a contrastive analysis of noun-verb conversion in english and vietnamese = phân tích đối chiếu chuyển loại danh từ sang động từ trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

Thus, this study is intended to make the contrast of N-V conversion between English and Vietnamese in terms of grammatical and semantic features.. The aims of this study are:  To descri

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FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

PHẠM THỊ KIM ANH

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN-VERB CONVERSION

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(Phân tích đối chiếu chuyển loại danh từ sang động từ

trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2010

ss

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

PHẠM THỊ KIM ANH

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF NOUN-VERB CONVERSION

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(Phân tích đối chiếu chuyển loại danh từ sang động từ

trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Dr Trần Xuân Điệp

HANOI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

ABBREVIATION AND SYMBOL vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 The aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methods of the study 2

5 Format of the study 3

PART 2: DEVELOPVEMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

1.1 An overview of CA and CA guiding principles 4

1.2 Conversion – A word formation process 5

1.2.1 Definition and Terminology 5

1.2.2 Remarkable features 6

1.2.3 Typology 7

1.3 Word Meaning 10

1.4 Verbs 12

1.4.1 Verbs in English 12

1.4.2 Verbs in Vietnamese 13

CHAPTER 2: THE CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF N-V CONVERSION IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 15

2.1 N-V conversion in English 15

2.1.1 Grammatical Features 15

2.1.1.1 Syntactic Features 15

2.1.1.2 Morphological features 16

2.1.2 Semantic Features 17

2.2 N-V conversion in Vietnamese 25

2.2.1 An overview of conversion in Vietnamese 25

2.2.2 Noun-verb conversion 27

2.2.2.1 Grammatical Features 27

2.2.2.1.1 Syntactic Features 27

2.2.2.1.2 Morphological features 29

2.2.2.2 Semantic Features 30

2.3 Findings 32

2.3.1 Similarities 32

2.3.2 Differences 33

2.4 Implications for EFL teaching and learning 34

PART 3: CONCLUSION 36

1 Conclusions 36

2 Limitations of the study 37

3 Recommendations for Further Research 37

REFERENCES 38

ABBREVIATION AND SYMBOL

CA: Contrastive Analysis

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

( ): a parenthesis enclosing the two numbers inside, the first number indicates the year

of publishing, and the second indicates the page being referred to

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

The topic is chosen due to the following reasons

Among many different word formation processes to create new lexicon, conversion is a new trend growing up in the productive field According to Cannon, G (1985:415), conversion will be more active in the future, and so, it will create a great part of the new words appearing in the English language

Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977:9) states that the verb is one of the most complex parts of speech, which is widely used, and as a result, play a key role in any language system Of all the conversion processes represented in English, it is acknowledged, and shown by, for example, Biese (1941), Marchand (1969), Plag (2003) that creating verbs from nouns N-V conversion is the most productive and by no means unexpected It is due to the lack of derivational means of forming verbs from nouns and adjectives in present-day English Vocabulary of both English and Vietnamese has a remarkable range of flexibility and adaptability Thus, this study is intended to make the contrast of N-V conversion between English and Vietnamese in terms of grammatical and semantic features

One more reason is that, a good understanding of English word formation processes is essential for the EFL teaching and learning The study will be useful for the teachers and learners with the expectation of building a clear picture of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese

2 Aims of the study

The aims of this study are:

 To describe grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese

 To work out as many as possible the similarities and differences in terms of grammatical and semantic features between N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese

 To provide some implications for teaching/learning word formation in general, N-V conversion in particular

To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer at least the following questions:

 What are the grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese?

 What are the similarities and differences in grammatical and semantic features between English and Vietnamese N-V conversion?

 To what extent are word formation processes in general, and N-V conversion in particular, considered in EFL teaching and learning?

