Uses of prepositions into, ontoin english and the equivalences in vietnamese

General introduction about prepositions of direction Chapter II: The uses of prepositions INTO, ONTO in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese I.. In Vietnam, English hasn't been us

encouragement have helped me shape and complete my thesis.

I would also like to express my deep thank to my teacher: M.A Lª §×nh Th¶o who helped me to correct some mistakes and encouraged me to complete my

thesis

I would also like to be grateful to all teachers in the Foreign LanguagesDepartment who gave me some useful opinions and materials for my thesis

I would also like to thank my teacher: Dr NguyÔn Nh· B¶n for his

enthusiastic help during I studied my thesis

Finally, my sincere thanks are due to all of you who will give me somecomments after reading the thesis - my first scientific work

Vinh, May 2003.

T«n Anh §µo

Table of contents

acknowledgementtable of contents

I Reasons of the study

II History of the studyIII Aims of the study

IV Methods of the study

V Design of the study

Part II: Contents Chapter I: Theoretical preliminaries

I Language and contrastive analysis of languageI.1 Language and linguistics

I.2 The relationship between language and cultureI.3 Contrastive analysis

II PrepositionII.1 The conception of the British-American linguistsII.2 The conception of the Vietnamese linguistsII.3 Classification of prepositions

II.4 General introduction about prepositions of direction

Chapter II: The uses of prepositions INTO, ONTO in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese

I Language and the spatial cognitionI.1 The basic conception of spaceI.2 The principles and features of spatial cognition

II The uses of prepositions INTO, ONTO in English and the

equivalences in VietnameseII.1 The types of meaning

II.2 The use meanings of prepositions INTO, ONTOII.2.1 The basic preposition of direction TO

II.2.2 The uses of preposition INTO in English and the equivalences

in VietnameseII.2.3 The uses of preposition ONTO in English and the

equivalences in VietnameseII.2.4 Conclusion

III The relationship between verbs and prepositions INTO, ONTO Table: Verbs go with INTO, ONTO

Chapter III: Application in teaching prepositions of direction

I Common errors and difficulties of learners

II Reasons of the difficulties of using prepositions of direction III Solutions

IV Some types of exercises

Part III: Conclusion

ReferencesTheoretical referencesReferences for finding examples

Part I:

Introduction

I Reasons of the study

At the threshold of the 21st century, we can witness many great achievements

of the mankind such as the appearance and the development of computer, biologicaltechnology and the application of nuclear energy and so on These achievements atone side help a lot in the improvement of the economic, political, social and culturalfields of all countries in the world, but at the other side, they can damage thepeaceful life of the human being Therefore, all peoples should cooperate with eachother, of course, they need a common language

Up to now, English has become one of the most important internationallanguages About 350 millions people of different communities all over the worlduse English as their first language and about the same number of people use it asthe second one

In Vietnam, English hasn't been used as the first or the second language but

it is used widely in many fields of life such as in politics, researching scientificmatters, economics, art, … and especially in the system of national education and especially in the system of national education.People of all social positions want to learn English so that they can get the cultural,political, economic… and especially in the system of national education.values of the mankind, even normal people also want to learnEnglish to read necessary information on a normal product in the everyday life

However, learning foreign languages, especially English, is not simplebecause this goes together with learning other cultures So, learners have to facemany problems and the common one is how to learn English the quickest, how touse it the most effectively in many kinds of communication My friends and I had

to spend a lot of time on learning the meanings and the uses of this part of speechwith the instruction of our teachers, but we still made many errors when doingexercises or speaking English in particular situations

Is it right that the difficulty of acquiring English prepositions for Vietnamese learners is not in their structures, positions or functions in sentences but it is due to the differences about the cognition or the thinking process, which are reflected and coded in languages?

