A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A Thesis A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THEIRVIE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THEIRVIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CÁC BIỂU ĐẠT CHỈ SỰ TỒN TẠI TRONG TIẾNG ANH LIÊN HỆ VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYEN THI THU HA

Field of study : English Language

Hanoi, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CÁC BIỂU ĐẠT CHỈ SỰ TỒN TẠI TRONG TIẾNG ANH LIÊN HỆ VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYEN THI THU HA

Field of study: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: DR DANG NGOC HUONG

Hanoi, 201

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled

“A study of syntactic and semantic features of English expression of existence in English with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents.” submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyen Thi Thu Ha

Approved by SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Mr Dang Ngoc Huong who instructed me directly, shared experiences, and removed those obstacles and difficulties which arose during the process of writing my thesis

My special gratitude goes to Assoc.Prof Dr Hoang Tuyet Minh for support and encouragement

I sincerely thank all the lecturers of the Hanoi Open University, especially the lecturers in the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies who have been teaching and conveying to me the valuable knowledge and skills in the learning process

I would also thank Mr.Nguyen Van Đao – Dean of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies of Hanoi Open University for his valuable assistance I would like

to give my special thanks to the Rector Board of Hanoi Open Uniniversity

I also send my deep gratitude to my friends, colleagues and students at Lao Cai Teacher Training College who have assisted me in collecting the data and provided valuable resources to help me complete my thesis

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my parent, my son for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of my academic work

ABSTRACT

The notion of existence has puzzled philosophers for a very long time, and a great range of views about that notion can be found throughout the history of philosophy While some philosophers think that notions of existence and communicative commitment can and perhaps should be pursued independently of the linguistic form of the relevant sentences, the linguistic form of statements of existence has also often been taken to be revealing as to the communicative issues themselves However, the appeal to linguistic intuitions has generally been not systematic and without serious regard of relevant issues in linguistic semantics By investigating into the topic based on written documents, this paper examines the syntactic and semantic features of English expressions of existence in English with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents The results of the study show that existential sentences should be assessed not only from structural perspectives but also from communicative ones The components that make up existential sentences are used to construct structures and to state the existence of objects as well Last but not least, findings on the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese existential expressions based on their equivalents suggest that the ability to understand and use the existential expressions is a complex problem for learners both in their grammatical form and lexical meaning The thesis is expected

to help Vietnamese learners of English learn, translate and use existential expressions in English effectively

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS viii

CHAPTER1 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study: 2

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Methodology and procedures 3

1.5 Scope of the study 4

1.6 Signification of the study 5

1.7 Design of the Study 5

The Referrences and Appendix put an end to the study .6

CHAPTER 2 7

LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Previous Studies 7

2.2 Theory of syntax 8

2.3 Theory of semantics 9

2.4 Concepts of expression of existence 11

2.4.1 Definitions of expression 11

2.4.2 Existence 12

2.5 An over view of expressions of existence in English .12

2.5.1 Syntax of English existential expressions 12

2.5.2 Semantics of English existential expressions 16

2.6 An overview of expressions of existence in Vietnamese 18

2.7 Summary of the chapter 20

CHAPTER 3 21

FEATURES OF EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 21

3.1 Syntactic features of expressions of existence in English with reference totheir Vietnamese equivalents 21

3.2Semantic features of expressions of existence in English with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents 29

3.2.1Indicating location 29

3.2.2 Referring to actions or occurences 30

3.2.3Stating a fact or truth 30

3.2.4 Referring to the existence of the initial factor of a series of events 31

CHAPTER 4 37

COMMON ERRORS MADE BY LAO CAI TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH WHEN USING EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH 37

4.1 Survey 37

4.1.1 Subjects 37

4.1.2 Survey tests 38

4.1.3 Procedure 39

4.1.4 Data Collection 39

4.2Common errors made by learners of English when using expressions of existence in English 39

4.2.1 Common errors made by learners of English when using when using expressions of existence .39

4.2.2 Causes of committing errors 42

4.3 Suggestions for teaching, learning and translating expressions of existence in English for Lao Cai teacher training college learners .43

4.3.1 Suggestionsfor teaching expressions of existence in English 44

4.3.2 Suggestions for learning expressions of existence in English 45

4.3.3 Suggestions for translating expressions of existence in English 46

4.4Summary of the chapter 47

CHAPTER 5 48

CONCLUSION 48

5.1 Recapitulation 48

5.2Concluding remarks 48

5.3 Limitations of the study 49

5.4Suggestion for future study 50

REFERENCES 51

APPENDIX 1 54

QUESTIONS OF SURVEY TESTS 54

APPENDIX2 55

POSSIBLE ANSWERS FOR SURVEY TEST QUESTIONS 55

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1:Types of existentialsentences 29 Table 3.2 : The semantic features of expressions of existence in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese ……… 35 Table 4.1: Subjects in use 37 Table 4.2: Errors made by students at Lao Cai Teacher Training College when using expressions of existence in English (Appendix 1, Ex.2) 39 Table 4.3:Common errors made by students when translating from English into Vietnamese (Appendix 1, Ex 2) 40 Table 4.4:Common errors made by students when translating from Vietnamese into

