SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF THINKING VERB GROUP IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Some definitions of semantics 8 Table 2.2 Sentence patterns 14-15 Table 4.1 Complement clause possibilities for THINKING verbs 32-33 Table 4.2 Sentence patterns

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

BACH THI DUONG

Hanoi - 2016

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

BACH THI DUONG

Field: English Language Code:60220201

Supervisor:Assoc Prof Dr Hoàng Tuyết Minh

Hanoi, 2016

Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh, for her enthusiastic and useful guidance, insightful comments, and encouragement without which this thesis would not have been completed

My special thanks go to all my lecturers in Faculty of Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University for their precious assistance, knowledge and enthusiasm

I am grateful to all the participants for their enthusiastic participation in the thesis Especially, I am indebted to my classmates – English Language Department, especially Le Thi Hai Yen for her great support

Last but not least, I would like to express my indebtedness to my family,

especially my parents, husband who have given me constant support and love during the completion of the thesis

ABSTRACT

This thesis is intended to deal with the thinking verbs in terms ofsyntactic and semantic features in English and their Vietnamese equivalents Before going deeply into this kind of verb, the English verb is introduced with its definition and classification Then its syntactic and semantic features are also presented with definition, position and examples

In the chapters following this, thinking verb and its features are presented with clear examples and at the same time they are analyzed and compared with Vietnamese equivalents to find out the similarities and differences between the two languages in the concern area

The study attempts to provide readers, particularly students of English, solution to their problem when using thinking verbs and their features and their complementation Then the suggestion for further studies and the implications for teaching English grammar better are also given

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Some definitions of semantics 8

Table 2.2 Sentence patterns 14-15 Table 4.1 Complement clause possibilities for THINKING verbs 32-33 Table 4.2 Sentence patterns of the THINKING verb group in English

Table 4.3 Frequency of types of structures in English THINKING

Table 4.4 Syntactic features of thinking verbs in English and

Table 4.5 A summary of the meaning of THINK in English and their

Vietnamese equivalents 46

Table 4.6 A summary of the meaning of REMEMBER in English and

their Vietnamese equivalents 47

Table 4.7 A summary of the meaning of ASSUME in English and their

Vietnamese equivalents 47

Table 4.8 A summary of the meanings of KNOW and their

Vietnamese equivalents 48 Table 4.9 A summary of the meanings of BELIEVE and their

Vietnamese equivalents 48 Table 4.10 Similarities and differences of THINKING verbs in

English and in Vietnamese 49-50

2.2.3.2 Classification of English verb according to their

2.2.4 Classification of sentences in terms of sentence pattern,

2.3 Summary 21

3.2.3 Research approach 24

3.2.4 Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 24

3.3 Research methods 25

3.3.1 Major methods and supporting methods 25

3.3.2 Data collection techniques 26

3.3.3 Data analysis techniques 27

3.4 Summary 27

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28 4.1 Syntactic features of the THINKING verbs in English 28

4.1.1 Realization of complementation of thinking verb group in English 28 4.1.1.1 Object as NP, and object omission 28

4.1.1.2 THAT, WH- and WH-TO complements 30 4.1.1.3 ING complements 30

4.1.1.4 Judgment TO complements 31

4.1.1.5 Modal (FOR) TO complements 31

4.2 Semantic features of thinking verb groups in English 33 4.3 The THINKING verb group in English and their Vietnamese equivalents 41 4.3.1 In terms of syntactic features 41

4.3.1.1 In terms of their sentence pattern 41

4.3.1.2 In terms of their sentence elements 42

4.3.2 In terms of semantic features 46 4.3.3 Similarities and Differences of thinking verbs in English and

4.4 Implications for teachingand learning the THINKING verbs 50 4.5 Summary 54

5.1 Recapitulation 56 5.2 Concluding remarks 58

5.4 Suggestions for a further research 60

REFERENCES

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 RATIONALE

The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and express actions, events, or states of being The verb or compound verb is the critical element of the predicate of a sentence

