuitable pond soil rich in nutrients suitable with pond substrates

(Thay đổi đất giàu chất dinh dưỡng ở ao không phù hợp với nền ao ).

The rivers of Devon and Cornwall are rich in metal minerals mainly washed down from the high moorlands of the area

( Các dòng sông của Devon và Cornwall rất giàu khoáng sản kim loại, chủ yếu tràn xuống từ vùng thợng nguồn).

As the examples above, Vietnamese equivalents of ‘rich” are “giàu, phong phỳ, dồi dào”

2.2.2.3 Having an abundant supply

‘Rich’, in this sense, normally goes with preposition ‘in’ and its Vietnamese equivalents are “phong phú”, “giàu”, as in:

The baroque style is rich in ornament

(Phong cách Barốc phong phú về trang trí).

A play rich in humour

(một vở kịch giàu tính hài hước)

Soil rich in mineral

2.3 The investigation into other words denoting ‘richness’

In this section, other WDRs, apart from ‘rich’ and its derivatives, are explored

in terms of grammar (syntactic functions and morphological features) and semantics(lexical meaning, synonyms, collocations of which the WDRs is a component) Theauthor shall deal with the adjectives first, and then the nouns, verbs respectively

2.3.1 Adjectives denoting richness (ADRs)

The adjectives denoting richness are sub-classified, on the degree of expression

of pleasure they denote, into two groups:

(1) Having a lot of money : ‘wealthy’, ‘Prosperous’, ‘Affluent’, ‘Well-off’(2) Having a lot of abundant supply: ‘Abundant’, ‘Plentiful’, ‘Copious’,

2.3.1.1 Having a lot of money

The adjectives denote an expression of possessions that people have, but they differ

in degree and usage They can be modified by such intensifier of degree as ‘very’, ‘so’,

‘extremely’,etc

 ‘Wealthy’

‘Wealthy’ shares the syntactic functions of adjectives denoting the possessing greatmaterial wealth Morphologically, it consists of two morphemes, the root wealth andsuffix-y It has two inflected word-forms for comparative ‘wealthier’ and superlative

‘wealthiest’ by means of inflections It has three derivatives: ‘wealthiness’ (n),

‘wealthily’ (adv), ‘unwealthy’ (adj)

Semantically, ‘wealthy’ is a polysemous word and it has two senses:

The first sense of ‘wealthy’ is well supplied with wealth, property, minerals, etc, as in:

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

( Ngủ sớm, thức dậy sớm, làm cho con người khoẻ mạnh, giàu có và khôn ngoan.)

(Benjamin Franklin, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

In this sense, its Vietnamese equivalent is “giàu có” This meaning will be shown clearly below:

How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing insavings accounts? I rest my case

( Ngoại trừ tôi, có bao nhiêu tỷ phú bạn biết đã trở nên giàu có nhờ đầu tư vào tài khoản tiết kiệm.)

(Robert G Allen, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

‘Wealthy’ in the second sense collocates with nouns, e.g:

All my life, I’ve been prejudiced against wealthy people

(Suốt đời mình, tôi đã có thành kiến với người giàu có)

(Ethel waters, quoted in Nhan van 2009)

For the fifth year in a row, the Bush budget cuts city services to pay for wealthytax breaks

(Trong năm năm liên tiếp, tổng thống Bush đã cắt giảm ngân sách trong các nghành dịch vụ chính để trả cho khoản thuế giàu có.)

(Voanews.com)

As the example above, ‘wealthy’ in the second sense also has the Vietnameseequivalent “giàu có”

 Prosperous

‘Prosperous’ share the syntactic functions of adjectives denoting richness.Morphologically, it consists of two morphemes, the root prosper and suffix – ous Unlike ‘rich’, it does not have inflection for comparative and superlative forms.However, it has very productive root prosper, and has two derivatives: ‘ prosperously’( adv), ‘ prosperousness’ ( n)

Semantically, ‘prosperous’ is polysemous, used formally, informally and inliterature In this section, the author only discuss about the meaning of having a lot ofmoney, as in:

“A free and prosperous Irag will be a major blow to the terrorists and their desire toestablish a safe haven in Irag where they can plan an plot attacks”

( Một Irag tự do và thịnh vượng sẽ là một động lực chính cho bọn khủng bố và mong muốn thiết lập một chỗ ẩn náu an toàn tại Irag, nơi họ lập âm mưu tấn công.)

( Scott Mcclellan, quoted in Nhan Van 2009)

“China is more prosperous than before The people have better lives but they are not happy and confident because the scars are still there”

( Trung quốc thịnh vượng hơn trước Người dân có cuộc sống tôt hơn nhưng họ cảm thấy không hài long và tự tin vì những vết thương vẫn còn đó.)