English (Appendix 1, Ex 3) 41

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

Existential sentences or existential constructions (EC) which are terms

coined by Jespersen (1924: p 155), refer to sentences that assert or deny the existence of something According to Kuno (1971) existential expressions are those that state the existence of certain indefinite objects in some place English ECs

contain the unstressed, non-deictic ''existential there" (Milsark, 1974) Deictic there contrasts with deictic here, while existential there does not (Lakoff, 1987)

Vietnamese contains existential elements that are exclusively used to express existence Vietnamese existential expressions also contain an `optional locative phrase These particular constructions are unique syntactically and semantically Syntactically speaking, they have been given different analyses with no more than a handful of proponents for each analysis They pose problems for licensing

requirements on arguments, specifically for English there and the elusive syntactic

behavior of Vietnamese equivalents

The apparent variety of existence predicates in natural language raises the question of what makes a predicate an existence predicate in the first place There is

a rather clear semantic criterion for existence predicates, namely their semantic behavior under negation Presenting tense negative existentials stand for an actual, presently existing object, the study of English and Vietnamese existential expressions offers a wealth of information that can be used to examine many syntactic issues in the adult and child grammar In this thesis, I examined the acquisition of English and Vietnamese existential expressions by analyzing spontaneous production data taken from the different acquisition studies on survey tests of Vietnamese Learners tend to avoid expressing their ideas with existential expressions because they are not confident of using them

In communication, existential sentences are often employed, referring to the existence of objects in the surrounding worlds As a result, expressions of existence can be found in a variety of situations: describing objects, stating facts, etc In English learning, structures of existence are basic, especially at the beginning stage

when learners should grasp the meaning of existence and then select proper structures to express the idea in different contexts

Many existential expressions carry more than one meaning Thus, it is difficult for learners to determine accurately the meaning of existential expressions From many of my researches and experiences as a teacher of English, in this research I found that it is difficult for Vietnamese learners to accurately use existential expressions in speaking and writing in English Meanwhile, not much of research on existential expressions has been done For that reason, I decide on the

topic of my thesis A Study of Syntactic and Semantic Features of Expressions of

Existence in English with Reference to Their Vietnamese Equivalents and I hope

that this work could be a start for further studies on the topic which would help Vietnamese learners of English to master the understanding and using existential constructions effectively

1.2 Aims and objectives

1.2.1 Aims of the study

Existential sentences or existential constructions are of paramount

importance in language itself and in language learning The aim of the study is to investigate how expressions of existence are structured and what they are used for

in English, and to what extent they are similar or different from their equivalents in Vietnamese In order to do this, the thesis firstly establishes its tasks to study the syntactic and semantic characteristics of constructions expressing existence in English and their Vietnamese equivalents Secondly, the thesis conducts a survey to find out if Vietnamese learners of English encounter any problems in mastering existential structures when they are learning and using the structures On the basis

of survey results, the thesis expects to propose a number of strategies to help them understand and use their structures and meanings effectively

1.2.2 Objectives of the study:

In order to achieve the above aims of study, the thesis puts forward the following objectives:

- To examine the syntactic features of English expressions of existence and their translational equivalents in Vietnamese

- To examine the semantic features of English expressions of existence and their translational equivalents in Vietnamese

- To propose some suggestions related to learning, teaching, and translating existential sentences in English

1.3 Research questions

In this study, the author will try to answer the following questions:

1 What are the syntactic features of English expressions of existence and their Vietnamese equivalents?

2 What are the semantic features of English expressions of existence and their Vietnamese equivalents?

3 What are the suggestions for Vietnamese learners of English to learn and use expressions of existence in English effectively?

1.4 Methodology and procedures

In order to achieve all the objectives of study, the thesis adopts both qualitative and quantitative research approaches With the qualitative approach, the thesis employs the document analysis methods to investigate all the available material as listed in the references to categorize the data collected in various types

of constructions in English When all the existential constructions have been defined, the thesis uses the desriptive method to analyze the syntactic and semantic features the existential constructions in English have and then the contrastive method is employed to find out the similarities and differences between existential constructions in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese As for quantitative approach, the thesis firstly conducts a number of survey tests with a group of English students at Lao Cai Training College to investigate the way they learn English existential expressions and find out if they make mistakes in acquiring them With the results collected from the survey tests the author calculates the percentage of correct and incorrect answers to analyze the causes of the errors for the pedagical implications to avoid the mistakes Vietnemse learners of English may make in learning and using expressions of existence in English

Data Collection

About usages of English and Vietnamese existential expressions, data are collected from English grammar books, dictionaries, journal articles, published researches and Vietnamese translational versions

