A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH- VIETNAMESE VERB PHRASES

Transcription

1 The verb phrase 1 Running head: THE VERB PHRASE - ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE. A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH- VIETNAMESE VERB PHRASES Trần Thị Ái Nhi HCMC University of Pedagogy

2 The verb phrase 2 Introduction In our globalization, the need for developing the relationship between Vietnam and other countries has resulted in a great demand for language teaching, especially English teaching throughout the country. However, English and Vietnamese are two different languages. English has different characteristics from those of Vietnamese, for example the grammar, the vocabulary, the pronunciation, the meaning. Anyway, whenever talking about characteristics of any language, we should mention the components forming the sentence of that language. They may be word phrases such as noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase and adverb phrase Therefore, in order to have a deep look about the verb phrase of English as well as of Vietnamese, I decide to make a research with the topic A contrastive analysis of English-Vietnamese verb phrases. In this topic, I will present some general characteristics of the verb phrase in English and Vietnamese. The purpose of presenting them is to discuss the similarities and differences between them in two aspects: form and meaning. Also, I provide some implications for teaching the verb phrase in Vietnam. Above all, I do this research with the hope that it can help my readers clearer about all the similarities and differences of the verb phrase in English and Vietnamese so that they can avoid making mistakes in their translation between these two languages.

3 The verb phrase 3 THE VERB PHRASE In linguistics, a verb phrase is a syntactic structure composed of the predicative elements of a sentence and its function is to provide information about the subject of the sentence. In the generative grammar framework, the verb phrase is a phrase headed by a verb. A verb phrase may be constructed from a single verb; often, however, the verb phrase will consist of various combinations of the main verb and any auxiliary verbs, plus optional specifiers, complements, and adjuncts (Wikipedia, 2009). In other words, a verb phrase concludes three parts: the main verb, the pre-additive elements and the post-elements that express an action or state of being. The English verb phrase According to Kies (2009), an English verb phrase consists of a head verb, its auxiliaries, its complements, and other modifiers. In general, it has two functional parts: the auxiliary and the main verb. * The auxiliary: Auxiliary Modal(can, may, might, will, could, would, ought to, need, should followed by a base) Perfect(forms of have, followed by ed participle) Examples I will call you later. Can you play the violin? My younger sister has learnt English for 10 years. Progressive (forms of be, followed by ing participle) The teacher is coming.

4 The verb phrase 4 Passive (forms of be, followed by ed participle) Support auxiliary (forms of do, followed by a base ) The window was broken yesterday. She doesn t want to live far away from her home. *The main verb: The most important part in a verb phrase is the head word. We call them main verbs or lexical verbs. They are divided into two types: transitive and intransitive verbs. As Beare (2009) said, transitive verbs are verbs that need direct objects followed. The direct object can be a noun, pronoun or a clause. In contrast, intransitive verbs are verbs that don t go with any direct objects. Types of Verbs Examples 1. I had already washed the dishes. 2. I saw you in the street yesterdy. Transitive verbs 3. I have studied English for ten years. 4. Peter can speak Chinese. 5. My teacher gave me a book for my birthday. 1. She laughs at me. 2. Tom was singing. Intransitive verbs 3. I understand now. 4. The baby sleeps a lot. 5. He is walking in the park.

5 The verb phrase 5 *Post-elements: There are varieties of elements that go after the head verb in verb phrases. They can be a noun phrase, prepositional phrase, adverb phrase or a clause (Nguyen, 2004). Types of Post-elements Noun phrase Adverb phrase Prepositional phrase Clause Examples My old friend had sent some good book to me. John came home very late last night. We are staying in Ho Chi Minh City. I had thought that the rich are happy people. The Vietnamese verb phrase: A Vietnamese verb phrase consists of three parts: the nucleus, the front and the end (Doàn et all, 2001). Form: The front + the nucleus + the end *The nucleus: The nucleus can be a verb or a series of verbs. There are two kinds of verbs: dependent verbs and simple verbs. When a dependent verb plays the part of the nucleus, it must go with subelements.