3 Scope of the study

Many fields relating to N-V conversion need to be explored However, due to the

limited time and available facilities, the thesis is to be focused on the description and contrastive analysis of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese with respect to grammatical and semantic features at word level

4 Methods of the study

The intended method employed in this study is CA It has been acknowledged that with this method, the similarities and differences between languages can be worked out effectively

The procedures of the study are in the order as follows:

 Collection of relevant documents

 Critical reading of theoretical background related to the study

 Generalization and classification of relevant literature

 Formation of ideas related to the study

 Comprehensive description of grammatical and semantic features of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese

 Detection of similarities and differences of N-V conversion between two languages

 Giving comments on these issues in EFL teaching & learning

Sources of examples:

 Bilingual stories, works, magazines

 Monolingual English and Vietnamese books

 Monolingual and Bilingual dictionaries

 Research projects, linguistic journals, articles into English and Vietnamese conversion

5 Format of the study

The study begins with “Declaration”, “Acknowledgement”, “Table of contents”,

“Symbols and Abbreviation” This study is completed on the basis of three separating

parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part A (Introduction) provides a brief account of relevant information about the

rationale, aims, scope, methods, and format of the study

Part B entitled Development which plays the most crucial role in the whole study It is

considered as the backbone of the study This part consists of two chapters

 Chapter 1: This chapter is about theoretical notions necessary for the study covering the concepts ranging from CA and guiding principles for CA, N-V conversion, and word meaning It also provides an overview of verbs in English and Vietnamese

 Chapter 2: This chapter offers a detailed contrastive analysis of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese Firstly, N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese will be described and analyzed in terms of grammatical and semantic features Then, considering these features, the similarities and differences between two languages will

be worked out Finally, some implications of the study for EFL teaching and learning will be mentioned

The last part is "Conclusion", which includes the recapitulation of what have been

done in the study, the limitations of the study, and the recommendations for the further

research The study ends with "References"

PART 2: DEVELOPVEMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In order to create the basis for carrying out the CA study in the main part, it is

necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of the relevant theoretical background This chapter, therefore, is intended to give an overview of CA and CA guiding principles The concept of conversion as a word formation process will be regarded and revealed with the provision of definitions and types In addition, word meaning, verbs in English and Vietnamese will be briefly reviewed

1.1 An overview of CA and CA guiding principles

The term „Contrastive linguistics‟ was suggested by Whorf, B.L (1941) for comparative study which is giving emphasis on linguistic differences and it has been redefined by Fisiak (1981:1) as “a subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them” CA is used as an alternative for contrastive linguistics

CA is very broad field of linguistics, since it embraces all its major levels: phonology, semantics, syntax and pragmatic, the latter including text studies and some aspects of the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspective

CA of two languages become useful when it is adequately describing the sound structure and grammatical structure of two languages, with comparative statements, giving due emphasis to the compatible items in the two systems It is assumed that learning of L2

is facilitated whenever there are similarities between L1 and L2 Learning may be interfered with when there are marked contrasts between L1 and L2 CA provides an objective and scientific base for L2 teaching If the L1 and L2 both have significantly similar linguistic features on all the levels of their structures there will not be much difficulty in learning the L2 in a limited time

To help the study bring into play, Chaturvedi (1973)‟s the following guiding principles for contrastive study will be applied

(i) To analyze the mother tongue and the target language independently and completely (ii) To compare the two languages item-wise-item at all levels of their structure

(iii) To arrive at the categories of: a) similar features, b) partially similar features, c) dissimilar features - for the target language

(iv) To arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing and target language teaching in general

1.2 Conversion – A word formation process

2.1 Definition and Terminology

Although conversion has been an important part of English word formation for

centuries, linguists have argued over almost every facet relating to this process; even down

to the term used to describe it The terminology used for this process has not been completely established yet Most current linguists use „conversion‟, but others refer to the process as „functional change‟ or „functional shift‟, and „zero-derivation‟ or „zero-affixation‟ Each term is associated with a different connotation, theory, and slightly different meaning

Functional change or shift is used, for example, by Cannon (1987:67), “from a

linguistic point of view, functional shift does not add a new form to the lexicon; but the inflectability or noninflectability of the new functionshift requires it to be classed as a new form etymologically”

Zero-derivation or zero-affixation, if conversion is viewed as a word-formation

process, one theory is that it appears to run parallel to the derivational word-formation processes Inflectional affixes are said to be „class-maintaining‟, whereas derivational affixes are „class-changing‟; as the conversion process is „class-changing‟, it is deemed to

be derivation with a „zero-affix‟ or „zero-morpheme‟ This issue has caused debate amongst linguists and divides them into two camps: those who think that there is a zero-element involved in the process, and those who reject that theory Prominent linguists who endorse the theory that conversion is a process involving the addition of a derivational zero include Marchand (1969), Lyons (1977), and Allen (1978) According Marchand (1969:360), “it is because of the parallelism with overtly marked derivatives that we speak

of zero-marked derivatives or zero-derivatives, not just because of the added element of

content which characterizes the transposition of the adjective clean to the verb clean, etc”