There have been a lot of researchers conducting investigations into THINKING verbs in both English and Vietnamese In English with these studies:Anna Wierzbicka (1972) she studies about the semantic features of

verbs such as: think, know, and want;R M W Dixon (1991),A new approach

to English grammar on semantic principles; Gilbert Ryle (2009), Concept of mind; Richard Faure (2009), Verbs of thinking and speaking;Susanna Karlsson (2008), Re-thinking THINK in contrastive perspective In Vietnam with studies: Hoàng Tuệ (1962), Giáo trình Việt ngữ ; Nguyễn Kim Thản (1997),Động từ trong tiếng Việt; Hoàng Phê (1998), Vietnamese dictionary In some Journals of Science and technology Lê Minh Giang and Ngũ Thiện Hùng (2011), Sự khác nhau giữa động từ thực hữu và không thực hữu trên cứ liệu tiếng Anh và đối dịch tiếng Việt; Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà (2012), Ngữ nghĩa của động từ nghĩ trong tiếng Việt These studies thoroughly describe about the semantic features of the THINKING verbs but they have not been exploited in terms of their syntactic features yet Moreover, the equivalents between two languages English and Vietnamese has not been implemented yet

In the process of teaching English verbs in general, and teaching the THINKING verbs in particular, it is recognized that this verb group makes students confused much especially their syntactic and semantic features of the THINKING verb group and their Vietnamese equivalents As there are a lot of THINKING verbs, learners can use different words to express their ideas However, a great number of people make mistakeswhen they usethe THINKINGverbsin different situations to communicate To compare the

syntactic and semantic features of the THINKING verbsare important to learners, so that they can have good knowledge to use these THINKING verbs correctly

Here and there, there are many studies on verbs with certain linguistic units However, there is no study of thinking verbs group Thus, the topic “ Syntactic and semantic features of thinking verbs group in English and their Vietnamese equivalents” is chosen for my study Hopeful, the result of the study will be useful for learners of English and Vietnamese and contribute a small part into the teaching and learning English and Vietnamese as a foreign language in Vietnam

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The study aims at clarifying the features of THINKING verb groups in English and making a comparison of this verb group with their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features to help the Vietnamese learners of English to learn this verb group effectively

1.3 OBJECTS OF THE STUDY

In order to gain the above aims, the studies carries out the following objecttives: (i) Analysing syntactic and semantic features of thinking verbs in

English

(ii) Comparing the syntactic and semantic features of these thinking verbs

in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

(iii) Offering some implications for better learning thinking verb group in

English

1.4 SCOPES OF THE STUDY

It is unfeasible to discuss the thinking verbs in details Therefore, within this study, the author focuses on analyzing them(concerning syntactic and semantic features of these verbs), and just brief the similarities and differences between them

To serve the purpose of the study, some implications will be suggested to help Vietnamese learners of English have a better understanding of the THINKING verbs and then use them in daily communication effectively

1.5 SIGNIFICANCES OF THE STUDY

i) Theoretical significance

Theoretically, the study will provide a full description of syntactic and semantic features of the English verbs, so other researchers and linguistics could take it as

a reliable reference to make further studies in this

field.Moreover, the similarities and differences between these verbs in

English and in Vietnamese are very helpful in contrasting two languages

ii) Practical significance

Practically, the study will help the Vietnamese learners of English as

a foreign language use the English THINKING verbs effectively in daily

communication The findings of the study is hopefully to be beneficial to

those whose are engaged in teaching English as well as those who want to learn English as a foreign language

1.6 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

The study consists of five chapters namely: Introduction, Literature review and theoretical background, Methodology, Finding discussion, and Conclusion, of which major contents are as follows:

Chapter 1 presents the rationale for the research, the aims, the objectives, the

scope of the research, the significances of research as well as the structural organization of the thesis

Chapter 2 discusses some previous studies on different kinds of verb in English

and Vietnamese and the theoretical background about thinking verb group

Chapter 3 discusses issues of methodology and outline the research design,

data collection instruments, procedure of data collection

Chapter 4 presents the syntactic and semantic features of thinking verb group

in English and Vietnamese and finds out the similarities and differences between them

Chapter 5 makes conclusions on each of the research objectives, implications,

limitations and suggestions for further research

References come at the end of the study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 PREVIOUS STUDIES

Up to now, there have been a number of studies on different kinds of verb in English and Vietnam The description and analyses are based on the starting points from Chomsky The other descriptions of syntactic and semantic view are through different ages in the history of linguistic as William Bullokar in “Brief Grammar for English”(1785) THINKING verbs are found in English as: Anna