There may be many other reasons leading to the difficulties in learningEnglish prepositions In the scope of this graduation thesis, I only want to study 2prepositions of direction: INTO, ONTO to find out explicit explanations about thesimilarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese spatial cognition

II History of the study

It is said that the study of prepositions, as a part of grammar, was done a longtime ago when linguistics appeared However, the study of prepositions of directionappeared only within 2 last decades The works of Herskovits, Jackendoff, Lakoff,Langacker… and especially in the system of national education are typical for the study with the tendency of pragmatics Cardiere,M.B Emeneau studied prepositions according to their grammatical functions

In Vietnam, there are also many linguists who studied prepositions ofdirection according to the outside structure view such as: Nguyen Lai with hisdoctorate thesis 'The group of directional words in Vietnamese' (Nhóm từ chỉ hớngvận động trong tiếng Việt) and many treatises on that subject; Ly Toan Thang withthe study about the spatial cognition and the doctorate thesis 'The spatial model ofthe world: the national cognition, culture and psychology' (Mô hình không gian củathế giới: Sự tri nhận , văn hoá và tâm lý học tộc ngời); and Tran Quang Hai with thedoctorate thesis ' The study of locational prepositions according to pragmatics'(Nghiên cứu giới từ định vị theo hớng ngữ dụng)

These works have a great contribution to the new trend of the study Some ofthem are studied traditionally according to the pragmatic tendency, some are doneaccording to grammatical and syntactical functions or both My graduation thesis is

a very small work, which deals with only 2 prepositions of direction: INTO, ONTOaccording to their semantic meanings, basing on the contrastive analysis betweenEnglish and Vietnamese Therefore, I have good chance in studying deeply the uses

of 2 prepositions in 2 languages and I hope that this is a practical thesis, basing on

the theory of the predecessors but it can be applied in the fact of teaching, learningand translating Vietnamese and English.

III/ Aims of the study

The final aim of this thesis is to list and analyse the uses of prepositions ofdirection and help pupils understand and use them suitably in each particularsituation However, to get this goal, we should find out the reasons, which causedifficulties for learners and then find out the solutions to the pedagogical problemsand some problems of translating That means we need answer why we use thispreposition in that sentence In general, the main reason is the similarities and thedifferences about the spatial cognition of English and Vietnamese people Thisleads to the same or different uses of prepositions when they refer to the samethings

Finally, when we can give out the explicit explanations, some suitable ways

of translating, teaching and learning prepositions of direction will be applied

IV Methods of the study

In this thesis, we use some methods as following:

- Collecting references

- Statisting, analyzing examples

- Contrastive analysis

- Surveys in secondary schools

V Design of the study

Except the acknowledgements, the table of contents and the references, thisthesis consists of three main parts:

The first part is the introduction in which we present the reason of the study,the history of the study, the aims of the study, the methods of the study and thedesign of the study

The second part is the content of the thesis, which consists of three chapters.Chapter one deals with the theoretical preliminaries in which we present the theoryabout language, the contrastive analysis and the general introduction aboutpreposition and prepositions of direction Chapter two deals with the uses ofprepositions INTO, ONTO in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese Chapterthree deals with the application of the study in teaching, learning and translatingprepositions of direction

The third part is the conclusion of the thesis

Part II:

Contents Chapter I: Theoretical preliminaries

I language and contrastive analysis of language

I.1 Language and linguistics

Being a category of language, preposition has the specific characteristics of asocial science, which is very difficult to study in the normal ways So, theknowledge about language and linguistics can help us to identify the orientation ofthe study

Language is a product of a society or a community It is a means ofcommunication so society can not exist without language and vice versa F deSaussure said that language was like a dictionary whose reproductions were

distributed to everybody but there was still a common one beyond hisconsciousness Language not only belongs to individual person but also the wholesociety.

Language is formed from this century to the other, is accumulated andreceived for thousands of years, that is the conditions of the development of thesociety Language completely depends on the social or natural conditions such asthe characteristics of geography, climate, standard of living, some aspects of theculture… and especially in the system of national education

Language is a system of special signals with two main functions:Communication and Reflection They are two functions, which make thecharacteristics of language V.I.Lenin affirmed: "Language is the most importantmeans of communication." The appearance of language is to meet the human needs

of communicating with each other So, language is the way of accumulating andtransferring information and expressing emotions and attitude of speakers.Although the verbal language can be limited by time, space, besides verballanguage; there are many other means of communication such as body language,facial expression, signals, or even music, paintings, sculptures… and especially in the system of national education.; the first positionbelongs to language, and the other means can only modify language but can notreplace it