Lyons (1977:512) defines that “zero-derivation is derivation by means of the affixation of

an identity element” Allen (1978:273) also states, “It is clear that the zero element under

consideration is a derivational suffix, hence attached to the basic word by a derivational word formation rule Not only is a lexical category change, typical of derivational suffixation, involved, but inflectional endings cannot appear inside the zero element The zero must, consequently, be a derivational affix”

The term „Conversion‟ represents something of a middle ground between „functional

shift‟ and „zero-derivation‟: „conversion‟ is usually used where the linguist rejects the idea

of a „zero‟ element, but thinks that the process involves word-formation rather than just functional changes It was, in fact, the term originally applied to the process by Sweet (189, 38-39), and currently seems to be the dominant theory, being endorsed by, for example, Bauer (1983), Zandvoort (1972), Pennanen (1971), Katamba (1993), Quirk et al ( 1973), Lieber (2005), Valera ( 2005) Conversion is technically defined as the deliberate transfer of a word from one part of speech to another as by Zandvoort (1972:65) Katamba, (1993:54) states that words may be formed without modifying the form of the input word that serves as the base This head can be a noun or verb This is called conversion

“Conversion is the change in form class of a form without any corresponding change of form” Bauer (1983:32),"Conversion is the derivational process whereby an item changes its word class without the addition of an affix" (Quirk et al, 1973:441) “Conversion is the process by which lexical items change (grammatical) category without any concomitant change in form” Lieber (2005:418) “Conversion is one the processes that may take part in the creation of new lexemes in English” (Valera 2005:20)

In short, we have three different terms and theories to negotiate, and various other minefields of controversy associated with the process to account for in the investigation of conversion

1.2.2 Remarkable features

Conversion is a convenient and productive way of enriching the English vocabulary Conversion is particularly common in English because the basic form of nouns and verbs is identical in many cases (Aitchison, (1989:160)) It is usually impossible in languages with grammatical genders, declensions, or conjugations (Cannon, 1985:430) Its productivity is considerably encouraged by certain features of the English language in its modern stage of development The simplicity of paradigms facilitates processes of making words of one category of parts of speech from words of another So does the analytical structure of the

language A great number of one-syllable words is another factor in favor of conversion for such words are naturally more mobile and flexible than polysyllables

Cannon (1985:415) asserts that conversion will become even more active in the future because it is a very easy way to create new words in English There is no way to know the number of conversions appearing every day in the spoken language, although we know this number must be high As it is a quite recent phenomenon, the written evidence is not a fully reliable source We will have to wait a little longer to understand its whole impact, which will surely increase in importance in the next decades

The process of conversion has some semantic limitations A converted word only

assumes one of the range of meanings of the original word For example, the noun paper has various meanings, such as newspaper, material to wrap things The denominal verb,

though, only contains the sense of putting that material on places like walls This shows the converted item has only converted part of the semantic field of the source item

1.2.3 Typology

There are several ways to classify conversion due to different purposes and points of

view Based on a preference in history, conversion can be divided into traditional and

occasional Traditional conversion refers to the accepted use of words which are recorded

in dictionaries, e.g to cook, to look, to capture, etc The high productivity of conversion finds its reflection in speech where numerous occasional cases of conversion can be found, which are not registered by dictionaries, called nonce words and occur momentarily, through the immediate need of the situation For example, when a person keeps saying

“hello, dear” to anyone he meets, we can coin the verb “hello dear” by saying “he hello dears everybody” We can also make it a noun: “I‟m tired of his hello-dear”

Based on phonetics or morphology, conversion can be: total, partial (Quirk et al (1997)) and approximate conversion (Kiparsky (1982)) In total conversion, the converted

words participate in morphological processes (derivation and inflection) e.g bottle (N) →

bottle (V) → bottler (N), bottled (V-PAST) In partial conversion, the converted form does

not show any derivation or inflection Conversion from noun to adjective and adjective to noun is rather a controversial one It is also called 'partial conversion" by Cannon (1985: 413) and 'syntactic process' by Bauer (1983:230), this peculiar process occurs when "a word of one class appears in a function which is characteristic of another word class"

(Quirk, 1997:1559) e.g bestA → bestN →*bestsN-PL, *bestableA Approximate

conversions are some few cases in which there are slight non-affixal changes (Kiparsky