Wierzbicka (1972) studies about the semantic features of verbs such as: think, know, and want On the other hand, in another study of R M W Dixon (1991),A new approach to English grammar on semantic principles These

studies studied on the semantic of these verbs in terms of semantic features

Gilbert Ryle (2009), Concept of mind Richard Faure (2009), Verbs of thinking and speaking Susanna Karlsson (2008), Re-thinking THINK in contrastive perspective.In his study, he discussed eight verbs: think, know, feel, see, hear, see, wantanddoin terms of syntactic and semantic features in English and

Swedish equivalents The authors have already discussed the discusses the definition of the mind and similarities and the differences between verbs of thinking and speaking

In Vietnamese, verbs have been recognized and explained systematically

It should be noticed the works of Diệp Quang Ban, who wrote “Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt” (NXB Giáo dục, 2005), and Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh, Nguyễn Thu Minh with

“Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt” (NXB Từ Điển Bách Khoa, 11/2206” In this book, the

author analyzed Vietnamese verb and show their semantic and syntactic features

Hoàng Phê (1998), Vietnamese dictionary analyzed and improved to the meaning and the structures of the THINKING verbs In addition, some authors

of Journal of Science and technology in Da nang and Journal of Science of Hue University such as: Lê Minh Giang and

Ngũ Thiện Hùng, Sự khác nhau giữa động từ hữu thực và không hữu thực dựa trên cứ liệu Tiếng Anh và đối dịch tiếng Việt These researchers

studied about the distinction between factive verbs and non- factive verbs in English and Vietnamese translational equivalents

Although all the studies above thoroughly describe about the semantic or the meaning features of the THINKING verbs, they have not been exploited in terms of their syntactic features yet Especially, the equivalents between two languages English and Vietnamese has not been implemented yet Moreover, the implications for teaching and learning the THINKING verbs from English into Vietnamese have not carried out yet

As a result, that is why this research studies about the THINKING verb group The THINKING verb group of this study consists of six verbs as follows:

think,assume, ponder, remember, know and believe In this paper, the features

of syntactics as well as semantics of the THINKING verbs will be analyzed clearly from many different resources

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Theory of syntax

Within traditional grammar, the syntax of a language is described in terms of a taxonomy of the range of different types of syntactic structures found in the language The central assumption un

derpinning syntactic analysis in traditional grammar is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of constituents, each of which belongs to a specific grammatical category and serves a specific grammatical function

Syntax is a set of rules in language It dictates how words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought According to R.M.W Dixon (1991), syntax deals with the way in which words are combined together Verbs have different grammatical properties from language to language but there is always a major class verb, which includes word referring

to motion, rest, attention, giving and speaking Syntax is understood to be the

theory of the structure of sentences in a language This view has its direct antecedents in the theory of immediate constituents, in which the function of syntax is to mediate between the observed forms of a sentence and its meaning Bloomfield (1993), he states “we could not understand the form of a language if

we merely reduced all the complex forms to their ultimate constituents” He argued that in order to account for the meaning of a sentence, it is necessary to recognize how individual constituents such words and morphemes constitute more complex forms

Syntax is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways in which words are combined to form phrases, clauses and sentences in a language Syntax, which is a subfield of grammar, focuses on the word order of

a language and the relationships between words In other words, morphology deals with word formation out of morphemes whereas syntax deals with phrase and sentence formation out of words

Syntax structures are analyzable into sequences of syntactic categories or syntactic classes, these being established on the basic of the syntactic relationships and linguistic items have with other items in a construction

Every language has a limited number of syntactic relations Subject and object are probably universal of syntactic relations, which apply to every language However, just as the criteria for the major words class noun and verb differ from language to language, so do the ways in which syntactic relations are marked

2.2.2Theory of semantic

If not most, at least, many introductions to semantics begin by asking the following question: what is semantics? What does semantics actually study? This seems like a sensible way to start a course on semantics, so we can begin

by looking at some of the answers that different authors provide

Semantics is the study of meaning Lyons (1977)

Semantics is the study of meaning in

language

Hurford & Heasley 1983

Semantics is the study of meaning

communicated through language

Linguistic semantics is the study of

how languages organize and express

meanings

Kreidler (1998)