6 The verb phrase 6 Dependent verbs Meaning Examples cần, nên, phải, cần phải, có thể, không thể toan, định, dám, buồn, nỡ, muốn, mong, chúc.., Expressing the necessity and ability Expressing willingness cần tiền, không thể nói, nên kiểm tra, phải học thuộc bài. muốn đi học, chúc bạn may mắn, dám làm, định đi ngủ,. bị, được, chịu, mắc, đành Expressing unwilling accepting được thưởng, bị điểm kém, đành chấp nhận,. bắt đầu, tiếp tục, hết, thôi Expressing the beginning, the on-going and the ending bắt đầu mưa, thôi việc, hết hạn, tiếp tục cố gắng. When a simple verb plays the part of the nucleus, it may or may not take subordinate elements. For example: đọc (truyện, sách), mặc (áo), viết (thư), vẽ (tranh), làm (bánh, bài), sửa (xe, nhà, khóa), đóng (bàn, sách), thảo luận (bài học, kế hoạch), In some cases, the nucleus includes more than one verbs go together as a range with related grammar. In this page, I only consider the type that consists of two verbs, for example: ngồi nghỉ, làm mất, thổi bay, đàn hát, chơi đùa, đi coi... These two verbs are mainly semantically related. The series of verbs Cười nói, chơi đùa, đàn hát, Ngồi coi, đi coi, nằm nghỉ, đi chơi, Bò nghiêng, ngã lăn, cười bò,ngã The relation Two activities happen The second verb shows the purpose of the first one. The second verb shows the manner of the first one. ngồi, Thổi bay, hất tung, đập bể, làm mất, The second verb shows the result of the first one.

7 The verb phrase 7 *The front: The pre-elements of a verb phrase may be particles or lexical words. They are grouped together into: The pre-element Đều, cũng, vẫn, cứ, còn, Từng, đã, vừa, mới, sẽ, Thường, hay, ít, hiếm, Rất, hơi, quá, Có, không, chưa, chẳng, Hãy, đừng, chớ, nên, không nên, Functions Express he similar happenings Denote the time Express the frequency Express the degree Express affirmative or negative form Express the request or advice Besides, lexical words can also play the role of the front. Most of them are onomatopoeia and adjectives. They are used to describe an activity or a status referred to by the nucleus (Doan et all, 2001) such as ầm ầm đổ xuống, khẽ rên, lác đác rơi, nhanh quên, lâu mòn, chậm tiêu. *The end There are two types of the elements that go after the nucleus: subordinate words and lexical words. Subordinate words Functions Examples Xong, rồi, đã, Mark the end Ăn xong, về rồi,

8 The verb phrase 8 Được, mất, phải,.. Express the result Mua phải đồ giả, bay mất, bán được giá Với, cùng Express together Nói với, đi cùng Ra, vào, tới, lui, qua, lại, Denote the direction Bàn ra, đọc qua, nói lại,... Quá, lắm Denote degree Thích lắm, ghét quá, Ngay, liền, tức khắc, Express immediateness Đi liền, im ngay, Dần dần, từ từ,.. Express gradualness Đi từ từ, ăn hết dần dần, Also, lexical words can play the part of the end element of verb phrases, for example: coi bộ, làm trò hề, uống hết sạch, ăn no, nói xỏ,

9 The verb phrase 9 CONTRAST Through this paper, I intend to contrast between English and Vietnamese verb phrases in two aspects: form and meaning. The first aspect to take into consideration when contrasting between English and Vietnamese verb phrases is their forms. We can easily recognize that both English and Vietnamese verb phrases have three parts: the central element, the pre-additive element, and the post-additive element. Among them, the central element must be a verb and it is obligatory while the two parts of additive elements can be optional to go with the head verb. However, English has the notion of tense such as present tense, past tense and future tense but Vietnamese doesn t. That is, English verb phrases change their form to mark different tenses, for example: e.g: I am sitting beside Mary. (The present continuous tense) I can sit beside Mary in my evening class. (The simple present tense) I sat beside Mary in my evening class last week. (The simple past tense) I will sit beside Mary in my evening class tomorrow. (The simple future tense) In contrast, Vietnamese verb phrases always keep the same form in every situation; instead Vietnamese uses subordinate words such as đã, vừa, mới, đang, sẽ to denote the time, for example: e.g: Tôi đang làm bài tập. (I m doing my homework.)

10 The verb phrase 10 Tối nay tôi sẽ làm bài tập. (This evening, I will do my homework.) Tôi đã làm bài tập xong. (I have already done my homework.) Similarly, form of the English verb phrase changes in interrogative and negative sentences while Vietnamese also keeps the same form and adds subordinate words, for example: e.g: I didn t see them - Tôi không nhìn thấy họ. Can you speak French? - Bạn nói được tiếng pháp không? When the verb phrase functions as a subject of the sentence, its form must change to V-ing in English but keep the same in Vietnamese. For example, in English we say Reading is one of my hobbies but in Vietnamese it is Đọc sách là một trong những thói quen của tôi. Moreover, some English verbs must be followed by a preposition, whereas Vietnamese do not need, for example: listen to, believe in, approve of, respond to, compare to, introduce to In addition, there are similarities and differences in form of each part between two languages. In both languages, the central part must contain head verbs, some of which must be followed by objects and some of which may not. However, in English verb phrases, it contains only one head verb but not a series of verbs like in Vietnamese. In other words, unlike English, Vietnamese have form of one verb goes directly after another verb as a range, for example: + Chủ nhật tuần sau tụi nó đi coi phim. - They will go to the movie next Sunday. + Tôi làm mất chìa khòa. - I have lost my key.

11 The verb phrase 11 + Nó đi ngủ. - He goes to sleep. The pre-element of the verb phrase can t be an adjective in English but it can be in Vietnamese, for example: nhanh khỏi, lâu mòn, khẽ kêu, nhẹ nhàng khuyên bảo. Another aspect to consider about English-Vietnamese verb phrases is the similarities and differences in their meaning. In general, the verb phrase provides information about the subject of the sentence. The pre-additive element usually functions the grammar while the post-additive element functions the meaning. However, sometimes the same English verb can go with different prepositions to show different meanings, such as make up, make from, make of, make for, and make off. All of them have different meanings. Moreover, the meaning of English auxiliaries is much more diversified. Although some auxiliaries such as must, might, need, ought to, should have the same meaning of obligation to do something, their usage depends on the level of obligation, for example the meaning of must shows the strongest obligation among them. In contrast, Vietnamese doesn t have this term but uses subordinate words such as nên, phải, cần to express those meanings. Besides, according to Du (2005), some verbs have different meanings like the verb có in Vietnamese have both meanings of possession have and existence (there) is/ are in English.

12 The verb phrase 12 SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING THE VERB PHRASE IN VIETNAM Through this contrastive analysis of the English-Vietnamese verb phrase, I would like to discuss some implications for teaching the verb phrase in our country. Firstly, it is obvious that students will try to translate from Vietnamese to English and vice versa, so teachers should prevent them from translating word by word that may make the verb phrase nonsense in the target language, for example: in Vietnamese it is common to say Bạn không được nói chuyên trong lớp học or Tôi thích nghe nhạc. However, if students translate them word by word, they will become You not talk in class and I like listen music that are completely wrong in English. Secondly, teachers should provide students with the clear explanation about different forms of verb phrases to indicate different tenses. For example, when suffixes such as -s, -ing, or -ed is added, and also taking note that model auxiliaries have no proper past time; four past forms exist, could, might, should, would, but they have only a restricted use and cannot be used in the continuous tense (Thomson & Martinet, 1989) Thirdly, one of the most important things in teaching the verb phrase is to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs going together with their suitable sub-elements; especially some English verbs can be both transitive and intransitive (ESLDESK, 2009), for example: study is a transitive verb in John studies Vietnamese, but intransitive verb in John studies hard.

13 The verb phrase 13 Last but not least, teachers should also clarify the meanings of different verb phrases that go with different prepositions. In general, there are two types of them: prepositional verbs and phrasal verbs (Ha, 1999). Both of their forms consist of a head verb and a preposition, but their meanings are completely different. Prepositional verbs just have normal meaning of a verb with its preposition, for example: laugh at, listen to, wait for. In contrast, every phrasal verb has specific meaning, for example: put off means postpone, turn down means refuse, pass away means die.

14 The verb phrase 14 CONCLUSION In conclusion, the verb phrase is a very important component to form sentences. Actually, English and Vietnamese are different languages. For this reason, it is obvious that each of them has its own characteristics. In this paper, I offered some general knowledge about the verb phrase in English and Vietnamese as well as the contrast between them in their forms and meanings. Moreover, I also suggest some implications for teaching languages in Vietnam high school. To sum up, I hope that this study will offer some explorations about English-Vietnamese verb phrases as well as provide some useful ideas for language teachers.

15 The verb phrase 15 Reference list Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2009). Verb phrase. Retrieved December 13th, 2009 from Kies,D.(2009). Modern English Grammar. Retrieved December 15th, 2009, from Beare,K. (2009). Verb Structures and Patterns. Retrieved December 15th, 2009, from Nguyen,H.L. (2004) An Outline of Syntax. Ho Chi Minh City: University of Education Press. Doan,T.T., Nguyen, K. H., Pham, N. Q. (2001). A Concise Vietnamese Grammar. Hanoi: Hanoi National University Du, N. H. (2005). Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt (Phần từ loại). Ho Chi Minh City: University of Education Press. Thomsom, A. J., & Martinet, A.V. (1993). A Practical English Grammar (4 th ed). (Pham, X. B., Trans.). Ho Chi Minh City: Tre Publishing House. (Original work published 1989). ESLDESK. English Verbs. Retrieved December 25th, 2009 from Ha, V. B. (1999). Văn Phạm Anh Văn Miêu Tả (Các loại Động từ-cách dùng thì). Ho Chi Minh City: Tre Publishing House.