Being a means of transferring and consolidating ideas for future generations,language is an aspect of national culture relating directly to cognition and thoughts

of the native people Indeed, here is the reflection of the cognition about theobjective world, which is expressed by language Language is a means of reflectingand transferring ideas So, language and thought have a close relationship Thisrelationship can lead to another, which is the relation of language - culture -thought There are many linguists dealing with this relationship because this is animportant matter of linguistics, basing on this, we can give explicit explanationsabout language It is said that thought is common for all nations but when thought isreflected by language, it is specific according to each language The objective world

is eternal and infinite but it is reflected differently by different peoples Thischaracteristic will explain the differences and the similarities about culture andlanguage of different countries in the world This is also a very complex matter, solinguistics appeared with a system of theories to help us explain explicitly the rules,functions, structures… and especially in the system of national education.or social essence and history of development … and especially in the system of national education.of language

I.2 The relationship between language and culture

If culture is considered to be all material and spiritual values that peoplecreate in the process of dealing with the nature, the society or even themselves, thenational characteristics are expressed in the culture And if culture is considered to

be systems of the human signs, language is the most typical, complete andnecessary one to form a society Language is a means of reflection andcommunication, so each people, with their own language, perceive the objectiveworld according to their own thinking Therefore, we can recognize the specificcharacteristics about the world outlook and the outlook on life of each nationthrough their language The system of signals has been created, transferred andreserved from one generation to the other, moreover, they are absorbed into thesubconsciousness of each people, unchangeable and difficult to be replaced byanother one.

F.Saussure said: " To some extent, it is language to form a nation." Thatmeans language closely connects with national history and language also reflectsperiods of development of a nation together with their culture

Each nation has its own culture Cultures of nations are quite differentbecause their social and natural conditions are not the same Cultures are affectedmainly by those conditions We are living in a society with many differentrelationships, we can witness many differences of cultures which are expressed bylanguages For example, while English people use "Hi!" or "Hello!"… and especially in the system of national education.as theirgreetings, Vietnamese people use some personal questions such as "Where are yougoing to?"(Anh đi đâu đó?) or " Have you had lunch?"(Bác đã ăn cơm tra cha?)with the same purpose The reason may be the habit of concerning themselves withothers' life of Vietnamese people That is an aspect of the community culture of thewater-rice civilization

However, different nations with their own languages have different viewsabout the world This relates to the relationship of culture, language and thought.For example, in Vietnam and other oriental countries, dragon is the symbol ofpower and sacredness but in the western countries, it is the symbol of crime andviolence So, the thought of a nation sometimes is not equivalent with the others andvice versa

In short, the relationship between language and culture is so close that we cannot understand and evaluate rightly this one without the deep knowledge of thatone In the process of development, they always leans against each other, languagecan be the premise of studying culture and culture can be the premise of studyinglanguage

Understanding this relationship, we can find out easily the differences andsimilarities of languages and give out explicit and persuasive explanations basing

on the similarities and differences of cultures and thoughts of native speakers

I.3 Contrastive analysis (CA)

Language is a social phenomenon, it has a close relationship with culture.Moreover, language itself is a complex system Therefore, studying languagerequires the knowledge of linguistics Linguistics consists of three main branches:descriptive linguistics, comparative linguistics and theoretical linguistics.Contrastive analysis is a sub-branch of comparative linguistics.

M.Bakhtin said that "Nowadays, languages can enlighten one anotherbecause each language can only recognize itself in the light of the others" Only bycomparing two or more languages, we can understand more deeply each language

So, the object of contrastive analysis can be two or more languages regardless ofwhether they are related to each other or not, it is mainly studied in the synchronic,

in any different degrees The aim of the study is to find out the differences andsimilarities in order to help in translating, teaching and learning foreign languages.Depending on the goal of the study, the author can choose any units of languagesystem such as word, morpheme, phrase, sentence, structural systems and so on

Nevertheless, because contrasting languages is contrasting cultures, theauthor should have a wide and deep knowledge about the cultures of the targetlanguages

Contrastive analysis method is not a simple one, it includes many steps.Firstly, we have to establish the base of contrast and then the scope of contrast

There are two kinds of CA: the contrast of languages and the contrast ofsigns The contrast of languages is the way to compare languages with one another.This language is the base and the other is the means of contrast and the final goal isfinding out their specific features The contrast of signs is the research in the insiderelationships of languages such as categories, structural systems, functions and soon

CA takes an important role in translating, teaching and learning foreignlanguages because contrasting the mother tongue with the other languages can giveout solutions to pedagogical problems:

1 Solve difficulties about every aspect of language that learners have whenresearching the system of code, which is different from their mother tongue

2 Collect and choose language materials

3 Establish an exact order of materials for learning the second language

4 Form a system of effective methods for teaching and explaining thosematerials

5 Edit a system of suitable exercises and textbooks about foreign languageswith scientific bases

In fact, when using CA, we can get some specific effects:

- The ability of discovering the great amount of specific features aboutstructures of contrasted languages These features are very difficult for us torecognize if they are studied in the view of monolinguistics

- The ability of discovering the new and interesting language phenomenawhich we can not find out if we only study one language.