Table 2.1 Some definitions of semantics

Table 2.1 provides a selection of definitions Something that can be noticed is that there is no complete agreement For some, semantics concerns the study of meaning as communicated through language, while for some others, semantics studies all aspects of meaning and they have to add the label “linguistic” to arrive at a more precise definition This distinction, however, is not generally given much importance and leaving aside special formulations, probably all

authors would agree with Kreidler’s definition (to choose just one of them): linguistic semantics is the study of how languages organize and express meanings

Nowadays, there are two ways of approaching semantics The formal semantics approach connects with classical philosophical semantics, that is, logic It should not be forgotten that semantics was a part of philosophy for many centuries Formal semantics tries to describe the meaning of language using the descriptive apparatus of formal logic The goal is to describe natural language in

a formal, precise, unambiguous way Related (though not identical) denominations for this type of semantics are truth-conditional semantics, model-theoretic semantics, logical semantics, etc In truth-conditional semantics, the goal is to describe the conditions that would have to be met for a sentence to be

true Formal semantics follows Frege’s principle of compositionality: the meaning of the whole is a function of the meaning of the parts This type of semantics has proposed very precise and detailed analyses of sentences and propositions, though at the price of abandoning many of the factors affecting meaning, such as etymological, cultural or psychological considerations, and neglecting a detailed analysis of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) The other approach to semantics we could call psychologically-oriented semantics or cognitive semantics This approach does not consider the logical structure of language as important for the description of the meaning of language, and tends

to disregard notions such as truth-values or strict compositionality Cognitive semantics tries to explain semantic phenomena by appealing to biological, psychological and even cultural issues They are less concerned with notions of reference and try to propose explanations that will fit with everything that we know about cognition, including perception and the role of the body in the structuring of meaning structures Throughout the years, only two plausible functions of language have been considered: a communicative function and a representational function; in both of them, semantics has to be placed at the very heart of the process

Theory of syntactic and semantic is carried out first with main purpose to decide the theoretical framework of the study in the chapter four

2.2.3Overview of English verb

2.2.3.1 Definition of the English verb

As for dictionary of Merriam-webster “Verb is a word that characteristically is the grammatical center of a predicate and expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, that in various language is inflected for agreement with the subject, for tense, for voice, for mood, or for aspect, and that typically has rather full descriptive meaning and characterizing quality but is sometimes nearly devoid of these especially when use an auxiliary or liking verb”

In most languages, verbs are part of speech expressing existence, action, or occurrence According to Jack C Richards et al (1992:398), a word is a verb when it satisfies these following criteria: Occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence; Caries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, number, and mood; and refers to an action or state.R.M.W.Dixon (1991) defines that “a verb is the center of a clause” A verb refer to some activity and there must be a number of participants who have roles in that activity as: Sinbad carried the old man; or it may refer to a state, and there must be a participant to experience the state as: My leg aches A set of verbs is grouped together as one semantic type partly because they require the same set of participant roles All giving verbs require a Donor, a Gift and a Recipient, as in:

John gave a bouquet to Mary, Jane lent the Saab to Bill

Or:

The women’s Institutes supplied the souldiers with socks

(R.M.W.Dixon, 1991: 9) All attention verbs take a Perceiver and an Impression (that which is seen

or heard), as in:

I heard the crash, I witnessed the accident, I recognised the driver’s face

(R.M.W.Dixon, 1991: 9) Affect verbs are likely to involve an Agent, a Target, and something which is manipulated by the Agent to come into contact with the target which I call manip A manip can always be stated, although it often does not have to be Let’s see the following examples:

John rubbed the glass(with a soft cloth)

Mary sliced the tomato (with her new knife)

Tom punched Bill (with his left fist)

(R.M.W.Dixon, 1991: 9) L.G Alexander (1983) points out a verb is a word or a phrase which expresses the existence of a state or doing an action

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic (1998) states that a verb is a word or

a phrase indicating an action, an event or state

According to Borahash (1975), the verb is a part of speech denoting an action or

a process

Generally in English, the verb tense shows the time of the action or state; the aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state In English, for example, the past-tense sentences ‘I swam’ and ‘I was swimming’ differ in aspect (the first sentence is in what is called the perfective or completive aspect, and the second in what is called the imperfective or durative aspect); voice is used to show relationships between the action and the people affected by it; mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal modality It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English To some extent, the same word patterns are used to express more than one of these concepts at the same time, mood shows the attitude of the speaker about the verb currently identified moods include conditional, imperative, indicative, injunctive, optative, potential, subjunctive, and more Verbs can be affected by person and number to show agreement with the subject Some English verblike forms have properties of two parts of speech (e.g., participles may be used as adjectives and gerunds as nouns)

