an investigation into the linearity to simple sentence in english and vietnamese = nghiên cứu về trật tự tuyến tính của câu đơn trong tiếng anh đối chiếu với tiếng việt

In my study, first of all, I present linearity in affirmative statement of English simple sentence and Vietnamese one3. Next, I discuss Linearity in both languages and then make comparis

NGUYỄN THỊ THU QUỲNH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LINEARITY TO SIMPLE SENTENCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ TRẬT TỰ TUYẾN TÍNH CỦA CÂU ĐƠN TRONG

TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI CHIỀU VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ THU QUỲNH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE LINEARITY TO SIMPLE SENTENCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ TRẬT TỰ TUYẾN TÍNH CỦA CÂU ĐƠN TRONG

TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI CHIỀU VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT

M.A MINOR THESIS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Method of the study 2

PART 2: DEVLOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background 3 1.1 What is linearity? … 3

1 2 What is a simple sentence? 4

1.3 Classifications of simple sentences according to

their communicative purpose 5

1.3.1 Statement 5

1.3.2 Question 5

1.3.3 Command 6

1.3.4 Exclamation 6

Chapter 2: Linearity in the English affirmative statement 8 2 1 Elements and patterns of the English simple sentence 8

2 2 Traditional positions of these five elements in English 10

2 2 1 Position of Subject 10

2 2 2 Position of Verb 10

2 2 3 Position of Object 11

2 2 4 Position of Complement 12

2 2 5 Position of Adverbial 13

2 3 Inversion in Affirmative statement 15

2.3.1 Subject – verb inversion 16

2 3.1.1 Auxiliary verbs before Subject 16

2 3.1.2 Main verb before Subject 17

2 3 2 Subject - Object Inversion 18

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2 3 3 Subject - Complement Inversion 18

2 3 4 Subject - Adverbial Inversion 18

Chapter 3: Linearity in the Vietnamese affirmative statement 20 3 1 Elements and patterns of the Vietnamese affirmative statement 20

3 2 Positions of elements 23

3 2 1 Position of Subject 23

3 2 2 Position of Verb 23

3 2 3 Position of Object 24

3 2 4 Position of Complement 24

3 2 5 Position of Adverbial 24

3 3 Inversion in Vietnamese affirmative statement 25

3.3.1 Verb before subjects 25

3.3.2 Complement at the beginning 26

3.3.3 Object before Subject and Verb 26

3.3.4 Adverbial at the beginning 27

Chapter 4: Contrastive analysis of linearity in English and Vietnamese affirmative statement 28 4.1 Similarities 28

4.1.1 Elements and structure of affirmative statement 28

4.1.2 Inversion in the emphasized sentence 31

4.2 Differences 33

4.2.1 Verb Phrase 33

4.2.2 Transformational relation 34

4.2.3 Inversion 36

Chapter 5: Implication for teaching and learning English 37 5.1 Typical mistakes made by Vietnamese learners 37

5.2 Suggested types of exercises 39

PART 3: CONCLUSION 41 Reference

Appendix

Vcomplex- trans Complex transitive Verb

Vditrans Ditransitive Verb

Vint Intensive Verb

Vintran Intransitive Verb

Vmonotrans Monotransitive Verb

In the English language, the position of elements is essential to the meaning of a sentence in general and the meaning of a simple sentence in particular A change in element position may bring about a fundamental change in meaning

Like in Vietnamese and some other languages, in English, linearity in a simple sentence plays an important role We can depend on it to find out whether it is a statement (affirmative

or negative one), a question, a command or an exclamation Thus an all – round understanding

of element position in the simple sentence also contributes a great deal to the study of language both theoretically and practically

Many Vietnamese learners (especially beginners and intermediate learners) cannot avoid making common mistakes in placing elements at the right position in the statement of simple sentence

The position of sentence elements in English and Vietnamese are not the same partly because different languages use different lingual and cultural habits

For the above – mentioned reasons, research on linearity in sentence should be given special attention by those who use English as a foreign language, especially by not only all of

us, who are working as teachers of English, but also our students who are learning English as a compulsory subject

2 Aims of the study

In the Investigation into the Linearity to simple sentence in English and Vietnamese as

an M.A thesis, the author has the following aims:

- to find out the similarities and differences of the linearity in English and Vietnamese affirmative statement

- to help Vietnamese learners avoid some common mistakes in using English

In order to realize these aims, the study supports to answer the following research questions:

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1 What is linearity of sentence?

2 What are similarities and differences of the linearity in English and Vietnamese affirmative statement?

3 What are common mistakes in linearity made by Vietnamese learners?

3 Scope of the study

According to communicative purpose, there are four kinds of simple sentence They are statement, question, command and exclamation Each kind of simple sentence has two forms: affirmative and negative However in my study, I only focus on the linearity in affirmative statement

In my study, first of all, I present linearity in affirmative statement of English simple sentence and Vietnamese one Next, I discuss Linearity in both languages and then make comparison between linearity in affirmative statement of English simple sentence and Vietnamese one

My study is divided into five chapters: Chapter 1 is the theoretical background of my subject Chapter 2 and chapter 3 present the possible linearity in the English and Vietnamese affirmative statement In chapter 4, there is a contractive analysis of linearity in English and Vietnamese affirmative statement Last but not least, in chapter 5, the implication in teaching and learning English of the study will be mentioned

4 Method of the study

Contrastive analysis is the main linguistic method applied in my study in which the linearity in affirmative statement in English and Vietnamese is considered its objective Reading English Grammar books and Vietnamese books is carried out to get as much knowledge of the subject as possible Most of examples are taken from books widely used in English and Vietnam Moreover in my study I make contractive analysis to find out similarities and differences in the linearity in the affirmative statement between two languages

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PART 2: DEVLOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background

a sequence The occurrence of language signs is governed by the characteristic of time which is one way by nature As a result, words are spoken (or written) and heard (or read) in a time sequence from early to later, a sequence represented in the English writing system by a procession of written forms from left to right There is a standard order for subject, verb and object In the English, we have an example:

Cassius sees Brutus

S V O

The subject of the sentence, Cassius, precedes the verb sees, while the object, Brutus,

follows the verb Numbers of other languages follow the same order Subject – Verb – Object (abbreviated as SVO) We could try to switch around the subject and the object, converting the SVO order into OVS, as in this example:

Brutus sees Cassius

But if we did, English speakers would identify Brutus as the subject The order would

still be SVO, but the meanings would be different

Also, according to Jacobs, other languages may use different orderings The range of

possible orderings of these words or phrases is known as the word order parameter In many

languages, word order is less crucial than it is in English because, as in Latin, there is greater

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reliance on suffixes and other ways of making sentence constituents Word order therefore appears to be a setting on a yet more general parameter of function marking But in no language is word order totally insignificant

Hence, linearity is the basic property of sentence structure It determines the location of sentence constituents and the syntactic relationship between those constituents Changing the position of sentence constituents will result in changing in meaning

1 2 What is a simple sentence?

Definition of simple sentence

Warriner J.E (1997: 26) presented: “Simple sentence is a sentence that has one subject and one verb” However, this definition is insufficient because in a sentence there may be one

or more subject and a verb or, in turn, one subject with one or more verbs

E.g Mary and her boyfriend are doctors

Type of the simple sentence: Structurally, there are usually two main types of the

simple sentence:

- (i) complete simple sentence is the sentence that has one subject and one predicate (Also called two – member sentences)

- (ii) Special simple sentence is the sentence that has only subject or a verb, sometimes,

it is called an incomplete simple sentence (Or one – member sentences)

E.g Look!

Rain!

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In term of communicative purposes, there are four kinds of simple sentence: statement, question, command and exclamation Each kind has two forms – affirmative and negative However, in my study, I only focus on the affirmative statement

1.3 Classifications of simple sentences according to their communicative purpose

According to Quirk R (1990: 190), the sentence may be divided into four major syntactic classes whose use correlates with different communication functions They are statement (declarative sentence), question (interrogative sentence), command (or imperative sentence), and exclamation (or exclamatory sentence)

1.3.1 A Statement/ A Declarative sentence

A Statement or a declarative sentence is a sentence that makes a statement in which the subject is always present and generally precedes the verb

E.g John will speak to the boss today

The declarative sentence is used more frequently than all of the types It always followed by a stop (.)

There are two forms of statement, affirmative and negative Affirmative statement is a statement that affirms a proposition, without negative words

E.g.: She is talking to her mother

Negative statement is a statement which contains negative words such as not, rare,

seldom, never, hardly, etc

E.g.: She is not talking to her mother

1.3.2 A Question/ An interrogative sentence:

An interrogative sentence is the sentence that asks a question

E.g How many students are there in your class?

An interrogative sentence is always followed by a question mark (?) In interrogative, a part of the verbs always come before the subject Questions are marked by one or more of these three criteria:

+ the place of operator immediately in front of the subject

E.g Will John speak to the boss today?

+ the initial position of an interrogative or “Wh” element

E.g Who will you speak to?

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+ Rising intonation:

E.g You will speak to the boss?

According to Quirk R (1990) the interrogative sentences can be divided into three classes according to the type of answer they expect:

+ Yes/ No Questions: are those that expect only affirmation or rejection of what has been asked:

E.g.: Have you finished the book?

+ Wh – Questions: are those that expect a reply supplying an item of information applied by wh – word

E.g.: What is your name?

How old are you?

+ Alternative Questions: are those that expect the reply as one of two or more options presented in question

E.g.: Would you like to go for a walk or stay at home?

Do you like tea or coffee?

1.3.3 A Command/ an Imperative sentence:

A command/ an imperative sentence is a sentence that gives a command or makes a request Commands have no overt grammatical subject, and whose verb is in the imperative

E.g.: Speak to the boss today

An imperative sentence may be followed by a full stop or an exclamation mark

- Ordinary requests take a full stop (.) Command and strong requests take an exclamation mark (!)

- The subject of a sentence that is a command or a request is the word “you”, understood but not expressed

1.3.4 An Exclamation/ An exclamatory sentence:

An exclamatory sentence is a sentence that expresses strong feeling It exclaims speakers/ writers’ emotion

E.g What a noise they are making!

How beautiful she was!

She was beautiful!

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Chapter 2: Linearity in the English affirmative statement

2 1 Elements and patterns of the English affirmative statement

According to traditional grammarians, the simple sentence has two major parts: Subject and Predicated

E.g She is listening to music

As for modern grammarians, Quirk R.et al, (1990: 35 – 40, 53), a sentence may have five units called elements of sentence structure: Subject, Verb Phrase, Complement, Object and Adverbial, here abbreviated as: S, V, C, O, A

Predicate may consist of Verb Phrase, Complement, Objects or Adverbial

All the elements of sentence are realized by phrases Subject and Object are both realized by noun phrase (NP)

E.g.: That picture is beautiful

E.g.: My mother is a nurse

C (NP)

That picture is beautiful

C (AdjP)Adverbial element (A) is realized by Adverbial phrase (AP) and preposition phrase

(PP) E.g.: I put the plate on the table

A (PP)

+ Pattern 4: SVOA I put the plate on the table

S (NP) Vcomplex trans Od (NP) Aplace (Pre + NP)

+ Pattern 5: SVOC We have proved him wrong

S(NP) Vcomplex trans Od (NP) Co (AdjP)

+ Pattern 6: SVO i O d She gives me expressive presents

Subject is usually at the beginning in ordinary affirmative sentence

E.g Mary often goes to school by bus

Generally, in all seven simple sentence patterns, subject always stand the beginning of the sentence before the verb It is the person, place, thing, quality or idea that you want to mention when you form a sentence

2.2.2 Position of Verb Phrase

Verb phrase is the basic part of the sentence predicate It affects directly in meaning of the sentence

E.g.: She lives in Hanoi

S V There are various ways to classify verbs Verb is divided into two kind based on the meaning and function of it: Lexical verbs and Auxiliary verbs

Lexical verbs: make, speak, eat

Auxiliary verbs: Primary: do, have, be

Modal verb: can, may, could, etc

According to R Quirk (1990), many English verbs have five forms: the BASE, the – S form, the PAST, the – ING participle, and the – ED participle But irregular lexical verb forms

vary form three (eg: put, puts, putting) to eight (eg: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been) The modal auxiliaries are defective in not having infinitive (to may), - ing participle (maying), -

ed participle (mayed)

The position of modal auxiliaries: the modal auxiliary always stands before the main verb and after the subject in the sentence

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e.g.: My brother can play the guitar

In short, the usual order of verb is after subject and depends on the number and person

There are two types of object in sentence: Direct Object (Od) and Indirect Object (Oi)

E.g.: She sent us some photographs

- The direct object is usually the concrete or abstract noun, but personal noun

E.g.: She loves pop music

- Sometimes, Oi stands after Od and separated by preposition to or for

E.g.: She gave a book to me

I bought this book for you

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- With some separable two – word verbs, the Od can come after the two – word verb or between the verb and the preposition of adverb If Od of separable verb is pronoun, it must come between the verb and the preposition of adverb

E.g.: - Maria is taking off her shoes

Complement gives further information about another clause element The complement

can be adjective phrases including single adjectives; noun phrases including single noun,

pronouns, numeral phrases

The complement often follows the subject, verb phrase and object in the structure S V

or a sentence

E.g.: We will stay there

Adverbial of place The adverbial in a sentence can be an adverb phrase, a noun phrase, a preposition phrase, or a clause

Like subject, verb, and complement, adverbial is necessary to complete the meaning of the sentence or complete the sentence grammatically Sometimes, adverbial is optional sentence element

Some adverbials can only occur in fixed positions in the simple sentence pattern SVA, SVOA, but most adverbials are mobile, they can appear at difference positions in the simple sentence

We can distinguish three positions: initial, medial, and final position

- The initial position (before subject) with order: (A) SV; (A) SVO; (A) SVOC

(A) is an optional element in the sentence

E.g.: Naturally, they are walking (Quirk, p167)

- The medial position in the patterns: S (A) V; S (A) VO;

S (A) VOO; S (A) VOC; S (A) VOA

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E.g.: She (kindly) sent us some photographs (Quirk, p167)

If the main verbs have auxiliary verbs, adverbials often appear after the first auxiliary verb

E.g.: I have just finished my assignment

A

- The final position in all seven sentence patterns as optional elements, but they are obligatory

elements in two patterns SVA and SVOA

After an intransitive verb: He speaks quickly

After any object: The girl is a student at a large university

After complement: He makes me angry many times

Therefore, adverbial, both optional and obligatory element can appear at difference positions in the simple sentence

In conclusion, it is certain that five elements have fixed positions in the simple sentence, subject stands at the beginning of sentence, just before verb Object has positions right after verb and subject in SVO, SVOA (there are two types of object: Oi and Od, Oi

precedes Od in the pattern SV OiOd) Complement appears after subject and verb in SVC or after object in SVOC Adverbial can take the positions after verb or after object in SVA and SVOA

2 3 Inversion in Affirmative statement

To invert something means to put something in the opposite position to the one it was

in before In the case of English grammar, this refers to the change of the word order of the sentence, when the verb or an auxiliary comes before the subject The function of inversion is usually emphasis

- According to Douglas Bibier, Susan Conrad and Geoffrey Leech, (Longman Student Grammar – p405) in inversion, the operator comes before the subject

There are two main types of inversion:

(a) subject – verb inversion or full inversion: the subject and the verb change position (the subject is preceded by the entire verb phrase:

E.g.: Best of all would be to get a job in Wellingham

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On the top of the hill stood an old oak tree

(= An old oak tree stood on the top of the hill.)

(b) subject – operator inversion or partial inversion: the subject is preceded only by the operator rather than by the main verb or full verb phrase The word order changes to the interrogative (question) form but the sentence is affirmative statement

E.g.: "I like dry wines." "So do I."

Hardly had I spread my sandwich when the pizza arrived

- According to Swam (1980: 277), there are two kinds of inversion In more common kind, an auxiliary verb comes before the subject, and the rest of the verb comes after If there is

no auxiliary, do, does, or did is added

In other sort of inversion, the whole verb comes before the subject; do and did are not

used

E.g.: Round the corner came a milk – van

- According to Eastwood (1994: 57) distinguishes between subject – verb inversion and subject – auxiliary inversion:

Subject – verb inversion:

E.g.: On the door – step stood an old man

Here is the news

Subject – auxiliary inversion:

E.g.: I saw the man and so did Paul

The above – mentioned linguists together with others, have classified inversion in English into different kinds However, in my study, I divide inversion into Subject – Verb inversion, Subject – Object inversion, Subject – Complement inversion, and Subject –

Adverbial inversion Moreover, I especially focus on inversion in affirmative simple sentence

2.3.1 Subject – verb inversion

2 3.1.1 Auxiliary verbs before Subject

Normally, verbs always stand after subjects in affirmative simple sentence; but there are some exceptions We put an auxiliary verb before the subject of a simple sentence in several situations:

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- Only + other words: Only by, only then, etc

E.g.: Only then did I understand the problem

Only after a year did I begin to see the result of my work

+) Only by + NP + Aux V/ Modal V + S + V …

E.g.: Only by hard work will we be able to accomplish this great task

- So can be used before subject – auxiliary inversion to mean “also” This helps to

avoid unnecessary repetition in a parallel addition or a parallel response In this way “so” is used in affirmative sentence only

E.g.: - A: We used to watch that on T.V

2.3.1.2 Main verb before Subject

This inversion is limited as follows:

- The verb phrase consists of a single verb word

E.g.: Down came the rain

- The verb is a transitive verb of position (be, stand…) or a verb of motion (go, come…) Moreover, this in version is virtually limited to a simple present or past tense single verb word

E.g.: From the corner comes the old beggar

This inversion does not take place in sentence with a personal pronoun

E.g.: - Away they go (not away go they)

Occasionally, this inversion occurs with a complement as the first element when the complement expresses a comparison

E.g.: - For a long time, he refused to talk to his wife, and kept her in ignorance

of his troubles Equally strange was his behavior to his son

V S

- More important is love

V S

2 3 2 Subject - Object Inversion

To emphasize Object of sentence, we can put this object before the subject

E.g.: This Harry did

In this sentence, Object This precedes Subject Harry It is used to emphasize the work

which Harry did rather than Harry who did the work

E.g.: To you he told his story

2 3 3 Subject - Complement Inversion

Complement before Verb and Subject: To attract reader’s attention to meaning of complement, we put complement at the beginning of the sentence The pattern of affirmative simple sentence is C S V or C V S

E.g.: Poor as he was

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2 3 4 Subject - Adverbial Inversion: Adverbial before subject and Verb

- When adverbial of place and manner at beginning in the affirmative sentence, we invert verb before subject However, auxiliary must not be used in this case

E.g.: - Under the tree lay one of the biggest men

In this case if subject is pronoun, there is not subject – verb inversion

E.g.: - Here it is (not here is it)

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In conclusion, besides seven English traditional simple sentence patterns with order:

SV, SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOO, SVOC, SVOA, in the English language, it is very frequent to appear some special changing positions of five elements called “inversion” Which element does speakers want to place emphasis on to attract listener’s attention, it will be on the first position This kind of changing is an important for people learning English

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Chapter 3: Linearity in the Vietnamese Affirmative Statement

3 1 Elements and patterns of the Vietnamese Affirmative Statement

There are also five main elements in the Vietnamese simple sentence: Subject, Verb, Objects, Complement, and Adverbial These elements are realized by phrase

However, in Vietnamese language, according to Hoang Trong Phien, Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt – Câu (2008), and Diep Quang Ban, Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt (2004), there are only five basic

patterns of simple sentence with following fixed orders:

+ Pattern 1: NP 1 + là/ bằng/ tại + NP 2 / Verb

(i) NP1 + là + NP2: (equivalent to the pattern SVC in English): It indicates relational process

E.g.: Anh ta là thợ mộc (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004)

S (NP 1 ) là C (NP 2 ) (ii) NP1 + bằng + NP2: It indicates the material

E.g.: - Nhà này bằng gỗ

S (NP 1 ) bằng C (NP 2 )

- Cái áo này bằng lụa (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004)

S (NP 1 ) bằng C (NP 2 )(iii) NP1 + tại/ bởi/ do + NP2: It indicates causing relation

E.g.: - Việc này tại nó (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004)

NP1 tại NP2

(iv) NP1 + để + Verb + NP2: (as pattern SVO in English; NP1 is Subject (S) and

NP2 is Object (O)) It is used for intended relation

E.g.: - Bàn ấy để uống nước (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004)

S (NP 1 ) để V O (NP 2 ) (v) NP1 + của + NP2: It expresses dependent relation

E.g.: - Cái này của mẹ

NP1 của NP2

- Xe này của Giáp (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004)

NP1 của NP2