A study on IN prepositional phrases in english with reference to vietnamese equivalents

A STUDY ON “ IN ’’ PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS Nghiên cứu về cụm giới từ “IN” trong tiếng Anh và liên hệ với tương đương trong tiếng Việt

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON “IN’’ PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CỤM GIỚI TỪ“IN” TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ

TRUONG THI QUY Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Van Dong , Ph.D

Hanoi, 2017

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

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

A STUDY ON “ IN ’’ PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES IN ENGLISH

WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(Nghiên cứu về cụm giới từ “IN” trong tiếng Anh và liên hệ với tương đương trong tiếng Việt )

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

Ha Noi, 2017

Truong Thi Quy

Approved by SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Nguyen Thi Van Dong

Date ………

A special word of thanks goes to all my lectures and officers of Falcuty of Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

ABSTRACT

As the tittle of the thesis indicates: A study on “

IN ’’ prepositional phrases in English with reference to Vietnamese equivalents , the purpose of the study is to point out the semantic and syntactic features of “IN” prepositional phrases in English and Vietnamese equivalents.To carry out this research, the writer used such methods as descriptive, statistical and analytical.In addition, a survey questionnaire was carried out for the high school students at the Ung Hoa high school In the end, the research worked out the reasons for these mistakes which the students had made when using

“IN” prepositional phrases in English and found the similarities and dissimilarities between “IN” prepositional phrases in English and Vietnamese equivalents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 4

1.7 Design of the study 4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Previous studies 6

2.2 Overview of syntax and semantics 8

2.2.1 Syntax 8

2.2.2 Semantics 9

2.3 An overview of the prepositions 9

2.3.1 Some features of prepositional phrases 10

2.3.2 English prepositions 12

2.4 Overview of errors and error corrections 29

2.5 Summary 30

3.1 Syntactic features of “IN” prepositional phrases 31

3.2.1 “IN” prepositional phrases denoting time: 33

3.2.2 IN prepositional phrases denoting place or position 35

3.2.3 ‘IN’ prepositional phrases to show movement towards the inside of a container, place or area 36

3.2.4 ‘IN’ prepositional phrases to show when something is part of something else 36

3.2.5 ‘IN’ prepositional phrase to show that someone is wearing something: 37

3.2.6 ‘IN’prepositional phrases to show how things are arranged, expressed or written 37

3.3 “IN’ prepositional phrases and their Vietnamese equivalents 37

3.3.1 “IN” in English corresponds to “trong” in Vietnamese 37

3.3.2 “IN” in English corresponds to “ngoài” in Vietnamese 39

3.3.3 “IN” in English corresponds to “trên” in Vietnamese 39

3.3.4 “IN” in English corresponds to “dưới” in Vietnamese 40

3.3.5 “IN” in English corresponds to “ở” in Vietnamese 41

3.3.6 “IN” in English corresponds to “bên” in Vietnamese 41

3.3.7 “IN” in English corresponds to “bằng” in Vietnamese 42

3.3.8 “IN” in English corresponds to “về” in Vietnamese 42

3.3.9 “IN” in English corresponds to “vào” in Vietnamese 42

3.3.10 “IN” in English corresponds to “trước” in Vietnamese 43

3.3.11 “IN” in English corresponds to “sau” in Vietnamese 43

3.4 In terms of similarities and differences between “IN” prepositional phrases in English and Vietnamese equivalents 44

3.4.1 Similarities 44

3.4.2 Differences 45

3.5 Summary 46

Chapter 4: COMMON ERRORS MADE BY LEARNER OF ENGLISH WHEN USING “IN’’ PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 47

4.1 Survey questionnaires 47

4.1.1 Subject 47

4.1.3 Procedure 48

4.2 Common errors made by learners of English when using “IN” prepositional phrases 54

4.2.1 Common errors made by learners of English when using “IN”prepositional phrases 54

4.2.2 Causes of committing errors using “IN”prepositional phrases in English 55

4.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning prepositions in English and Vietnamese……… 56