( Jung Chang, quoted in DungHanh 1998)

As above examples, Vietnamese equivalent of ‘prosperous’ is “ thịnh vượng”

 Affluent

‘Affluent’ shares the syntactic function of adjectives denoting the means of having

a lot of money Morphologically, it consist of three morphemes, the root flu and an

affix – af, a suffix – ent; Unlike ‘ rich’, it does not have inflection for comparative andsuperlative forms

However, it has a root ‘flu’ and one derivative ‘ affluently’.

Semantically, ‘affluent’ has means of having a lot of money and its Vietnamese

equivalent is “ thịnh vượng”, “ sung túc”, as in:

His parents were very affluent

(Bố mẹ anh ta rất sung túc)

(E-v dict p 28)

 Well-off

‘Well- off’ shares the syntactic functions of adjectives denoting ‘ richness’

Morphologically, it does not inflect for comparative and superlative form It is

combined by two roots ‘well’ and ‘ –off’ In terms of semantics, ‘well- off’ has the

same descriptive meaning as ‘affluent’, thus, being its descriptive synonym So, itsVietnamese equivalent is “sung túc”, like “affluent”, as in:

His family is not very well off

( Gia đình anh ta không được sung túc lắm).

(E-V dict.p 1980)

2.3.1.2 Having a lot of abundant supply

All the adjectives discussed here denote the meaning of having an abundant supply

A land abundant in minerals.

When ‘abundant’ modifies a noun, its Vietnamese equivalents are “dồi dào”, “phongphỳ”, as in:

There they will again know his abundant blessings

(ở đú, một lần nữa họ sẽ biết đến tỡnh thương dồi dào của ngài).

(Kinh thỏnh, Ezekiel,34) The picturesque garden leads down to an attractive woodland which is abundant

with wild flowers making it a heaven for wild life

( Những khu vờn đẹp nh tranh dẫn xuống khu rừng hấp dẫn; phong phú với nhiều loại hoa dại, tạo nên một thiên đờng trong đời sống hoang dó) ( http://www.yourdictionary.com/examples/abundant)

It was not so, however, at that period, the Lord was keeping abundant mercy for him ( Thực không phải vậy, tuy nhiên, tại thời điểm đó, Chúa đã luôn giữ lòng nhân từ dồi dào cho anh).

(Daily Gospel 2009:215)

 Plentiful:

‘Plentiful’ shares the syntactic functions of adjective and it has two morphemes,

the root ‘plenty’ and suffix - ful Unlike ‘rich’, it does not inflect for comparative and

superlative forms

However, it has one derivative: ‘plentifully’(adv), as in:

The visitor were plentifully supplied with food and drink

(E-V Dict.p.1278)

Semantically, ‘plentiful’ is polysemous, used formally and in literature with sense

of meaning having a lot of things, as in:

Eggs are plentiful at the moment

(Lỳc này trứng rất nhiều).

(E-V Dictp.1278)

The Vietnamese equivalents of ‘plentiful’ are “phong phỳ, dồi dào”, as in:

It ‘s also a region renowned for plentiful wildlife

(Nú cũn là một khu vực nổi tiếng về động vật hoang dó phong phỳ.)

( http://www.yourdictionary.com/examples )

 Copious

‘Copious’ also has the same syntactic function as ‘rich’ It is also a one –morpheme adjective

It has one derivative “copiously” (adv) Semantically, it also has the same meaning as

‘abundant’ and its Vietnamese equivalent is “ phong phú”, as in:

She supported her theory with copious evidence

(Bà ta đã bảo về lý thuyết của mình bằng nhiều chứng cứ phong phú)

(E-V Dict.P.347)

 Ample

‘Ample’ shares the syntactic function of ‘plentiful’ Morphologically, ‘ample’ is

a one – morpheme word It does not have inflected forms of comparative andsuperlative by virtue of inflection.It has one derivative: “Amply” (adv)

Semantically, ‘ample’ has the sense of having a good health Its Vietnameseequivalent also is ‘dồi dào’, as in:

A man of ample strength

(Một người có sức khoẻ dồi dào.)

(E-V dict.p.50)

To conclude, we have dealt with two subclasses of adjectives denoting ‘richness’

In the subclass of “ having a lot of money”, we have discussed the grammaticalfeatures and semantics structures of such adjectives as ‘wealthy’, ‘prosperous’,

‘affluent’, ‘well-off’ In the subclass of “ having o lot of things”, we concerned withsuch adjectives as ‘ abundant’, ‘ copious’, ‘ample’, ‘plentiful’

2.3.2 Nouns Denoting Richness (NDRs)

In this section, we will discuss the nouns denoting ‘richness’, including

‘richness’, ‘riches’ and ‘the rich’ under the heading of ‘rich’, and ‘wealth’,

‘affluence’, ‘prosperity’, ‘money’ , ‘fortune’, ‘millionaire’, are dealt with as well

 Richness

‘Richness’ is a non-count noun used formally and in literature It denotesabundant wealth, as in: