contrastive analysis about one aspect of morphology between english and vietnamese

Contrastive Analysis in the Nominalization of Verbs between English and Vietnamese in terms of morphological features Abstract: Verb nominalization is a common phenomenon in language.. T

HANOI METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS FINAL PROJECT

Hanoi, February, 2024

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TOPIC CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ABOUT ONE ASPECT OF MORPHOLOGY BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS IN THE NOMINALIZATION OF VERNS BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN TERMS OF

MORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover page

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2 Verb Nominalization im Vietnamese and English - - Q2 s22 4 2.1 Verb Nominalization in Vietnamese - 0 SH nhe 4 2.2 Verb Nominalization im Engilish Q1 121211 22111222 11x kr ng 2 re 5 „PP 0/1 6

2.2.2 Verb nominalization by adding suffix : -er, -tion, -ment, -ity, -ant, -ent, - ISIS WNEO VOPDS an 6

2.2.3 Nominalization does not need to add any suffixes or change the accent 3 A contrastive analysis of Verb Nominalization between English and M._.: hố 7

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Contrastive Analysis in the Nominalization of Verbs between English and

Vietnamese in terms of morphological features Abstract: Verb nominalization is a common phenomenon in language This contrastive analysis will identify the nominalization of verbs in English and Vietnamese to point out the similarities and differences between verb nominalization in both languages in the aspect of morphology This study serves as a basis to help learners in both English and Vietnamese understand the verb nominalization to use it appropriately during the studying process

Keywords Contrastive analysis, verb nominalization, similarities, differences

1 Introduction

Language is the structural organization of human sounds used to communicate textual representation units such as morphemes, words, phrases, and utterances (Richards et al., 2002) However, the language is very indistinct, unclear, and confusing Within English and Vietnamese, there are many problems existing in terms

of grammar, one of them 1s the nominalization in terms of verbs

Nominalization, particularly verb nominalization, is a universally observed linguistic phenomenon in both the English and Vietnamese languages, with it being the most prevalent among word classes According to Fowler (1979), nominalization was, for instance, “turning verbs into nouns In other words, “nominalization is a transformation that reduces a whole clause to its nucleus, the verb, and turns that into a noun’

The existence of nominalization in Vietnamese is acknowledged by the majority of linguists, although there is a lack of consensus 1n their perspectives Dinh Van Duc asserts that every verb and adjective in Vietnamese can be associated with a corresponding noun through the integration with a specific grammatical component Dai Xuan Ninh provides examples such as ‘beauty’, ‘goodness’, ‘anxiety’, and

‘leadership’ to illustrate the method of linguistic derivation used to articulate abstract concepts, achieved through the amalgamation of verbs and adjectives with morphemes

The study of nominalization in English has been ongoing since the 1960s Lees postulates that this is a syntactic derivation phenomenon, whereas Chomsky proposes

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it to be a lexical derivation phenomenon In general, given the typological differences between the two languages, the methods of verb nominalization also vary

With the desire to inform learners about Verb nominalization between English and Vietnamese to avoid mistakes during the learning process, it is essential to compare and contrast the differences and similarities of Verb nominalization in English and Vietnamese For the reasons mentioned above, the researcher has decided

to do a contrastive analysis with the title “Contrastive Analysis in the Nominalization

of Verbs between English and Vietnamese in terms of morphological features” The research source for the study mainly stems from the book “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K Rowling (Vietnamese translation by Ly Lan)

The objective of this research is to aid educators and English learners in comprehending the nominalization of verbs in both languages, thereby reducing mistakes and enhancing academic performance during the learning process of English learners, and assisting English instructors in designing a better teaching Grammar on nominalization

2 Verb Nominalization in Vietnamese and English

2.1 Verb Nominalization in Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, the nominalization of verbs is done through the combination of nominalization elements (additional words) with verbs The main way to nominalize

verbs in Vietnamese is to add additional words such as: “việc”, “sự”, “cuộc”, “cái”,

“trận”, “chuyên” precede the verb In addition, some verbs can be nominalized by

combining with the quantifiers “những”, “mọi”, “môi”

Some verbs do not need to be combined with any nominal elements when nominalizing, which is conversion Since these words can be both verbs and nouns, this can also be considered a change of type within the verb Verbs capable of such transformation are often multisyllabic verbs expressing desire Verbs expressing feelings usually cannot be nominalized in that way

« A combination of “viéc” and a verb normally used to demonstrate a process or

an action such as “viéc mua”, or “viéc ban” Another example: “ Hagrid hỏi người đứng sau quây về một số nguyên liệu cần thiết cho việc học của Harry” (Chapter 5)

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“Sự” can precede a verb to form a noun such as: “sự đánh đập”, “sự cố găng” For Instance: “ đưới sự giám sát chặt chẽ của giáo sư MeGonagall.” (Chapter 11)

“Cudc” can be combined with monosyllabic verbs indicating specific actions such as: “di”, “choi”, “dau”, and can nominalize verbs showing

general action For example “Hai nha dang déng hang trong cuéc tranh giành Cup” (Chapter 17)

“Cai” can nominalize a group of action verbs that indicate activities relating to body parts For instance “Harry và Ron chưa kịp trao đôi với nhau cái nhìn đầy

ân ý” (Chapter 14)

“Tran” is often combined with the verbs expressing action that was done by many people simultaneously or actions occurring with strong intensity and high frequency such as “tran đánh”, “trận thị đấu”

“Chuyén” is often used before verbs that express movement and transferring such as “di”, and “thăm” For example, “những cơn nhói đau vẫn thường hành

hạ nó từ sau chuyến đi rừng”

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Some verbs can be nominalized by adding the quantifiers “nhitng”, “mo”,

“moi” before verbs such as “những thay đôi”, “mỗi nhận xét”, “mọi cô găng” Verb Nominalization in English

Verb nominalization in English creates two subtypes of nouns, which are the result of two nominalization methods including action nominals, and agentive nouns There are many different views on nominalization, but in general, to nominalize verbs

in English, there are the following methods:

e Add —ing after the verb;

¢ Noun derivation;

¢ Nominalization does not need to add any prefixes (conversion) or just change the accent mark

Some English verbs can be transformed into nouns by changing the final sound However, verbs that can be nominalized in this way are not many and not very common For example: study - student Semantically, the root verb and the nominalized noun have an internal relationship in meaning When talking about

“student”, people will think of the related verb “study”

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2.2.1 Adding -ing in Verb One of the most common ways to nominalize a verb in English is by adding the suffix -ing Let’s have a look at the following example

Eg: We studied the textbook carefully

In the sentence, “studied” is a verb in the simple past The verb can be nominalized by eliminating the suffix -ed, and then adding the suffix -ng to create a noun “studying” The sentence can be rewritten as follows “Our studying of the textbook was careful.”

Following are other examples extracted from the book “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone”

« She wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair (p.1, chapter 1)

« People meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses (p.13, chapter 1)

« He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before (p14, chapter 2)

¢ Harry had been climbing school buildings (p18, chapter 2)

« Nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured (p.43, chapter 4) 2.2.2 Verb nominalization by adding suffix : -er, -tion, -ment, -ity, -ant, - ent, -isis into verbs

- Add the suffix -er to the verb to create a noun that indicates the person who performs the action

Eg: work - worker, teach - teacher, employ - employer, contain - container

» In addition, some verbs are nominalized to create a noun to demonstrate a person by adding -ar or -or to the verb, for example, conduct - conductor, beg - beggar

« Nomunalize by adding the suffix -tion, according to the documents, has the highest proportion compared to other affixes The result of this nominalization creates action nouns, or nouns indicating action whose meaning comes from the root verb

Eg: collect - collection; dissect - dissection; inject - injection; react - reaction

- Nominalize by adding the suffix -ment to create a noun that indicates the resulting action of the corresponding verb

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Eg: move - movement; develop - development; punish - purnishment

- In addition, it can also be nominalized with other suffixes such as: -ance, -ant,

-al, -age, -ence, -action, -ion, -sion, -tion, -ure, -cy, -ure, -y

Ex: perform - performance; assist - assistant; discover - discovery; fail - failure; break - breakage; bankcrupt - bankcruptcy

2.2.3 Nominalization does not need to add any suffixes or change the accent mark

Similar to Vietnamese, in English, some verbs are used as nouns without adding any suffixes, also known as intransigence within the word Such as: hope, charge, result, answer And some verbs, when changing the stress, will become nouns, such as:

re’cord (v) => ‘record (n) de’crease (v) => ‘decrease (n)

In English, many verbs can be derived from two or three nouns by adding different affixes to the verb, and these nouns have different meanings For example, the verb employ can be derived from nouns with different meanings such as employer, employee, and employment

3 A contrastive analysis of Verb Nominalization between English and Vietnamese

3.1 The differences

3.1.1 Nominalization Method The method of nominalization is the distinguishing characteristics that create the difference between English and Vietnamese The differences in the Nominalization between the two types of languages have been demonstrated in the table below

Nominalizing verbs in English « Vietnamese does not have affixation

is done by adding suffixes in including suffixes Therefore, verbs

Change the verb form by additional words including “su”,

adding the suffix —ing such as carry — carrying

¢ Derive it into a noun by adding

the suffixes -er, -tion, -ment

such as entertain - entertainment

« The most common

nominalization method is combined with the suffix -ing

The -ing suffix can both be combined with action verbs to

form process nouns and can

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“việc”, cải”, roo ce cuộc”, “trận”, o> cc

“chuyén”, such as “nhin” — “cai nhìn” Besides, quantity adverbials can also be used to nominalize verbs such as “thay d6i” — “những thay

doi”

¢ The most common nominalization method is combined with the additional word “sự” “Sự” 1s often combined with abstract verbs, and the result of this nominalization is abstract nouns, which normally refer

also be combined with abstract to emotion verbs to form abstract nouns

3.1.2 Nominalization result

Nominalization can result in two

subclasses of nouns:

* actional nominal, whose

structure is V-ing

* agentive nouns, which is the

result of adding suffix -er such as reader, writer,

Some nouns indicating human such as

“người đọc” or “người nghe” are considered noun phrases more than nouns nominalized from verb

3.1.3 The usage of nominalized Nouns

The way to use derivative words

has clear rules and cannot be Verb nominalization has complex meaning and

usage Depending on the author's style and

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converted flexibly compared with | expression needs, a nominalized verb can have

3.2 The similarities

Nominalizing verbs in Vietnamese and English can both create abstract nouns Specifically In Vietnamese, the combination of “su” and a verb identifies a type of entity abstract substance

The phenomenon of nominalization in both languages can create a noun that identifies a generic activity or a process In Vietnamese, when using the combination noun of “viéc” and verb, people want to emphasize the correctness

of the notice expressed in a sentence Similarly, in English, when the nominal noun is the subject of the sentence, it also indicates the correctness of events One important similarity is that both languages have converting words within words, many words are both verbs and nouns, so when nominalizing, there is no need to combine with any nominalizing elements

Conclusion The study has analyzed the similarities and differences in the nominalization of verbs in Vietnamese and English The most obvious difference between verb nominalization between English and Vietnamese in terms of morphological features has been illustrated in the table below:

Nominal elements in English Nominal element in Vietnamese Adding suffix: -ing, -er, -ar, -or, Adding additional words precede the

-(a/i)tion, -ment, -ant, -ent, -y, -al, verb: “Sự”, “việc”, “cái”, “trận”,

-ure, -isis, -ence/ance, -lock, -age “chuyên”, “những”, “mọt”,

Besides the differences, the verb nominalization 1n these two languages still has similarities In some cases, both languages can create abstract nouns by normalizing verbs, verb nominalization aims to emphasize strong, indicating the accuracy of the

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