This method seems to appear for a long time - at the end of the nineteenthcentury Basically, it has three periods of development: CA relates to historicallinguistics, descriptive linguistics and typological linguistics Nowadays, CA reallycarries distinct features, we can take it for other branches of linguistics It appliesthe knowledge of pure linguistics according to its own standards of selection andevaluation That means it belongs to applied linguistics and relates to many othersciences such as sociology, psychology, biology, mathematics, physics and so on

CA is developed in many countries in the world such as France, Britain,Russia, Poland, and Yugoslavia… and especially in the system of national education In Vietnam, there are two centres paying theirattention to this work: The language department in the Hanoi national universityand the Puskin sub-institute in the Hanoi pedagogical university of foreignlanguages with some famous linguists such as Do Huu Chau, Truong Dong San,Nguyen Van Chien, Le Quang Thiem… and especially in the system of national education

II Preposition

II.1 The conception of the British-American linguists:

According to the traditional grammar, prepositions are considered as thesubordination of nouns and pronouns Jackendoff said that many people seemednever to consider prepositions seriously, they don't think that preposition have theirown inside structures except for some complexnesses in special outside forms Thatattitude is not satisfactory at all Therefore, basing on the new theories oflinguistics, especially the X-bar syntax theory, people recognized that prepositionsdeserved to be equal to verbs, nouns, and adjectives… and especially in the system of national education.as a main category ofvocabulary

In English, preposition is considered to be a part of speech, which is quitedifferent from other main parts of speech According to the traditional linguistics,English prepositions have 4 distinct characteristics as below:

1 They have nouns as subordinate components They are called position" because their position is in front of nouns

Ex: - Of whom are you thinking?

- In which city do you live ?

4 In the aspect of semantics, their function is to identify the relationshipbetween words they link together

Ex: - picture of Dorian Gray ( relation of possession)

- picture for Dorian Gray (relation of purpose)

With these criteria, the traditional grammar provides about 100 prepositions.However, with other new criteria, linguists added some new ones

In 1990s, some linguistic theories like the Cognitive Grammar ( Ng÷ ph¸p trinhËn) of Ronald Langacker, the Functional Lexical Grammar (Ng÷ ph¸p tõ chøcn¨ng) of Joan Bresnan, the Word Grammar (Ng÷ ph¸p tõ) of Richard Hudson… and especially in the system of national education.widened the list of prepositions according to 2 directions:

1 It is not necessary that a preposition should be followed by a complement.Ex: I look inside the box

or: I look inside

These sentences can be understood if both speaker and listener already knew

"the box" However, according to the traditional grammar, "inside" in the secondsentence is not a preposition because it has no complement Meanwhile, somelinguists considered it a preposition because whether there is a complement or not,the position and meaning of "inside" are unchangeable

2 The complement of a preposition is not always a noun It may be otherprepositions:

Ex: Up to now

or it may be a clause with a main verb:

Ex: We stay inside because it was raining

Some traditional linguists considered "because" as a subordinate conjunctionbut the cognitive grammar considered it as a preposition This point of view is newand interesting, it can change the normal conception of prepositions but it is verycomplex

In general, there are 2 important characteristics of prepositions:

- They are used as post adjuncts or complements of almost parts of speech

- Their meanings express relationships

However, according to some functional linguists like Talmy Givon, SylviaChalker, Angela Downing and Philip Locke, preposition is still defined to be a kind

of the minor word class and used to link parts of speech (usually nouns) with otherelements in sentences, some depend on other elements such as adverbs,conjunctions, adjectives … and especially in the system of national education.but preposition is a kind of closed system word, we cannot create new ones

Through those different conceptions about preposition, we have the generalview of its functions and structures From that, we will have the right strategy ofstudying prepositions.