2.2.3.2 Classification of English verb according to their complementation

According to According to R Quirk et al (1985), verbs are classified into two types: intensive verbs and extensive verbs

subject compliment and they apply to the subject, not the verb Let’s consider the following examples:

Your dinner seems ready (SVC)

My office is in the next building (SVA)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721) Intensive verb does not take any object It presents the relationship between the subject and the subject complementation The verb in sentences with subject complement is a “copular” (or linking verb), which of itself has little meaning but functions as a link between the complement subject

There are two subgroups:

Current intensive: be, appear, look, feel, remain, keep

Her rug is too small for her living room.(SVC)

(E Warriner, J & Graham, L.S 1980:108) Resulting intensive: become, come, get, go, grow, turn

She grew tired of his complaints (SVC)

(E Warriner, J & Graham, L.S 1980:108) b.Extensive verbs

Extensive verbs are most other verbs, they do not have subject compliment Extensive verbs are used to say what the subject is doing It coversa wider area;

it takes the information away from the subject Words or phrases,which are followed by an extensive verb work as the verb’s object They apply to the verb, not the subject as in:

He stayed very quiet

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 55) Extensive verbs include three small types: monotransitive, complex

transitive and ditransitive

Di transitive verbs are verbs which take a subject and two objects or have

the structure “S V O O” According to certain linguistic considerations, these objectives may be called direct, indirect objectives, or primary and secondary objectives as in the following examples:

I must send my parents an anniversary card (SVOO)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721)

In contrast, mono transitive verbs take only one object and appear in the

structure “S V O” as in the following examples:

That lecture bored me (SVO)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721) Verb requires both a direct object and another object or an object complement is complex transitive verbs Complex transitive verbs appear in the structure “S V

O C” or “S V O A” In a complex- transitive construction, the object complement identifies a quality or attributes pertaining to the direct object Let’s consider the following examples:

Most students have found her reasonably helpful (SVOC)

You can put the dish on the table (SVOA)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721) The verb is perhaps the most important part of the sentence A verbstates what

is happening in the sentence Finite verbs locate the condition or action of the verb in a specific time frame: past, present or future and have a specific tense and a subject with which they grammatically agree A complete sentence must contain a finite verb Verbs create the relationship

between the subject and the object of the verb In a command, there is still this relationship with the subject and object understood “Go!” (Subject –you– understood, verb “go!” object away– understood.)

The form of the verb must agree with the number of its subject, which

will be a noun or noun group, for example 'They were not home' (as

opposed to 'They was not home') Confusion can arise when deciding

whether the subject is singular or plural, for example 'This group ofstudents is very clever', or when there are two subjects, for example 'Ice

2.2.4Classification of sentences in terms of sentence pattern, sentence elements and verb complementation

2.2.4.1 Sentence pattern

Sentence classification is carried out in order to get the foundation of studying the sentence types in the THINKING verb group in English and Vietnamese By eliminating optional adverbials from the clause structures, we have seven clause types in the classification of the essential core of each clause structure Of the obligatory elements, the main verb is the one that wholly or largely determines what form the rest of the structure will take From the examples [1-7] the following seven clause types emerge:

S(ubject) V(erb) O(bject(s)) C(omplement) A(dverbial)

Type

SVO

C people expensive

Type

SVO

A

You must put all the toys upstairs [7a]

Table 2.2: Sentence patterns (Quirk, Randolph, 1985)

Each clause type is associated with a set of verbs The seven fall naturally into three main types There are:

1 A two-element pattern: SV

The sun is shining

They are talking (Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721)

2 Three three-element patterns: SV + {O, C, A}

That lecture bored me (SVO)

Your dinner seems ready (SVC)

My office is in the next building (SVA)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721)

3 Three four-element patterns: SVO + {O, C, A}

I must send my parents an anniversary card (SVOO)

Most students have found her reasonably helpful (SVOC)

You can put the dish on the table (SVOA)

(Quirk, Randolph, 1985: 721)

This set of patterns is the most general classification that can be usefully applied

to the classification of sentence patterns of the THINKNG verb group in English

2.2.4.2 Sentence elements

Quirk, Randolph (1985) states that Subject is the most important element

of the clause elements other than the verb It is the element that is most often present It is also the element for which we can find the greatest number of characteristic features The subject is normally a noun phrase or a nominal clause, a pronoun, That-clause, To infinitive or V-ing A subject is obligatory in finite clauses except in imperative clauses, where it is normally absent but implied

Verb is also taken an extremely important role in sentences Cutting across above three fold classification are three main verb classes:

Intransitive verbs (laugh in [1a]), are followed by no obligatory element, and occur in type SV

Transitive verbs (enjoy in [2a], give in [5a], consider in [6a], put in [7a]) are followed by an object and occur in types SVO, SVOO, SVOC and SVOA

respectively

Copular verbs (become in [3a], be in [4a]) are followed by a subject complement or an adverbial, and occur in types SVC and SVA

In general sense, the term transitive is often applied to all verbs which

require an object, including those of clause types SVOO, SVOC, and SVOA It

is, however, convenient to make a further classification of the verbs in these patterns:

Transitive verbs

Monotransitive verbs occurs in type SVO Ditransitive verbs occur in type SVOO Complex transitive verbs occur in types SVOC and

SVOA

Objects is an indispensable element in a sentence with a transitive verb

In fact, there are two types of object: direct object (Od) and indirect object (Oi)

An object such as parties in [2a] (My mother enjoys parties) clearly has a different role in the lause from an object such as the visitor in [5a] (Mary gave the visitor a glass of milk), and this has been traditionally recognized by applying the term direct object to the former, and indirect object to the latter

We give priority here to the distributional fact that whenever there are two objects (in type SVOO), the former is normally the indirect object, and the latter

is direct object But although it is more central with regard to position, in other respects the indirect object is more peripheral than the direct object: it is more likely to be optional, and may generally be paraphrased by a prepositional phrase functioning as adverbial

Complements is used in sentence patterns SVC and SVOC There are also

two types of complements: subject complement (Cs) and object complement (Co) We can distinguish between the types of complement found in the SVC

pattern; ie: totally independent in:

The country became totally independent [3a]

And the type of complement found in the SVOC pattern; ie: rather expensive in:

Most people consider these books rather expensive [6a] The distinction is effectively made by noting that in [3a] the country is

understood to have become a totally independent country, while in [6a] the books are understood to be considered rather expensive books In other words,

in SVC clauses the complement applies some attribute or definition to the subject, whereas in SVOC clauses it applies an attribute or definition to the

object This distinction is usually denoted by the terms subject complement and

object complement respectively In these cases, the complement is an adjective

phrase, but elsewhere, where the complement is a noun phrase, the same kind of distinction holds:

Type SVC: The country became a separate nation

Type SVOC: Most people considered Picasso a genius

In the SVC sentence, a separate nation is understood to be a definition of the subject, the country, while in the SVOC sentence, a genius is understood to be a definition of the object, Picasso

Obligatory adverbial is an intergral element in sentence paterns SVA and SVOA The adverbial is normally an adverb phrase, prepositional phrase, or adverbial clause It may also be a noun phrase

Except for the obligatory adverbial in the SVA and SVOA types, adverbials are optional: they may be added to or removed from the clause without affecting its acceptability and without affecting the relations of structure and meaning in the rest of the clause

Obligatory adverbials are a subclass of predication adjuncts that belong to SVA and SVOA types In as much as they are obligatory, they are central elements of the clause, part of the clause nucleus They may be adverb phrases, prepositional phrases, or adverbial clauses Some obligatory adverb phrases and prepositional phrases may be analysed as complements belonging to the SVC and SVOC types

Type SVA: I have been in the garden

Type SVOA: You must put all the toys upstairs

This close analysis is the background of analyzing the syntactic feature of sentence elements of the THINKING verb group in English

After studying the background, it is found out that the THINKING verb group

in English is divided into two sentence patterns according to their syntactic feature: SVO and SVOC

a) SVO type

In this pattern, the verb is a transitive verb The verbs always occur with

direct objects The direct object may be a noun, noun phrase, pronoun or clause, finite clause/ non-finite clause The conjunction that can sometimes be

that-omitted The direct object is a finite or non-finite clause beginning with either