(1982)) These can be considered marginal cases of conversion (Bauer (1983:228-229)) Although the shift takes place, they are called "marginal" because of the alterations produced in the word This marginal group can be divided regarding two different aspects:

the pronunciation e.g 'use' /-s/ (n) - > 'to use' /-z/ and the word-stress e.g 'conduct

(n)->con'duct (v) (Quirk (1997:1566))

Based on the direction of conversion, As this paper tries to give a comprehensive

vision on conversion, it will attempt to establish the direction of the process The criterion

to establish the original and derived item has been taken from Marchand (1972: 242-252)

It focuses on several aspects:

a the semantic dependence (the word that reports to the meaning of the other is the derivative)

b the range of usage (the item with the smaller range of use is the converted word)

c the semantic range (the one with less semantic fields is the shifted item)

d the phonetic shape (some suffixes express the word-class the item belongs to and, if it does not fit, this is the derivative)

After this analysis, intuition is still important Verbs tend to be abstract because they represent actions and nouns are frequently concrete because they name material entities Conversion is quickly related to shift of word-class With this respect, it mainly produces nouns, verbs and adjectives Other grammatical categories, including closed-class ones, can only shift to open-class categories, but not to closed-class ones (prepositions, conjunctions) In addition, it is not rare that a simple word shifts into more than one category

Up to this point conversion has only been considered as a shift from one grammatical category to another However, these are not the only cases where it may happen According to Quirk (1997:1563), “The notion of conversion may be extended to changes

of secondary word class, within the same major word category" This process has no clear terminology; for example it is called 'change of secondary word class' by Quirk (1997:1563) and 'conversion as a syntactic process' by Bauer (1983:227) Within the field

of conversion, it has not been much studied because it is less evident than the classical

conversion Below, a list of conversion patterns is given The list, being rather broad in scope, is adopted from Quirk et al who consider the patterns in boldface marginal

N-to-V: (to) elbow, (to) man

A-to-V: (to) better, (to) empty, (to) lower

N (shelf, calf, half)-to-V: (involving root allomorphy): ((to) shelve, calve, halve)

Complex N-to-V: (to) commission, (to) hostess; (to) streamline

Particle-to-V: (to) down, up, thwart

V trans -to-V intrans : (to) sell cars, cars sell

V intrans -to-V trans : (He) runs (every day), (He) runs (a company)

N abstract/mass -to-N concrete/count : conversion (a type of word-formation) a conversion

(an instance of converting); tea, a tea N-to-A: computer (program), head (bookkeeper)

Participle-to-A: (a) written exam, (an) exciting film

Adv-to-A: (the) then (president), above (suggestion)

V-to-N: (a) run, (a) drive, (a) survey

A-to-N: (a) given, (a) daily, (the) rich,

P-to-N: (the) ins and outs, (the) ups and downs

Adv-to-N: (the) whys and wherefores, (the) hereafter

Prefix-to-N: (the) pros and cons

Auxiliary-to-N: (a) must

Phrase-to-N: (the) also-rans, (a) has-been

Table 1: Quirk et al.’s list of conversion patterns

If the criterion of directionality is right, Quirk et al.‟s above list of conversion patterns is fully justifiable, since all of them comply with the criterion of directionality From this follows that in a full account of English conversion, the basic patterns mentioned above should equally be dealt with When reseaching the phenomenon of conversion, this approach is considered the most thorough and fullest one as conversion involves in word class and its function, therefore the study is based on this classification

1.3 Word Meaning

It is necessary to mention word meaning when the CA of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese will be carried out with regard to grammatical and semantic features Word meaning has been a great concern of many linguists The word as a structural and semantic entity within the language system has two main types of meaning: grammatical and lexical

According to Lyons (1995:52), a lexeme may have different word forms, which will

generally differ in their grammatical meaning The forms of teacher and teachers differ in

respect of their grammatical meaning of singularity and plurality The grammatical meaning may be defined as the meaning of categories attached to the word, the component

of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words The grammatical categories of English are tense, mood, aspect, voice, case, number, person

and comparison e.g the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs went, answered, wrote

or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns parents’, sister’s, student’s, the plurality meaning of nouns tables, students, houses, jokes In modern linguistic science, it

is commonly held that some elements of grammatical meaning can be identified by the position of the linguistic unit in relation to other linguistic units, i.e by its distribution

Word-forms goes, speaks, answers have the same grammatical meaning as they can all be found in identical distribution, e.g only after the pronouns he, she, it and before adverbs like well, quickly, every day

Baker (1992:12) states that lexical meaning of a word may be viewed as the specific value it has in a particular linguistic system Lexical meaning is the invariable part of meaning It is the proper meaning, the most outstanding individual property of words The

same lexical meaning applies for all grammatical forms of a word (go, goes, going, went,

gone) In contrast with grammatical meaning, it can stand on its own and identical in all the

forms of the word

Võ Đại Quang (2006:20) also states four major components of word meaning shown in the following table:

Chair: a piece of furniture designed for one person to sit upon

Referential (what the

word refers to)

Give me a chair: a desk chair, a wing chair, or dining room chair

pulled the tail!

Stylistic coloring Die/pass away/kick the bucket

Intensifying Very good/quite good

Evaluative Boring/ interesting

Structural

(The meaning a word acquires by

virtue of its membership in a system

or a set)

Reflected

Thatcher: British Prime Minister in the 80s, The Iron lady, or Residentof 9th Downing Street

Associative expensive >< chip

Collocative Artificial limb/ flower/ sweetener

but false teeth/ passport/promise

Tom admires Mary

Catergorial

(the meaning a word acquires by

virtue of grammatical classification)

Strength (n), strengthen (v), strong (adv), strongly (adv)

Table 2: Major components of word meaning

He also states two possible types of word meaning: direct meaning and indirect meaning By direct meaning, the word directly denotes something without comparing it or associating with other things It is also called literal meaning By indirect meaning, the word refers to the thing meant in association with something, we need context and have to compare it or associate with other things to understand it It is also called figurative or

transferred meaning The word head in he knocks on my head refers to part of the body and

it is direct meaning but in he is the head of the class the head means a leader so it is

indirect meaning

In terms of lexical meaning, words in English and Vietnamese are similar However, they differ in respect of grammatical meaning English words carry two types of meanings Meanwhile, Vietnamese word themselves do not carry grammatical meaning

Almost verbs in English change in form in accordance with the grammatical features

e.g She likes cat, they went to the beach, I enjoy reading short stories

According to Quirk et al (1972:820), verbs can be the head of verb phrases playing the

central function in a sentence Some verb types can take complementation, but others

cannot The four verb types taking complementation are intensitive e.g be in John is very

happy, monotransitive e.g catch in He caught a big fish yesterday, ditransitive e.g give in

He gave Mary a doll, and complex transitive e.g call in she called him a hero Three other

verb types where no complementation occurs are intransitive verbs (never taking an object)

e.g arrive in Our friends have arrived, verbs which can be transitive or intransitive with little or no difference in meaning or in subject-verb relationship e.g smoke in He smokes

(cigarettes) every day, and verbs which can be transitive or intransitive with considerable

difference in meaning or in subject-verb relationship e.g grow in He grew rapidly during

that period beside He grew flowers as a hobby

Võ Đại Quang (2006:18) states that there are many ways to classify English verbs as follows:

In accordance with the functions performed by the elements in the verb phrase verbs can be classified into lexical and auxiliary verbs Lexical verbs can be regular or irregular Auxiliary verbs are primary and modal verbs

In accordance with the possibility of admitting progressive aspect, verbs can be dynamic and stative verbs Stative verbs are often verbs that denote state or condition

(even transitive verbs) and not commonly used in the progressive tense e.g she knows me,

I hate myself for loving you, she’s weak, he looks happy They are verbs of inert perception

and recognition e.g adore, astonish, believe, hate, hear, impress, know, like, etc and

relation e.g apply to, equal, deserve, involve, lack, matter, need, owe, resemble, possess, sound, tend, etc Dynamic verbs are often verbs that denote action, but some may denote

state, and can be used in the progressive e.g they are singing, she is feeling tired now

In accordance with the types of complementation, verbs can be intensive and extensive Intensive verbs consists of current verbs e.g be, seem, remain, keep, feel or resulting verbs e.g become, turn, go, get Extensive verbs consist of intransitive e.g sleep, cry, rain, and transitive e.g buy, like, give Transitive verbs can be monotransitive, ditransitive, and complextransitive verbs e.g Mary beat Tom hard, I gave Tom a book, Tom made me

angry Verbs can be one-word and multi-word verbs according to the number of

constituents

1.4.2 Verbs in Vietnamese

Verb class is one of two fundamental word classes in Vietnamese and the verbs play an important role in Vietnamese vocabulary as well as in forming sentences Grammatical features of verbs remain complicated

According to Lê Biên (1999:70), and Diệp Quang Ban (1998:21), in terms of general meaning, verbs refer to actions, activities, progresses, and forms of movements They may

be stated as in: Anh ấy đánh đàn; Cô ấy ngâm thơ Cháu yêu Hà Nội; Tôi mong anh về Cô

bé trở thành thiếu nữ Chị ấy trở nên xinh đe ̣p Thế là mợ nó đi Tây etc

By means of grammatical features, when functioning as central component of a verb phrase, verb can combine with other auxiliary components as follow:

- With auxiliary components before verbs to indicate scope of the action or activity e.g

cũng, đều, cứ, to indicate continuation e.g còn, vẫn, to indicate tense, aspect e.g chưa, không, chẳng, to indicate advice or prohibit e.g hãy, đừng, chớ

- With nouns (this is the most popular combinations) e.g uống sữa, ăn cháo

- With other auxiliary components of other parts of speech e.g hát hay, múa dẻo

Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977) states that verbs in Vietnamese can have different functions

in a sentence The most popular and outstanding one is predicate or a part of a predicate

e.g Trời mưa Verbs can also be subjects of a sentence e.g Buôn bán làm tăng thêm thu

nhập cho gia đình, object e.g Tôi muốn bảo vệ luận văn trong tháng 10

Nguyễn Đình Hòa (1996:153), based on a semantic analysis of transitivity relations and the use of critereria of combinatory possibilities, suggests a classification of Vietnamese verbs of thirteen types e.g non-action verbs, auxiliary verbs, copula: là etc

Bùi Đức Tịnh (1996:273) states that Vietnamese verbs can be used in both active and passive voices according to the classification of verbs in terms of voices

Diệp Quang Ban and Hoàng Văn Thung (2002) classify Vietnamese verbs into two types: transitive verbs and intransitive verbs Intransitive verbs are ones that can stand

alone with complete meaning without help from other words, e.g Bé ngủ Transitive verbs,

in contrast, cannot stand alone, they need help from other words to complete their meaning

e.g cô hàng xóm cho bé một chiếc áo bơi

Recently, some linguists such as Lê Biên criticizes that this classification is imposed by European grammatical system, and based on functions of verbs he suggests a new classification that is independent and dependent verbs Considering the purpose, this study will be based on the notions suggested by Diệp Quang Ban, Nguyễn Kim Thản, and Bùi

Đức Tịnh

This chapter provides an overview of CA and a discussion of CA guiding principles

suggested by Chaturvedi (1973) which is expected to be helpful for the study, and of the concept of conversion as a word formation process It also gives a brief introduction to word meaning, verbs in English and Vietnamese In short, this chapter has been the theoretical background for the study

CHAPTER 2: THE CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF N-V CONVERSION

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

In this chapter, The CA of N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese will be

made Firstly, the N-V conversion in English and Vietnamese will be mainly focused

on the grammatical features (including syntactic and morphological features) and semantic features Then the similarities and differences will be detected Finally, some implications for EFL teaching and learning will also be discussed

2.1 N-V conversion in English

N-V conversion, which is generally believed to be the most frequent pattern in English, will be concerned In English N-V conversion is also referred to as verbification or verbing, and a new verb converted from noun is called a denominal verb The N-V conversion in English will be more focused on the grammatical features (including syntactic and morphological features) and semantic features

2.1.1 Grammatical Features

A Marchand (1969) in his book "The Categories and Types of Present-day English" treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function Verb formed from noun is a denominal verb, sharing the following syntactic functions of verbs:

2.1.1.1 Syntactic Features

1 The denominal verbs occur as a part of a predicate of a sentence

- Our company authored the documentation

- Please conference with your teacher and report

- We are efforting to work this out

- This will strongly impact the price of the company‟s stock

- The managing editor must interface with a variety of freelance editors

- I have been tasked with a new project

2 The derivates of the denominal verbs can have different grammatical functions such as subjects, objects, or complements

- Brushing his coat with his hand is too easy

- She enjoyed combing her hair in the room in silence

- He has agreed to liaison with the Division on behalf of those with problem cases

- She took the picture to the wall to tape

3 The denominal verbs carry markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect,

voice, mood, person, number

- You can access the information any time

- Tim had bicycled to the village with Gertrud

- We were stoned and bottled by the spectators as we marched down the street

- To prove his skill as an acrobat he cartwheeled gracefully into the room

- He stapled the papers together

- Any opponent is labelled a "communist" by the reactionary government

- Can you tape that programme tonight for me please?