II.2 The conception of the Vietnamese linguists

Until now, prepositions in Vietnamese are not considered to be importanteven the name "preposition" is not still listed in the grammatical books However,some linguists have sorted prepositions in the category of parts of speech andstudied them equally to the others since the first time of the modern Vietnameselinguistics Some linguists such as Nguyen Duc Tinh in the book "Vietnamesegrammar" considered preposition to be one of 9 parts of speech in Vietnamese;Nguyen Kim Than considered that preposition was a kind of expletives (h tõ) which

is to link adjuncts with main words to express their grammatical relationships

Indeed, Vietnamese prepositions are not studied fully For example, they arestudied in a group of expletives by Nguyen Anh Que, in the smaller group oflinking words by Nguyen Hai Quynh, or in the group of connecting words by DiepQuang Ban

Recently, some linguists have started to pay attention to prepositions such asNguyen Lai, Vu Van Thi, and Nguyen Minh Thuyet… and especially in the system of national education but there exist manyproblems to discuss

According to Vu Van Thi, in his doctorate thesis, preposition is a kind ofexpletives belonging to linking words, with its function of expressing syntacticalrelations between the main component and the subordinate one He gave out somefeatures of preposition:

1 Preposition is an expletive expressing meanings of relations

2 Preposition has no ability of modifying any meaning for the central words,

so it is not the factor which has one-way relation, it has two-way relation

3 Preposition expresses the syntactical relationship between the main and thesubordinate components

4 Preposition has ability of making words or groups of words formprepositional phrases so that it can keep the syntactical functions as a subordinatecomponent

5 Position: preposition is between the main component and the subordinateone as below:

A-p-BA,B: componentsp: linking wordEx: §i víi t«i, viÕt b»ng bót… and especially in the system of national education

Although there is a two-way relation, preposition tends to relate to thesubordinate components, therefore, it can stand at the beginning of a sentence:

p-B

Ex: VÒ mÆt tµi chÝnh, «ng Êy còng cßn nhiÒu ®iÒu kh«ng râ rµng l¾m.

These 5 characteristics can help us to distinguish preposition with other parts

of speech

According to these above definitions, preposition is mainly studied about itsstructures We can say that studying preposition as an independent object has notever done in Vietnam, however, because of the goal of the thesis is the prepositions

of direction, we use the term "preposition" in English and Vietnamese

II.3 Classification of prepositions:

In the most general terms, a preposition expresses a relationship between twoentities Depending on the relational meanings, prepositions can be divided intomany types Some popular ones are shown as following:

- Preposition of place or position

Ex: at, above, in, on, by, off… and especially in the system of national education

Ex: into, onto, to, toward… and especially in the system of national education

II.4 General introduction about the prepositions of direction

Preposition of direction is a kind of spatial preposition which express thespatial relationships between two entities or two components There are two sub-types of spatial prepositions:

1 Prepositions of location, which identify the static position of entities inspace

Ex: in English: at, on, in, under, below, above… and especially in the system of national education

in Vietnamese: trên, dới, trong, ngoài… and especially in the system of national education

2 Prepositions of direction, which identify the position in the dynamicrelations of entities in the world

Ex: in English: to, into, onto… and especially in the system of national education

in Vietnamese: đến, tới, sang, qua… and especially in the system of national education

In the scope of the thesis, I only deal with the meanings of two prepositionsINTO, ONTO in English and their equivalences in Vietnamese

Chapter II:

The uses of prepositions into, onto in English

and the equivalences in vietnamese

I Language and the spatial cognition

Preposition of direction is used to express spatial relations Therefore, whenstudying this kind of preposition we can not help mentioning space as the world,which is perceived by the human being Almost the cognitive linguists nowconsider that the space we perceive is not the physical one, which is existingobjectively It is the space that is reflected through our cognition The experience

about natural environment and cultural factors of our community can form ourpsychological features and the points of view as well as the way of expressing allaspects of the world When we use languages to express spatial relations, thelanguages we use do not reflect the objective world, they reflect the space, which isperceived by people.

I.1 The basic conception of space

According to Ly Toan Thang, when studying about space, we shoulddistinguish three different conceptions:

1 The objective space of the physical world outside the human being

2 The subjective space as a result of the cognition of the objective space,exists in our mind It is called "perceptual space" or "projected space"

3 The space is expressed in the meanings of spatial words, and it is called

- Space is a notion of relation (between located object and reference object in

- Which spatial attributes and relations are perceived and expressed in thestudied languages?

- How are they expressed in those languages?