(i) A ‘wh-element’, which can be a pronoun (who(m), whose, which, what), a determiner + noun (what time, which tutors, etc) or an adverb (why (finite clauses only), when, where, how); or (ii) One of the conjunctions if (finite clauses only) or whether Almost all of the verbs in THINKING verb group

belong to this type

We assume his cooperation

She understand John (the reason he acts as he does)

(R.M.W.Dixon, 1991: 134)

b) SVOC type

In this pattern, THINGKING verbs are realized in 4.1.2

2.2.5 Overview of THINKING verbs

THINKING verbs are found in English as Anna Wierzbicka (1972) studies

about the semantic features of verbs such asthink, know, and want On the other hand, in another study of R M W Dixon (1991),A new approach to English grammar on semantic principles These studies studied on the semantic of these verbs in terms of semantic features

Gilbert Ryle (2009), Concept of mind Richard Faure (2009), Verbs of

thinking and speaking The authors have already discussed the discusses the

definition of the mind and similarities and the differences between verbs of thinking and speaking Susanna Karlsson (2008), Re-thinking THINK in contrastive perspective The research studied on syntactic and semantic features

of eight verbs: think, know, feel, see, hear, see,want and do in English and their

Swedish equivalents

In Vietnam, the THINKING verbs found by these authors such as Hoàng Tuệ

(1962), Giáo trình Việt ngữ and Nguyễn Kim Thản (1997), Động từ trong tiếng

Việt, these authors studied about the classification of words in Vietnamese including the THINKING verbs in Vietnamese Hoàng Phê (1998), Vietnamese dictionary analyzed and improved to the meaning and the structures of the THINKING verbs In addition, some authors of Journal of Science and technology in Da nang and Journal of Science of Hue University such as: Lê

Minh Giang and Ngũ Thiện Hùng (2011), Sự khác nhau giữa động từ thực hữu

và không thực hữu trên cứ liệu tiếng Anh và đối dịch tiếng These authors studies

about the distinction between factive verbs and non- factive verbs in English

and Vietnamese translational guyễn Thị Thu Hà (2012),Ngữ nghĩa của động từ nghĩ trong tiếng Việt The author has only mentioned the meaning of think verb

in Vietnamese The author did not discuss or contrast the equivalents of the think verb in English

Although all the studies above thoroughly describe about the semantic or the meaning features of the THINKING verbs, they have not been exploited in terms of their syntactic features yet Especially, the equivalents between two languages English and Vietnamese has not been implemented yet Moreover, the implications for teachingand learning the THINKING verbs from English into Vietnamese have not carried out yet

2.2.6 Definition of thinking verbs

Thinking verbs are the verbs that require using your brain, rather than physically using your body.According to Susanna Karlsson (2008), his type covers verb of thinking, knowing, believing and the like

Miss Lee wondered why the children were so tired

"This looks like a job for Granny Gong!" thought Miss Lee

(Susanna Karlsson, 2008)

On the contrary, he said that THINKING verbs tell the reader what the characters are thinking about the event or what they were thinking at the time,as in:

“I wonder what’s for lunch?” he thought

(Susanna Karlsson, 2008)

THINKING verbs may be included: believe, consider, contemplate, decide, dream, forget, forgive, guess, idea, imagine, know, notice, realize, remember, see, suppose, think, understand, and wonder

THINKINGverbs require using your brain, rather than physically using your body as in:

I pondered the situation

I fretted about the situation

I wondered about it

I thought about it

I worried about it

(Susanna Karlsson, 2008) According to Ryle (1971),states that the verb “think” can refer to both

beliefs and opinions

On the other hand,Ryle (1978), dismissively compares this interpretation

of thinkingverb: “describing a journey as constituted by arrivals, searching as constituted by findings, studying as constituted by examination triumphs, or, in

a word, trying as constituted by successes”

There are always two roles – a Cogitator (who is generally HUMAN) has in mind some Thought THINKING verbs are basically transitive, with Cogitator

in A and Thought in O syntactic relation The Thought may be realized by an

NP, or by one of a variety of complement clauses

2.3 SUMMARY

In this chapter, theLiteratureReview includesprevious studies, review

of theoretical background In the previous studies, the studies of authors in oversea and in Vietnam are given.In the theoretical background, theory of syntax and semantics are analyzed thoroughly in order to use for the background of analyzing the syntactic and semantic features of the