4 The denominal verbs can be transitive and intransitive verbs

 As intransitive verbs

- Oh, well, we already have telephoned, cabled, faxed and e-mailed

- She has grumbled all the way up the stairs

 As transitive verbs

- Tomorrow they are going to sign a peace treaty

- Her government will start funding many housing development projects next year

- In that year, the army staged a coup d‟état and seized power

- However, Professor John Gunn, who chaired the working party said that the delay

was inevitable because of the constraints at the time

2.1.1.2 Morphological features

The denominal verb consists of one morpheme as a root According to Quirk et al

(1973), like many other English verbs, it has five forms Take the denominal verb ship for example: the base ship, the-s form ships, the past form shipped, the past participle shipped, and the - ing participle shipping

By means of derivation, it can has derivates as follow: shipper (noun): one who sends

goods from one place to another not in the same city or town, esp one who sends goods

by water, shipping (adjective): relating to ships, their ownership, transfer, or employment;

as, shiping concerns, shipment (noun): the act or process of shipping; as, he was engaged in

the shipment of coal for London; an active shipment of wheat from the West

The denominal verbs have two advantages over derivational verbs; the main verb is unrestricted in its meanings (as opposed to verbs with affixes, where the affix has some control over the meaning of the verb), and as conversions are far more likely to be able to form particle or phrasal verbs, this means that two verbs with the same morphological stem can exist side by side with slightly different meanings (a simple conversion and a

phrasal/particle conversion) e.g bottle(V) vs bottle up(V) (metaphorical use)

Nouns can be converted straight into particle or phrasal verbs without the need for a

pre-existing non-phrasal/particle verb form For example, the verb chicken out exists, where *chicken(V) does not: This is extremely important, and is an area that has, as yet,

been neglected in the literature Where a noun is converted straight into a phrasal verb, users must have thought that the conversion alone was insufficient to guarantee the conveyance of a clear meaning to an interpreter The relationship between the two elements in the converted phrasal verb is symbiotic, with each element being vital to the verb‟s meaning and function

The denominal verbs can also be used in such compounds as shipwreck, bottle-feed,

honey moon, cold-shoulder, free wheel, flashlight, blackball, blacklist, pinball, stonewall, blue-pencil, my-dear, my-love etc

2.1.2 Semantic Features

In this section, the different senses of N-V conversion or of the denominal verbs will be explored Like any other lexical verbs, the denominal verbs refer to actions, processes or changes Clearly, the word made by conversion has different meaning from the original word though the two meanings can be associated There are certain regularities in theses association that can be classified Verbs can be formed from nouns of different semantic groups and have different meanings because of that Based on Clark and Clark‟s (1979:761-811) classification, they proposed the following classes of denominal verbs:

locatum verbs, location and duration verbs, agent and experiencer verbs, goal and source verbs, instrument verbs Based on the classification suggested by R Quirk et al

(1973:442), there are seven subtypes of denominal verbs Below, a closer investigation which still being far from exhaustive will show, however, some signs of patterned

relationship, especially if one observes semantically related groups The examples serve only to illustrate and clarify this

1 Verbs have instrumental meaning “To…with N” if they are formed from:

(a) Nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g eye, finger, leg, hand, elbow, knee, toe,

shoulder, nose, head, stomach

- The remains being sent to Hawaii on Tuesday for forensic tests were found or handed in

by Vietnamese during a month-long field search, which ended on September 20

- The clerk handed me the key

- She fingered the soft silk

- He headed the ball into the goal

- She elbowed her way forward

- The dog nosed out a rat

- The little boy kneed the door open

- I cannot stomach seafood

- The soldier shouldered his rucksack

Verbs based on nouns denoting some parts of the human body will show regularity of

instrumental meaning, however, to face does not imply doing something by or even with one‟s face but turning it in certain direction, to back means to move backwards

Verbs from nouns denoting parts of a human body can be used in figurative meaning

- Her father once headed the government‟s propaganda machine

- The major headed the procession as it entered the town

- These important questions are facing us today

- We understand that Vietnam is facing great challenges of global economic

competition

- She is the candidate who is backed by the Labor Party

- Who is backing the film?

- A reporter is nosing about for news

- I cannot stomach his opinion

- Do not try to elbow your way in

- Do not muscle in