4.4 Summary 57

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 58

5.1 Recapitulation 58

5.2 Limitation of the study 59

5.3 Suggestions for further study 59

REFERENCES 60

APPENDIX 1 64

APPENDIX 2 70

APPENDIX 2 70

APPENDIX 2 74

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Preposition functions 11

Table 2.2 Preposition complement 16

Table 2.3 Position of Vietnamese preposition 28

Table 3.1 Syntactic functions of IN prepositional phrases 33

Table 4.1 The learners’ answer on task 1 48

Table 4.2 The learners’ answer on task 2 50

Table 4.3 The learners’ answer on task 3 52

Table 4.4 The learners’ answer on task 4 53

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

There is a well-established fact that prepositions pose a big challenge for the acquisition of English language Learners of English as a foreign language often face with huge difficulties in actively mastering the language Generally, they seemingly hold the view that English notional categories, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are crucial, hence striving to learn as many of them as possible and functional categories as prepositions are of minor significance because they are limited in number and their meaning are not important to the meaning of the whole sentence Moreover, the traditional view considers that all the senses of the prepositions and prepositional phrases are highly arbitrary and are not related to another one Both dictionaries and grammars provide long lists of unrelated senses for each preposition, preposition phrase and its possible uses in different contexts

In terms of syntactic function, prepositions and prepositional phrases are words used to connect noun or noun phrases to other phrases in a sentence They exist in both English and Vietnamese language systems, in which their characteristics and usages, however, are quite different Mastering prepositions and prepositional phrases more often than not cause a great deal of troubles for Vietnamese native-speaker learners when learning English

In the process of teaching-learning English, great attention has been paid while dealing with ‘IN’ prepositional phrases It is due to their syntactic and semantic feature, as well as stylistic peculiarities Therefore, an effective way of mastering ‘IN’ prepositional phrases should help learners overcome their difficulties

in acquiring English

For all the mentioned above reasons, the topic relating to ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English expressions with reference to Vietnamese equivalents has been chosen for my graduation thesis

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

This study is conducted to aim at finding out the typical semantic and syntactic features of prepositional phrases, especially investigating ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English and the Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features, thus helping Vietnamese learners of English to have better understanding of prepositional phrases in general and ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in particular and be able to use them effectively in daily communication

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

(i) To investigate the syntactic and semantic features of ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English

(ii) To find out the similarities and differences between ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English and Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features

(iii) To propose some implications for teaching and learning ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English at Ung Hoa high school in particular in an effective way

(iii) What are the implications for teaching and learning “IN” prepositional phrases in English at Ung Hoa in particular in an effective way?

1.4 Methods of the study

This study is aimed to identify and describe some syntactic and semantic features of ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents, from these findings, some similarities and differences would be shown

To achieve this purpose, a large amount of data has been collected and analyzed in a careful consideration with the combination of contrastive analysis in qualitative and quantitative approaches, which are used in the arguments and discussions

Comparative and contrastive methods help us set up similarities and differences in the way of using prepositional phrases, especially ‘IN’ prepositional phrases, by English and Vietnamese people in both spoken and written language by doing the survey

Besides, descriptive, analytic and contrastive methods are applied as the major methodology of this study The method as descriptive research is utilized to describe and demonstrate linguistic features of ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in English and the Vietnamese equivalents, the methods are also used to describe the syntactic and semantic features of ‘IN’ prepositional phrases Some typical examples and statistic tables of classification are given to make the analysis a clearance The contrastive method is utilized to find out similarities and differences of ‘IN’ prepositional phrases in terms of syntactic and semantic features

Besides, some of the research techniques as statistics and observation are combined to draw out necessary findings

Last but not least, setting up a regular consultancy with supervisor for a guidance and academic exchange is a critical technique to get the right direction to

do this research

1.5 Scope of the study

It is due to the framework of a master thesis, this study focuses on the semantic and syntactic features of IN prepositional phrases in Engnglish with reference to Vietnamese equivalents,so as to point out the similarities and

differences This will be useful for teaching and learning process for both teachers and students The implication for mastering these prepositions will also be taken into consideration with a view to help students at Ung Hoa high school to overcome their difficulties in acquiring English as a foreign language

1.6 Significance of the study

In terms of theoretical significance, the research is expected to contribute an in-depth description of “IN”prepositional phrases in English by analyzing their syntactic and semantic features in comparison with Vietnamese equivalents

In terms of practical significance, we have been studied in many aspects such

as culture, custom, and even psychology but there have been no studies dealing with the syntactic and semantic features of “IN” prepositional phrases in English, especially with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents Thus, this research is conducted in attempt to provide Vietnamese learners of English with better mastering at Ung Hoa high school in sensible ways, how to thoroughly understand, and naturally use them in receptive and productive skills In describing the syntactic and semantic features of “IN” prepositional phrases in English, especially with reference to Vietnamese equivalents will be taken into consideration as the ground for my study with the hope of making a contribution in to the process of overcoming some difficulties met by the Vietnamese learners of English