THINKING verbs in English Moreover, the definition of the verb and classification of verb are pointed out in details.Finally, theoretical

background is given briefly review what has been found and discussed the related studies by describing their approaches and key findings, but then identify weaknesses in the approach and limitations in the findings

All the parts of this chapter thatcan be considered as a foundation for conducting the whole research

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction

For this chapter, the methodology applied in the study will be discussed

in more details The participants, the instruments and the procedure of data collection and analysis which are all aimed at achieving the major aims of the study will be introduced

(ii) What are the similarities and differences of thinking verb group in

English and their Vietnamese equivalents?

(iii) What are the implications for learning thinking verb groups in English?

3.2.2 Hypothesis

Basedonthenotionsdiscusseduptothispoint,thefollowingfourhypotheseswillbe used for analyzing the data

(i) The syntactic structure of the complement of verbs of thinking lacks a

layer compared to that of verbs of speaking which corresponds to an independent clause This layer would be the site where the ‘utter’-feature is checked

(ii) An independent clause is the only syntactically complete clause A

verb of speaking conveys an ‘utter’-feature, hence its complement lacks the corresponding layer This reasoning carries over to verbs of thinking, but with two missing layers : the ‘utter’-feature site and the epistemic site

(iii) The selection differences are the manifestation of semantic

differences Verbs of thinking lack a semantic speech feature, which is reflected by a difference in construction selection Their complement

is not a speech act, but a proposition

(iv) The selection differences are the manifestation of semantic

differences Verbs of speakingbear the feature declarative Therefore their complement is a proposition Verbs of thinking bear an epistemic feature, therefore their complement is a State

‘illocutionary-force’-3.2.3 Research approach

The thesis is conducted by combining the three research approaches of quantitative, qualitative and contrastive, which are carried out following orientations Firstly, the thesis is started with data collection by using a various sources of printed publications as books, articles, journal, English Vietnamese Dictionary and Vietnamese grammar books or from the internet After finishing the collection of data, they are qualitatively described, analyzed and illustrated

by corpora in terms of the structural and semantic features The data collected from the reliable sources then are quantitatively computed and compared with Vietnamese equivalents under a process of statistical analysis to find the answers to the research questions Finally, certain conclusions and implications for using the THINKING verbs in English in an effective way are withdrawn

3.2.4 Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis

The research is analyzed and collected the data from reliable sources with clearlyprinciples.The data, the samples and the evidences, they are showed in logically and unified from the first chapter to the final chapter Data types which are chosen to implement this study are derived from Oxford Advanced learner’s dictionary, Oxford Advanced Encyclopedia, English Vietnamese Dictionary, English semantic dictionary, Vietnamese grammar books and Internet

resources.etc These are used as reference books and citation materials in the study

Sources of data are from finding books at libraries, bookshops and on the Internet Data analysis techniques are collecting the materials, investigating the syntactic and semantic features of the THINKING verbs in English and contrasting with their Vietnamese equivalents

3.3 Research methods

3.3.1 Major methods and supporting methods

This study is designed and investigated the syntactic and semantic features of the THINKING verbs in English with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents,

so the qualitative, descriptive and contrastive method is chosen This study analyzes and synthesizes to some syntactic, semantic features of the THINKING verbs in English and their Vietnamese equivalents Therefore, in the process of the study, the THINKING verbsare main sources for the research,

so English is considered the source language, and Vietnamese is the target one First of all, the qualitative method is referred the meanings as well as the definitions or the concepts of the THINKING verbs in English and in Vietnamese Then, the descriptive method is described the characteristics and equivalents of semantic and syntactic structures of the English THINKING verbs in English and in Vietnamese Besides, the contrastive method is compared the syntactic and semantic structure of the THINKING verbs in English and Vietnamese to make clear the similarities or differences between them Moreover, analysis or synthesize have also been used as supporting methods The analysis is analyzed the similarities and differences of the THINKING verbs in English and Vietnamese and the synthesize is synthesized some verbs belong to the THINKING verbs to illustrate from different sources such as from books, dictionaries, literary works, newspapers, magazines, native speakers and websites As a matter of the fact, to investigate the structures of the THINKING verbs with their different components and semantic features