Research procedures

- Identifying the research topic by reviewing previous studies

- Choosing the approach to the research

- Collecting data related to the research

- Analyzing data based on syntactic and semantic features of English and Vietnamese existential expressions

- Suggesting some implications for learning, teaching and translating Englishexistential expressions to Vietnamese teachers and learners based on the results of survey tests with students of English at Lao Cai Teacher Training College

1.5 Scope of the study

As the title indicates, the thesis is aimed at studying the expressions in English that express existence with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents In other words, the thesis takes as its main task to study the syntactic and semantic features of expressions of existence in English and then on the basis of the translation of English expressions of existence in Vietnamese, the thesis goes on to point out some similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of the order of different parts of structures of existence and the meanings they convey in communication

As for the term expressions of existence, the thesisrefers to the term as

Grammatically, based on their communicative functions, sentences canbe categorized as statements, questions, requests and exclamations However, in this thesis, only statements of existence will be focused on; and in terms of the types of statement, the thesis mainly centers on affirmative statements, negative staterments sometimes appear in the study only when they are needed

After all, in line with structural and semantic approaches of study, the thesis focuses mainly on how expressions of existence are constructed and what they mean in English In terms of meanings, the study deals withboth semantic and pragmatic aspects of the expressions

1.6 Signification of the study

Theoretical significance: This study contributes to verifying significance

related to semantic theory in componential analysis by working on a certain synonymic group of structures of existence in English It proves that lexical semantics is an important area in linguistics and paraphrasing is an important skill in communication In expressing existence in English, apart from the

expression There + be other expressions could be employed, making ways of

expressing the idea diversified This skill serves as a key to exploring the interaction between syntax and semantics as well as understanding the nature of commuication

Practical significance:Through the study, the thesis hopes to help Lao Cai

Teacher training college students to firmly grasp the nature and the uses of English and Vietnamese existential expressions Besides, the research will also help to raise the awareness of Vietnamese learners of English in learning, teaching and translating existential sentences in English

1.7 Design of the Study

Chapter 1, Introduction, provides the research topic, research rationale, research objectives and scope of the research The overview of the research project will be presented in detail with an outline and general information about existential expressions

Chapter 2, Literature review,focuses on an overview of previous studies which are related to the study topic and of general notions concerning the English existential sentences Differences with regular declarative sentence structures will

be outlined, which will serve as an introduction to the study of English existential sentences

The following chapter 3,be dedicated to the syntactic and semantic features of English existential sentences This chapter will present the findings and analyses which are derived from the data collected concerning the structures and meanings of expressions of existence in English and their equivalents in Vietnamese

In Chapter 4, the author will focus on the possible errors Vietnamese learners

of English are likely to make when learning and using the expressions of existence

in English By conducting a small survey through 3 test excercises with students at Lao Cai Teachers College, the author found out several mistakes of the students related to the topic Later, some suggestions were made,relating to improving the quality of teaching, learning and translating English expressions of existence at Lao CaiTeacher Training College

The last chapter, Chapter 5, will offer conclusions based on the outcomes of the analysesof the findings about the topic under study

The Referrences and Appendix put an end to the study

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous Studies

It can be said that existential sentences are a hot topic for grammarians and linguists to study and discuss So far there have been a lot of grammar books in English to refer to this issue such as: Longman English Grammar (Alexander, 1988), Collins COBUILD English Grammar (Cobuild, 2006), A Student´s Grammar of the English Language (Greenbaum & Quirk, 2006), A University Grammar of English (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973) There have also been a lot of studies such as journal articles, disertations and theses that also investigated the

topic, such as Existential there: A Synchronic and Diachronic Study (Breivik, L (1983), Existential There-constructions in Present Day English (Martínez Insua,1998), The Existential There-construciton in Czech Translation (Rambousek

& Chamonikolasová, 2008), The existential expressions: A typological study (Viberg,1984), Subjectivity and evidential existential expressions in English and German (Whitt, 2011) The mentioned studies are just a few In all publications the

authors have looked at existentialtherestructures from different view points,

focusing on both syntactic and semantic aspects

Schafer & Roeper (2000) examined the files of nine children in the CHILDES database (MacWhinneyandSnow1990) and found that deictic use of

there/here emerges before existential (expletive) there and before anaphoric (or

locative) there They found that anaphoric (locative) there with a referent in the discourse appeared after existential there In other words, the deictic use of there emerged before existential there and the existential use of there emerged before anaphoric there They argue that understanding of the relationship between an expletive there and its associate will facilitate or triggers understanding the relationship that holds between anaphoric there and its referent

While there is a major philosophical tradition according to which existence statements are not semantically subject-predicate statements, more recently a

number of philosophers have defended the view that exist is in fact a first-order

extensional predicate, at least with singular terms as subjects (Salmon 1987, 1998,