I.2 Principles and features of spatial cognition

The semantic structure of a spatial expression depends on the relationshipbetween two or more entities ( or events) in that space In this relation, one factor isthe located object, the other is the reference object and the preposition of directionexpresses their spatial relations

Ex: a book on a table

However, to identify these relations, we should study some principles andfeatures of the spatial cognition

1 The principle of anthropocentrism (Nguyªn lÝ "Con ng êi lµ trung t©m")

In the spatial field, it seems that every place carries the traces of humanthoughts or views about the around world In the meaning of each language, thenative conceptions of physics, psychology, geometry… and especially in the system of national education.are also reflected

For example, talking about the same thing, English people use "horizon" andVietnamese people use "ch©n trêi"(foot of the sky) In this case, they use thesymbol of human feet that are used to prop up the above parts So, the "innocent"model about the world of Vietnamese people is that the sky is round, is upturned onthe even earth surface and the border of the sky and the earth is the line of horizon

In general, the factor "human" in the spatial cognition concerns with threeaspects:

1 The structure of human body

2 The natural environment around people

3 The standards and the ways of action of people

Through 3 aspects, people perceive the world in the way that is quitedifferent from the scientific knowledge because they explain and talk about theworld in the way they believe

Frawley conclude that the content of the spatial expressions in everydaylanguage bases on the innocent and non-scientific conceptions about the world.These conceptions are certainly not right but they are the bases for us to understandspatial expressions in languages

2 The principle of two views (or two ways of discribing) about the world.According to Herkovits, two views about the world are the fundamental viewand the view of geometrical conceptualization The first one is the way of directreflection basing on visual images or feelings For example, the phrase "ba l« sau l-ng" (a kit bag on the back) is from the real positions of these items ( the back isbehind), but we can say "ba l« trªn lng" because the back is geometrically a surface

So, the second one is the way of indirect reflection basing on logical and abstractconceptions Vietnamese people often use the first one

3 The feature of the spatial coordinate

In the spatial location and direction, people use a coordinate whose biologicalbase is the unbalanced structural features of our body ( head is above, feet arebelow, right hand, left hand… and especially in the system of national education.) They also use the knowledge of physics However,this can be affected by some psychological and socio-cultural factors

4 The strategies of the spatial location

5 The map of spatial cognition

We always have certain images about the around world like our house, ourcity or even our country… and especially in the system of national education These symbols of such spaces exist in our mind, theyare called "the map of spatial cognition" Basing on the map, we can understand andexplain spatial expressions in languages

For example, this English sentence "He runs through the door" can betranslated into Vietnamese in two ways:

- Nã ch¹y ra cöa.(NÕu cöa dÉn ra hµnh lang, vên… and especially in the system of national education.)

- Nã ch¹y vµo cöa.( NÕu cöa dÉn vµo phßng ngñ, phßng bÕp… and especially in the system of national education )

These principles seem to be dogmatic but they are very useful in thecontrastive analysis about the spatial relations of two prepositions INTO, ONTO inEnglish and in Vietnamese

II The uses of prepositions INTO, ONTO in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese.

II.1 The types of meaning

Herskovits put forward a theory about semantics-pragmatics of spatialexpressions The goal of this theory is to make their semantic diagrams

According to her, there are three types of meanings of spatial prepositions.They are : ideal meaning, use meaning and situation meaning

The ideal meaning is a geometric notion from which all uses of prepositionsappear through different changes or reproductions It is also the relationshipbetween geometric items This relationship is very simple and considered to be themeaning of prepositions

For example, the ideal meaning of preposition "in" : inclusion of a geometricconstruct in a one-, two-, or three-dimentional geometric construct.(Language andSpatial Cognition - Herskovits )

Each preposition has its own ideal meanings, which go together with someuse meanings Use types show different uses of prepositions basing on idealmeanings.

For example: "in" has two use meanings:

- inside a container:

The preserves in the jar

- embedded in other things:

The fish in the waterSituation meaning is the result of combining use types and noun phrases insentences to make their expressions of meaning in particular situations

Therefore, the ideal meaning is the most abstract and the situation meaning isthe least abstract In the scope of this study, we only mention the use types of twoprepositions of direction INTO, ONTO

II.2 The use meanings of prepositions INTO, ONTO in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese.