1.7 Design of the study

This study is designed with five chapters:

Chapter 1, Introduction, gives an overview of the thesis including rationale, aims, objectives, scope and methods of the study as well as the organization of the research

Chapter 2, literature review, presents an overview of some previous studies

on the same subject both in English and vietnamese At the same time, the chapter gives a theoretical background to the study with theoretical preliminaries directly

related to the investigation of syntactic and semantic features of “IN”prepositional phrases in English with reference to vietnamese equivalents

Chapter 3, the finding and discussion, in which the author will summarize the findings, discuss the similarities and differences of “IN” prepositional phrases in two languages in two terms syntax and semantics and give implication for mastering these prepositions

Chapter 4, the applications, analysis of the Common errors made by learners

in learning English when use “IN” prepositional phrases in English and implications for teaching English

Chapter 5, the conclusion, provides the recapitulation, concluding remarks and limitation of the study, and suggestion for further studies

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous studies

According to the traditional view, the researchers consider that all the senses

of a preposition are highly arbitrary and are not related to one another Otto Jesperseen [6;171], who is one of the prominent traditional linguists and grammarians, groups prepositions as a subclass of particles and defines them very briefly in “ Essentials of English Grammar” as elements which signal different

types of relationship in the sentence as follows: in, at, through, for, ect

Lawal (2004) shows that prepositions indicate various relationships between words or phrases in sentence The relationship includes those of time, points, position, direction and various degrees of mental or emotional attitude

Concerning the usage of prepositions, Hayden et.al (1996) mentions in his grammar textbook ‘Mastering American English’ that: a preposition shown a relationship between its object and other words in a sentence…

Quirk and Greenbaum (1985) concerns about the relational meanings the prepositions establish among the constituents of the sentence and the fact that prepositional meaing are difficult to describe systematically in ‘A concise grammar

of English’

Charles Fillmore’s view of prepositions differs from those of the other grammarians and linguists Charles Fillmores attributes a very distinctive role to English prepositions in “Toward a Modern Theory of Case” He regards them as elements which specify the different cases of the noun phrases

Concerning about the implications for teaching prepositions, Celce – Murcia and Larsen – Freeman show the nine most frequent prepositions (at, by, from, in, for, of, on, to, with) in “ An English Grammar for Teachers of English as a Second Language” (1978) He recommends that the beginnes of English should master at an

Prepositions and prepositional phrases have been also studied deeply by many Vietnamese linguists such as Dinh Van Duc, Diep Quang Ban, Bui Duc Tinh According to Bui Duc Tinh (1952), preposition and preposition phrase are words used to show the meaning correlativeness of two words or two phrases

Dinh Van Duc (2001) states that preposition like conjunction is used to express the relationship among words of open word class The function of conjunction is not to express the grammatical meaning

Nguyen Kim Than in “Nghiên cứu về ngữ pháp tiếng Việt” separated preposition as one types of part of speech and definite that prepositions is a kind of empty words that are used to connect to link the sub - word with the main word to show the relationship between the two words

From the basis of the previous studies, it can be seen that the investigation of prepositions of place ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘on’ and their Vietnamese equivalents have not discussed so far in both languages, English and Vietnamese A research relating English prepositions of place ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘on’ with reference to Vietnamese equivalents has been chosen for my thesis

A study on preposition of time in English (Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen, 2009)

A study on prepositions of direction and some errors made by Vietnamese learners (Ngo Thi Thu Dieu, 2010)

Semantic and analysis functions of English adjective - a contrastive analysis with their Vietnamese equivalent (Nguyen Thi Nga, 2008)

Đặc điểm chức năng của giới từ trong tiếng Việt hiện đại (Lê Duy 2006)

Trinh-2.2 Overview of syntax and semantics

2.2.1 Syntax

The word “syntax” is derived from the Greek “syntaxis”, which means

“arrangement” Syntax in linguistics deals with the ways the elements of a sentence

or phrase can be arranged to express different meanings In other words, it is set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentence in a given language, specifically word order More simply, syntax can be defined as the arrangement of words in a sentence The term syntax is also is used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of a language It dictates words from different parts

of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought Perhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech connect together Every language has rules that dictate types of words can be used in a sentence, and how to interpret the resulting sentence For this reason, discovering the syntactic rules common to all languages is the goal of many syntacticians