Miller 1975, 1986, McGinn 2000) I will pursue this view in its full generality by

arguing that existence predicates such as exist and occur have a particular lexical

meaning, which matches the particular nature of the entities they apply to and

explains their behavior with locative phrases It is noted thatexist acts as a

first-order extensional predicate also in Schafer & Roeper (2000),where the bare plural has in fact the status of a kind-referring term rather than being quantificational

2.2 Theory of syntax

2.2.1 Definition of syntax

As far as how syntax is defined, it is common knowledge that syntax is the study of structure of language In other words, its main targets are said to be the study of the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a givenlanguage To this end, the goal of many syntacticians is to discover thesyntactic rules common to all languages They are to dictate how words fromdifferent parts of speech are put together to convey a complete thought

It is also said that syntax is a form of grammar and it is concerned primarily with word order in a sentence and with the agreement of words whenthey are used simultaneously It is also true that every language has developeda specific mechanism that is similar to syntax to make a boundless number ofsentences This

is a common feature that can be witnessed in all languages

In the past, syntactic clues have sometimes been utilized in lexicography as

an aid to establishing polysemy In theoretically oriented linguistic literature, too, the claim had often been made that a difference in meaning (Dixon, 1985) In the present work, however, a stronger claim has been tried to explore that a syntactic similarity is likely to reflect a similarity in meaning, so that shared syntactic patterns are likely to reflect shared semantic components To the extent to which this claim is validated, shared syntactic properties can be seen as evidence for postulated semantic structures

the syntactic features means studying the properties of words and their relationships when they combine together in specific patterns of arrangement in a sentence

2.2.2 Concept of sentence

So far, there have been numerous definitions of the sentence in English since different grammarians look at the sentence from different perspectives However, the thesis follows the definition in the dictionary in which the sentence is said to be

a group of words that usually contains a subject and a verb and expresses a complete idea; in writingthe sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a stop or question mark (Dictionary ofContemporary English, p.1587) In addition, Quirk (1985) relates the structure of the simple sentence to that of the single independent clause with central elements as subject (S), verb (V), object (O), complement (C) and adverbial (A) Also, according to Quirk, the constituents which function as elements of clause structure are either phrases or subordinate clauses

As a result, the five formal categories of phrase are defined as verb phrases (VP), noun phrases (NP), adjective phrases (AdjP), adverb phrases (AdvP) and prepositional phrases(PP) (p.56) Overall, the structure of the simple sentence in English could belong to seven types as follows:

Type 1 SV(e.g.: The dog has died)

Type 2 SVO(e.g.: The dog ate the bone.)

Type 3 SVC(e.g.: The dog is dead.)

Type 4 SVA(e.g.: The dogisover there.)

Type 5 SVOO(e.g.: She bought him a dog.)

Type 6 SVOC (e.g.: He kept the dog clean.)

Type 7 SVOA (e.g.: He kept the dog carefully.)

2.3 Theory of semantics

Semantics is a branch of linguistics, which deals with meaning or the content

of communication According to Hurford and Heasley (1983:1), semantics is the study of meaning in language Language is a means of communications, and people use language to communicate with others by making conversations, giving information, and other things to make social relationship Human beings have been given the capacity to talk, to communicate with each other, to make meaningful utterances, so that they are understood by other human beings They communicate about the world in which they live, about themselves, about their thought and

feeling, about what has happened, about what might happen or what they would like

to happen, and a lot more Hurford and Heasley(1983:5) state that the giving of information is itself an act of courtesy, performed to strengthen social relationships This is also part of communication There are some linguists that tried to define semantics Morries as quoted by Lyons (1977) at first defines semantics as the study

of the relations of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable And then he revised his definition, saying that, semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of sign in all modes of signifying

Semantics is usually connected with pragmatics Carnap (Lyons, 1977:116) says that descriptive semantics (i.e the investigation of the meaning of expressions

in “historically given natural language”), may be regarded as part of pragmatics The reason why descriptive semantics is part of pragmatics seems to have been that

he believed that differences in the use of particular expressions were not only inevitable in language - behavior, but must be taken account of in the description of context Smith, as quoted by Lyons (1977:116) states that semantics studies how these signs are related to things And pragmatics studied how they are related to people According to Leech (1983:5) in practice, the problem of distinguishing

language and language use has centred on a boundary dispute between semantics

and pragmatics Hurford and Heasley (1983:14) further explain that the study of semantics is largely a matter of conceptuality and exploring the nature of meaning

in a careful and thoughtful way, using a wide range of examples, many of which we can draw from our knowledge

But Jack Richards, John Platt, Heidi Weber (1987:172) state that “the study

of meaning is semantics Semantics is usually concerned with the analysis of the meaning of words, phrases, or sentences and sometimes with the meaning of utterances in discourse or the meaning of a whole text.”

David Crystal (1992:347) defines that semantics is the study of meaning in language Structural semantics applied the principles of structural linguistics to the study of meaning through the notion of semantic relations (also called sense relation), such as synonymy and antonym In generative grammar, the semantic component is a major area of the grammar’s organization, assigning a semantic representation to sentences, and analyzing lexical terms of semantic features The

theory of semantic fields views vocabulary as organized into areas, within which words (lexical items) interrelate and define each other

It is common knowledge that language serves as a means of communication through spoken and written forms of languages However, meaningsexist in humans’ minds Consequently, thereshould be a sub-field studies how speakers convey meaningful messages orreceive and understand these meanings The sub-field is semantics which is thestudy of meanings not only in language but also in communication In other words, linguists are to find an answerfor the question of how language is organized structurally to be meaningful in communication Since humans can see structures but cannot see meanings, it is the most abstract level of linguistic analysis

Additionally, there is one idea regarded as the most important subject in contemporary semantics, pointing out that meaningful units could combine with each other to form larger meaningful units and thatunderstanding the meaning of the whole sentences is an appropriate method to work out thesecombinations Researchers, therefore, are to look for general rules to indicatethe relationships between forms or arrangements of words in sentences andmeanings It is not an easy job as these relationships are often very complex

All in all, the concepts of syntax and semantics on which structure, semantic and pragmatic meanings are based are a basis for the thesis to study syntactic and semantic features of existential expressions in English

2.4 Concepts of expression of existence

2.4.1 Definitions of expression

The word expression is commonly used in linguistics and communication The

definition of the word could be seen in many dictionaries For example, in Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995): expression is a word or a phrase (p.407) Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2003) explainsthat expression is a

word or group of words used in a particular situation or by particular people In

addition, according to Dictionary of Contemporary English (2010), expression is

defined as a word or group of words with a particular meaning (p.598) When the

word is understood this way, the word here in the sentence, for example,Come here

with me is an expression which indicates location Moreover, in the sentence ‘A can

of worm’ is an expression which means ‘a difficult situation (Cambridge Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary, p.428), expression means a group of words In addition, the

two following sentences mean differently where grammar is concerned even though

they contain two similar groups of words:

- His car is in front of the house (location)

- There is a car in front of the house (existence)

The difference lies in the fact that the first sentence could answer the question

‘Where?” whereas the second could not The question ‘Where?’ is impossible to ask

(* Where is a car?) since car is indefinite Instead, the question about the existence

of an object , a car, at a specific locationcould be appropriate What is there in front

of the house?

In short, the definitionsof expressionmake it clear that an expression is a word or group of words which can be used in a particular situation to convey human thoughts, feelings or emotions In this thesis, all the way through the report the

expression of the phrase expression of existence is used as a sentence.It means

almost the same as structure, construction or sentence

2.4.2 Existence

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1995) existence is the

state or fact of being real or actual, or having being, occurring (p.402) Cambridge

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2003) states that existence implies the meaning of

something which is present, to be or to be real or live (p.424) In Dictionary of

Contemporary English (2010) existence is defined to mean happening or being present in a particular situation, being real or alive (p.590)

As has been seen from the above definitions of expression and existence, in

this thesis expressions of existenceor existential expressionsare referred to as

existential sentences, existential structures and existential constructions

2.5 An over view of expressions of existence in English

2.5.1 Syntax of English existential expressions

There is no denying that so far linguists and grammarians have put so much study in investigating a certain number of sentences that can be used to express

existence, in particular, there-sentences

Structurally, the basic form of English existential sentences is as follows:

the pronoun there (referring to existence) and a form of the verb to be used as a

main verb (i.e verb of full meaning), or copula (i.e linking verb) In English, based

on the lettering there are two words there,one is an adverb which indicates location (locative there) and have a flexible position in English sentences and the other is existential there which is always found at the beginning of the sentence We can

In the dictionary Từ điển Anh-Việt (1993), thereis classified as an

adverb(p.1777) and can found in the usual position of subject, at the beginning of a sentence, as in the above examples That is also one of the bases on which Chalker

(1992) stated that there might be two ways to explain about the role of there in the existential sentence The first way is thatthereis the inversion for emphasis [There +

verb + subject] and the second way is that there could be a dummy subject

However, it can be seen that in the existential constructions, there cannot be an adverb since in the short answer to the Yes/No question there as an adverb cannot

go with the verb be: A Are thereanybody in the room? B Yes, there are some A

special thing of existential there is that the word can function as object in the sentence; there as locative adverb cannot perform this function For example: I

don’t want there to be any problem in it (TD: Tôi không muốn có sự khác biệt nào

trong chuyện này), in thissentence there is object In speaking, there is a difference

between there as a locative adverb and existential there The former is nearly

sentences, there combines with the verb befollowed by a real subjectthat dictates the form of the verb be In the existential sentence, there is just a dummy or

introductory subject Constructions of the type are used to indicatepresence or existence of something; for example, in the following sentences the bold-typed

words are real subjects with verbs: There is a good reason for this (Có lý do xác

đáng cho việc này – Cobuild, p.416), There are many options (Có nhiều sự lựa

chọn)or indicating occurrence: There will bebloodshed tonight (Tối nay sẽ có đổ máu– Cobuild, p.416)

As for the verb be in the existentials, Huddleston (1984), Quirk et al (1985) and Alexander (1988) all assume that the verb be is the most common or central constituent of the there-construction Martínez Insua’s (1998) corpus-based study of

existential sentences in English texts validates the assumption by presenting facts about the proportional rate of verbs employed in English existential sentences

Based on the results of her study, she shows that a form of the verb be made an appearance in 95 % of there-constructions However, a few other verbs can follow the existential there, while some of those can retain a similar meaning to be

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990), Breivik (1983) and Martínez Insua (1998)

suggest that the verbs employed in there-constructions are highly restricted In

Breivik (1983), Huddleston (1984: 469) and Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) it is stated that English existential constructions require that the verbs be selected from intransitive verbs and must be of general presentative meaning Verbs with presentative meaning are primarily verbs of motion, inception and of stance For

illustration, verbs arrive, enter, pass, come etc can be included among verbs of motion; verbs such as emerge, spring up, rise etc can be mentioned among verbs

of inception; and lastly, verbs such as live, remain, stand, lie etc belong among

verbs of stance

In addition, the existential-there constructions, therecan combine with some

of the adjectives, such aslikely, certain to express different modal meanings

Examples are:

- There are unlikely to be any problems with the timetable (TD: Không thể có

bất cứ trục trặc gì với thời khóa biểu được – Cobuild, p.417)

-There seems to have been some carelessness recently (TD: Dường như đã có

một số bất cẩn trong thời gian gần đây – Cobuild, p.417)

Alexander (1988, p.195) provided similar show of verbs and stated that the use of such verbs tend to occur mainly in literary prose or in formal writing For example:

- There seems little doubt that he was insane

- There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point

- There comes a time when you have to make a choice

The fact that English existential sentences can be combined with modals corresponds with Dušková’s (2006) approach to the semantic differentiation of English existential sentences This definition offered key facts on syntactic structures and possibilities of English existential sentences The focus lay mainly

on the distinction between locative and existential there, the function of existential

there as a subject in existential sentences, on the S-V concord, and finally on verbs

that together with the verb be can be employed in English existential sentences

In the English language, sentences are organized in clause patterns In English, common clause patterns consist of a number of sentence elements, namely: subjects (S), verbs (V), objects (O), complements (C) and adverbials (A) As far as complements and adverbials are concerned, they are more peripheral sentence elements For complements, this means that they frequently occur in a sentence-final position The position of adverbials is even more variable as they can appear sentence-initially, -medially or -finally Moreover, there are clause patterns in which complements and adverbials need not occur at all Having stated this, it follows that the basic clause pattern in English is commonly described as the SVO pattern What is important to mention is that most English sentences comply with the SVO structure, unless other sentence elements, e.g complement and/or adverbial, are added to the pattern Since English is a fixed word order language, the SVO sequence is followed in regular declarative way of communication, i.e when stating facts, with no special attention drawn to any part of the sentence (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik, 1985, pp.49-51) Nonetheless, an exception

to the declarative way of communication with the SVO pattern is represented by English existential sentences

- Type SVOC

Ex Two bulldozers have been knocking the place flat ~ There have been

two bulldozers knocking the place flat

Ex No shops will be left open ~ There’ll be no shops left open

Especially in informal usage, there is an existential sentence with an –ed clause following the noun phrase:

Ex There’ll be left open no single well-stocked shop

From all the examples above, it can be said that even though they have

different word order from normal declarative sentences, the existential-there

sentences could correspond to nearly all basic declarative sentence structures in English

2.5.2 Semantics of English existential expressions

With regards to semantics, in general, the question is whether structure decides on meaning or meaning, semantics or pragmatics does Referring to

expressions of existence in English, Rando & Napoli 1978) cited the example: A:

Who showed up? B: Well, there was Alex In this example there appears in the pivot

position which is directly anaphoric to an expression that appears in the previous

sentence; there has deictic and anaphoric reference This example raises the

question of whether a uniform semantics and discourse function can be given for everything that looks formally like an existential sentence, or whether in reality

there are several subtypes of existential sentence, perhaps with distinct semantics and pragmatics

In terms of the relation between semantics and pragmatics, although English existential sentences represent the type of sentences with a word order that does not fully conform to the word order of the basic clause pattern, i.e SVO pattern Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad & Finegan (1999, p.943) state that existential sentences are employed when the speaker is saying that a phenomenon exists, or when mentioning the presence or occurrence (but also non-presence and non-occurrence)

of a phenomenon Quirk et al (1985,p.1403) explain that English existential

sentences are marked by the employment of a ‘there-construction’, i.e as including

a there+be structure According to Alexander (1988, p.194), “the construction with

there allows important new information to come at the end of the sentence for

a nominal element, or both a nominal element and a copula are different ways to derive existential expressions In a few languages that require a verb, this verb is

usually homophonous with the verbs be, have or to exist In some languages the

existential verb or copula shows agreement while some others do not Languages that lack an existential verb or a dummy subject and have no articles rely on word order and contextual factors to distinguish an existential reading from a possessive

or plain locative reading Freeze (1992) assumes that existential, possessive and locative sentences are all related in that they have the same basic structure (such as