II.2.1 Basic preposition of direction

"To" is a directional preposition but it is also a part of a directionalpreposition( Ex: "to" in "into", "onto") It signifies orientation toward a goal Whenthe goal is physical such as a destination, "to" implies movement in the direction ofthe goal

Ex: Sa'id returned to his apartment

When the goal is not physical place, such as an action, "to" marks a verb orexpresses purpose

Ex: Sa'id returned to school to get his books

"To" suggests movement toward a specific destination and signifies theintention of arriving at the place

Ex: Take me to the airport, please!

airport

The speaker wants to get to the airport, not just goes toward it.

IN+TO=INTO: signifies movement to the interior of a volume

With many verbs of motion, ON and IN have a directional meaning and can

be used along with ONTO, INTO It is somewhat optional with the compoundprepositions:

Ex: Taishing jumped in/into the pool

Porfirio fell on/onto the floor

The crab washed up on/onto the shore

To the extent that these pairs do differ, the compound preposition conveys thecompletion of an action while the simple preposition points to the position of thesubject as a result of that action This distinction helps us understand howdirectional and locational prepositions are related: they stand in the relationship ofcause and effect.

Ex: Completion of an action:

Jean fell onto the floor

Susumu dived into the water

Position of a subject:

Jean is on the floor

Susumu is in the water

II.2.2 The uses of preposition INTO in English and the equivalences in Vietnamese.

In English, INTO means the movement to the interior of an enclosed space orvolume (Oxford Advanced Learner's encyclopedic Dictionary) Therefore, themeaning of INTO is the spatial relationship between the starting point and the target

in space

This relationship has its own diagram:

( X is the reference object , is the located object and the arrow is thedirection of movement)

( According to Tran Quang Hai)

It is a popular type of movement (bounded path) in which we know clearlythe target of the movement So, when studying the meanings of INTO, we shouldpay attention to the reference object

In Vietnamese, INTO also means the movement to an enclosed space but theposition of that space can make the meanings of INTO more abundant Therefore,INTO can show the movement from wide place to narrow place, or low place tohigh place and vice versa This notion is affected by the geographical conditionssuch as the terrain and the direction of the sky which are reflected in the cognition

of Vietnamese people through many generations Depending on specificcircumstances, INTO in English can be translated into Vietnamese like: "ra, vào,lên, xuống, đến ,tới, sang, qua, lại, đi, về… and especially in the system of national education."so, when studying the meanings ofINTO in Vietnamese, we should also base on the position and conception of thespeaker

However, firstly, we should find out spatial relationships or aspects ofmeanings of INTO

In general, INTO signifies the movement to specific space or volume

For example:

He went back into the bedroom

( Anh ta trở vào phòng ngủ)

"The bedroom" is an enclosed place and the movement to that place should

be expressed by the preposition INTO However, it is the simple conception ofEnglish people Vietnamese people consider it more complex According to thespatial map of a Vietnamese traditional house, the bedroom is always a secretivesmall place inside the house, going from the outside to this place means "đi vào", soINTO here means "vào"

X

But when we say:

He went into the dinning room

In Vietnamese, we can say:

Anh ta đi vào phòng khách

or: Anh ta đi ra phòng khách

"Vào" is used when the position of "anh ta"(he) is outside the house such as

in the garden or in the ground but "ra" is used when the position of "anh ta" isinside the house such as in the bedroom, kitchen or study room For Vietnamesepeople, the dinning room is the place of family reunion or welcoming guests, it isoften wider and brighter than the other rooms

However, when someone says:

He went into the kitchen

This will be translated into Vietnamese:

Anh ta đi xuống bếp

So, INTO is translated "xuống" (down ) not "vào" or "ra" as above sentences.This can be explained that the kitchen in Vietnam is often located in the east that isopposite to the west In Vietnam, the terrain in the east is often lower than in thewest, so we say "xuống phía đông" (go down into the east) and "lên miền tây" ( go

up into the west) while English people only say: "go into the east / west." That is thereason why we can not say "đi lên bếp" The west is characterized by mountains,hills and highlands with forests while the east is characterized by plains, rivers andseas So Vietnamese people often say: "lên rừng" or "xuống biển" which aretranslated into English: "Go into the forest/coastal regions."

It is also because of the characteristics of our terrain : narrow in the south andwider in the north Therefore, "vào" can be used to express the movement from thenorth to the south and "ra" can be used to express the movement from the south tothe north

Ex: đi vào Nam - đi ra Bắc

Bedroom Dinning room kitchen