Be/Have) and that differences between them boil down to moving either the locative

theme to the front The present cross-linguistic data show that some languages show some variations Both constructions have the same structure and they do not involve any structure movement

The term existential sentence is used to refer to a specialized or

non-canonical construction which expresses a proposition about the existence or the

presence of someone or something Thus, the sentence in (a) below is considered existential because it is specialized (insofar as it has an expletive subject, whose distribution is highly restricted in English) and entails nothing other than the existence of one even prime number In contrast, (b) will not be considered existential because, even though it entails nothing other than the existence of one even prime number, there is nothing specialized about its syntax: it has the canonical subject-predicate structure used in English Finally, (c), though closely related to the construction in (a), differs from it in syntactic details, in its use in discourse, and in the fact that, thanks to the verb, it entails something more than mere existence or presence This latter type of sentence is an example of the

‘presentational-there’ construction (Aissen, 1975)

a There is one even prime number

b One even prime number exists

c There stood in the corner an empty coat rack and umbrella stand

It can be said that existential sentences vary somewhat in structure, semantics, and pragmatics from language to language, though they generally share certain characteristics as well

In this study, although English distinguishes between two types of there:

referential and non-referential, the thesis will focus mainly on the different mechanisms for constructing existential expressions in English, with the unstressed,

and non-deictic there as a dummy subject, a non-referential NP that is inserted in

the subject position

2.6 An overview of expressions of existence in Vietnamese

As we know, the main purpose of an existential statement is to confirm that the object exists in specific spaces Therefore, confirmation of the object must be in the official focus of good tasting Validating the existence of an object with the stated purpose of the spokesperson is to introduce the object into the text, to discuss

it

Tran Ngoc Them has remarked that the existential sentence is located at the beginning of the text, it has the effect of bringing the object, leading the main object, the main character into the text

Example:

- Ngày xưa có một người trẻ tuổi tên là Mai An Tiêm Chàng là người ở

một nước đâu tận vùng biển phía nam …

(Nguyễn Đổng Chi, Sự tích dưa hấu, KTCTVN, tập 1)

(TD: In the old days there was a young man named Mai An Tiem He came from a remote country in the South)

Also when the existential sentence stands at the beginning of the paragraph,

it has the task of introducing the sub-object into the text

For example:

- Ở đầu xóm nhà Keng có cô Ngọ Ngọ đang tuổi dậy thì béo khoẻ lại

khéo giữ nước da

(Nguyễn Kiên, Anh Keng)

(Trần Ngọc Thêm, Hệ thống liên kết văn bản bằng tiếng việt, tr 56)

(TD:In the Keng village, there is Ngo The pubescent puberty is good for the

skin

Existence validates the existence of an object in a certain spatial domain Therefore it is attached to the position of space, the position of space is the organic part of the sentence

About this feature John Lyon commented, in English: Verbs exist rarely

goes without no space or time complements Verification of an existing or existing object needs to be complemented by a positioning table The linking of the existential sentence and the positioning structure are protected by the use of which the positioning was originally a part

(Le Dong, note on semantic issues - syntax, p 30)

Diep Quang Ban also commented“Từ trước đến nay, ít người để ý đến việc

phân biệt yếu tố ngôn ngữ chỉ vị trí không gian của câu tồn tại với cái gọi là trạng ngữ của câu Về cả hai phương diện nộidung và hình thức, yếu tố chỉ vị trí không gian trong câu tồn tạilà bộ phận cấu thành hữu cơ của kiểu câu này Không có nó không thể tạo ra ý nghĩa tồn tại, là khuôn hình đặc thù có tính chất chuyêndùng cho kiểu câu tồn tại”

(Diệp Quang Ban,1980, tr 144)

And author Tran Ngoc Them thinks that the term is the thành phần nòng cốt

riêngof the core sentence type (Tr-Vt-B) and represents the subject (x: Tran Ngoc

Them 1985, p 60)

The study of Vietnamese functional grammar of Cao Xuan Hao (1991) refers

to the existence from the perspective of semantics, survey issues from their semantic structure

The above are the most common, most important characteristics of the most

typical ẽistential sentences in Vietnamese

2.7 Summary of the chapter

In the chapter 2, the Literature Review reviewed some of the works by English authors In those works, many scholars have focused on describing and

analyzing the syntactic structure and semantic features of the There + be +

NPstructure In addition to reviewing works related to the subject, Chapter 2 also

covered some relevant concepts, such as the concept of syntax, semantic concepts

of semantics, concepts of expressions, and of existential expressions in English The contents of Chapter 2 provide the basis for the results of studying the syntactic-semantic features of English expressions related to Vietnamese equivalents in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3 FEATURES OF EXPRESSIONS OF EXISTENCE IN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

It can be said that the meaning of existence is expressed in almost every language Many languages form existential clauses without any particular marker,

simply using forms of the normal copula verb (the equivalent of English be),

the subject being the noun (phrase) referring to the thing whose existence is

asserted For example, in Finnish, the sentence Pihalla on poikia, meaning There

are boys in the yard, is literally On the yard is boys Some languages have a

different verb for this purpose, e.g Swedish finnas, as in Det finns pojkar på

gården, which is literally It is found boys on the yard On the other hand, some

languages do not require a copula at all, and sentences analogous to In the yard boys are used Some languages use the verb have, e.g Serbo-Croatian, as in U dvorištu

exception; there are different ways of expressing existence

3.1 Syntactic features of expressions of existence in English with

reference totheir Vietnamese equivalents

a sentence that asserts the existence or nonexistence of something For this purpose,

English usually relies on constructions introduced by the word There (known as the

"existential there") The following is one example:

This is Hoa’s bedroom There is a desk on the left of the room On the desk

there are many folders, and above the desk there is a bookshelf There is a bed near

the desk On the right side of the room, there is a window There is a wardrobe

beside the window The wardrobe is opposite the desk

(http://loigiaihay.com/write-viet-trang-32-sgk-tieng-anh-8-c75a18728.html)

Bản dịch:

Đây là phòng ngủ của Hoa.Ở bên trái phòng ngủ có một cái bàn.Ở trên bàn

có nhiều bìa kẹp đựng hồ sơ và ờ phía trên cái bàn có một giá sách.Có một cái

giường gần cái bàn Ớ phía bên trái của căn phòng có một cửa sổ Có một cái tủ

quần áo bên cạnh cửa sổ.Tủ quần áo ở đối diện cái bàn

(http://loigiaihay.com/write-viet-trang-32-sgk-tieng-anh-8-c75a18728.html)

However, apart from the typical construction with the above existential there-be

there might be more than that Through surveys, several types of existential expressions have been found in English and each of them is differently structured Based on the type of the verbs used in the existential constructions: intransitive

verbs, transitive verbs or the verb be, existential sentences in English are found to

bestructured in the following patterns:

be exist, occur, etc indicating states of objects or situations For example, Do you

believe fairies exist? (Bạn có tin là có tiên không? (Từ điển Anh-Việt, p.553) or Misprints occur on every page (Trang nào cũng tìm thấy lỗi in sai (Từ điển Anh-

Việt, p.1125) This sentence could also be translated into normal Vietnamese: Trang

nào cũng có lỗi in sai From the above examples, it is noted that the verbs exist,

occur do not express actions; instead, they refer to existence of something The

example sentences above could be paraphrased: Do you believe there are fairies? orThere are misprints on every page

Another feature is that subjects of sentences of this type are indefinite nouns

The subject noun could be a count noun in singular number(e.g an opportunity), plural nouns (e.g opportunities) or noncount noun (e.g life: No life exists on Mars)

When the nouns as subject are definite, the sentences do not express existence; they express actions The following examples could illustrate this difference:

- Misprints occur on every page (Existence)

- Theexplosion occurred at 5.30 a.m (Dictionary of Contemporary

English, p.1204) (Action, When did it occur/happen?)

In addition, in this structure, prepositional phrases should be included, usually at the end of existential sentences These phrases indicate location (or time)

of existence The meaning of existential sentences of this type is incomplete without

them For example, the sentence Does life exist on Mars? (Có cuộc sống trên sao

Hỏa không?) will make no sense if the bold-typed phrase is missing in the

The following example demonstrates this structure:Japan has a population of over

120 million? (TD: Dân số Nhật bản có hơn 120 triệu người)(Dictionary of

Contemporary English, p.805) This structure indicates existence; the example can

be paraphrased:There are over 120 million (living) in Japanand in order to ask

about the existence, the questions can be used with What?orHow many… are

there?: What is the population of Japan or How many people are there in Japan?

From the examples above, it can be seen that in this existential structure the subject noun has two qualities: it must be inanimate and it must be a definite noun

phrase The noun after the verb have or other verbs of the same type must be in

sense relation: container – components e.g.The atlas contains fortymaps (Tập bản

đồ gồm có bốn mươi tấm bản đồ) or Whisky contains a largepercentage of alcohol (Úyt ki chứa một lượng cồn cao (Từ điển Anh-Việt, p.327) In these sentences, the

subject atlas and whiskyare ‘container’ nouns and ‘component’ nouns; the subject

noun can be both indefinite and definite

As for the verb have, it is noted that the have-existence clause should be

distinguished from the have-possession clause The difference lies in the fact that if the subject is an inanimate noun, then the sentence means existence, whereas the sentence with an animate noun as subject expresses possession A comparison between the two sentences that follow could illustrate this:

- He has his eldest son in a boarding school (Possession)