Syntax is one of the major components of grammar Traditionally linguists have recognized a basic distinction between syntax and morphology which is primary concerned with the internal structures of words However, this distinction has been somewhat disrupted by recent research in lexicogrammar

Syntax allows speakers to communicate complicated thoughts by arranging small, simple units in meaningful ways For example, in English, a sentence can be simple as a one – word interjection, or it can be a lengthy composition with multiple clauses strung together

According to R.M.W Dixon ( 1991), syntactic clues have to be treated with care, and the relevant syntactic categories must be established empirically, not determined a priori

Syntax plays important roles in language, it makes human language unlimited Humans can create new sentences or phrases to express different

2.2.2 Semantics

The word semantics was first used by a French philologist, Michel Breal In international scientific vocabulary semantics is also called semasiology The simple definition of semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions The formal study of semantics intersects with many other fields of inquiry including lexicology, syntax, pragmatics, etymology and others It contrasts with syntax, the study of the combination of units of a language without reference to their meaning, and pragmatics – the study of the relationships between the symbols of a language, their meaning, and the users of the language

In linguistics, semantics the subfield that devoted to the study of meaning, as inherent at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and larger units of discourse It is also closely linked to the subjects of representation, reference and denotation In traditionally, semantics has included the study of sense and denotative reference, truth conditions, argument structure, thematic roles, discourse analysis, and the linkage of all these to syntax

According to Hurford and Heasley (1983) semantics is the study of meaning

in language Language is a mean of communication, and people use language to communicate with other by making conversations, giving information, and other things to make social relationship

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

The concepts as well as the studies of syntax and semantics are basis study to

investigate syntax and semantic features of preposition “in” in English

2.3 An overview of the prepositions

Prepositions are words used to combine nouns or noun structures to other structures in a sentence However, they have different characteristics and usage in

each language English prepositional usage may be treated in different ways depending on the starting points chosen and the aspects that are being emphasized

2.3.1 Some features of prepositional phrases

2.3.1.1 Definition

In order to define prepositional phrases, this section focuses on the different forms and the possible relations that a preposition can have In the Dictionary of Language, Crystal (1999) defines a preposition as “an item that typically precedes a noun phrase to form a single constituent or structure” (p.271) This definition is similar to many others since it defines prepositions by relating them to other categories In fact, Biber et.al (2007) maintains that “prepositions are links which introduce prepositional phrases As the most typical complement in a prepositional phrase is a noun phrase, they can be regarded as a device which connects noun phrases with other structure’’ (p.74) Similarlyy, Quirk et.al (2005) defines prepositions by claiming that “central prepositions in English can be defined negatively with three criterias They cannot have as complement

Prepositions cannot be defined without referring to other particles, which is mainly caused by their connecting function For this reason, researchers who dealt with prepositions such as Quirk et al., Biber et al., and Saint-Dizier think that they are function words that belong to the category of closed class items However, Radford (2009 a) claims that “nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions, are often called content words” (p 132) since prepositions, among other word classes, do have meanings; “many of these have the semantic property of marking

location can be modified by right in the sense of ‘completely’, or by straight in the

sense of ‘directly’” (Radford, 2009 b, p.4) This view is also shared by other grammarians such as Van Valin (2004) and Huddleston and Pullum (2005) Keizer (2008) opts for the view that English prepositions are lexical items with the

exception of ‘of’ and ‘by’ when used with deverbal nouns

The difference between both views is that while the former focuses on syntactic and morphological evidence, the second is based on meaning in distinguishing content and function words The claim maintained in this thesis is that the distinction cannot be clear-cut; rather it is better seen as a scale ranging from function to lexical words This scale allows the presence of between cases, where a single preposition can serve as a function or lexical word The present thesis seeks to study the use of prepositions in order to distinguish the grammatical from the lexical cases In addition to this distinction, prepositions are classified according to whether they are simple or complex

2.3.1.2 Structures

Prepositional phrases in English are usually made up by:

*A preposition as the head and prepositional complement

E.g.: In the car

* Prepositional complement can be realized as:

3 A verb phrase It contributed to building a new society

Table 2.1 Prepositional complement

2.3.2 English prepositions

The important feature of preposition is that they cannot stand alone, regardless of how many words they combine with As prepositions are not independent element, they always combine with other elements such as nouns, pronouns, verbs Thus, the study of preposition should focus on finding characteristics of prepositional phrase than separating them from other elements

2.3.2.1 Definitions

Preposition is a word that comes from Latin, a language in which such a word is usually placed before its complement It is often used in English, both in spoken and written language In the most general term, a preposition is the first word of a phrase that contains a noun or a pronoun Preposition is defined: “A preposition may be defined as connecting word showing the relation of a noun or a noun substitute to some other word in sentence”

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary a preposition “is a word or group of words used before a noun or pronoun to show place, position, time

or method” Agoi (2003) described preposition as a word or group of words used with a noun or noun equivalents to show the link between that noun which it governs and another word According to Richard Nordquist, he defines preposition

as “a word that show relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence” Ehrlich and Murphy (1990) state that preposition is a word conveys the meaning of position, direction, time or other abstraction Prepositions according to Lawal (2004) indicate various relationships between words or phrases in sentence The relationship includes those of times, points, position, direction, and various degrees of mental or emotional attitude Wishon and Burks (1980) state

“Prepositions are always followed by nouns or pronouns They are connective words that show the relationship between the nouns following them and one of the basis sentences elements: subject, verb, object, or complement.”

Another definition of preposition within traditional grammar is presented by Curme (1935) “A preposition is a word that indicates a relation between the noun or pronoun it governs and another words, which may be a verb, an adjective, or another noun or pronoun” This definition emphasizes the function of expression relation It offers an extremely comprehensive definition of a preposition

Prepositions in English consist of one word (in, at, on, to) or two words (ahead of) or three words (in front of) They are used with a lot of functions including time, location, manner, means, quantity, purpose and state or condition In other words, prepositions have different functions and meaning in English sentences

The important feature of preposition is that they cannot stand alone, regardless of how many words they are combined with (Downing and Locke, 1992)

As prepositions are not independent element, they are always combined with other elements, such as nouns (at night), verbs (to give), and adverbs (for ever)

The part following a preposition is called its object The object of a preposition can be a noun, pronoun, a gerund or a noun clause For example:

a noun: We gave a present to our secretaries

a pronoun: We gave a present to them

a gerund: We thought about giving a present to them

a noun clause: We thought about giving a present to whoever worked for us

(Lougheed, n.d)

2.3.2.2 Types of prepositions

In terms of components, prepositions are divided into two main groups: simple prepositions and complex prepositions

A simple preposition is made up of only one word They are words like ‘in’,

E.g.: My cottage is on that road

There are only two beds in the cottage

My car is at the cottage

They were driving to Edinburgh

He was standing by the door

The book is off the shelf

We didn’t sleep until midnight

As regards stress, simple prepositions can be divided into two groups:

- Prepositions which have no reduced form in their pronunciation such as like, round, since, through

- Prepositions which have reduced forms such as from /frɔm, frəm, frm/ and where the choice of phonetic form varies according to function

(Quirk et al, 1985) Complex preposition is made of more than one word According to Quirk et

al (1979), most complex prepositions can be assigned to one of three categories: adverb + preposition, verb/ adjective/ conjunction + preposition, preposition + noun + preposition

In two-word sequences, the first word is an adverb, verb, adjective conjunction, and the second word is a simple prepositions These simple

prepositions are often for, from, of, to or with Some of two – word sequences:

‘away from’, ‘close to’, ‘instead of’, ‘up to’, ‘except for’, ‘because of’, ‘next to’,

We had to leave early because of the bad weather

I sat next to an old lady on the train

Except for Margaret, everybody was in favour of the idea

She was sitting close to me

She is up to the top ten students in her class

According to me, she is a very good student

I lived away from home when I was a student

The type consisting of three words is the most numerous category of

complex prepositions, as in : Prep1 + N + Prep2 : ‘in line with’, ‘in connection

with’, ‘in term of’, ‘in favour of’, ‘on account of’, ‘in front of’, ‘on top of’, ‘ in spite

In terms of money, her loss was small

How many delegates are in favour of this motion

In line with latest trends in fashion, many dress designers have been sacrificing elegance to audacity

His name is at the back of the cover’s story

In spite of being a good student, she failed the exams

On account of raining I stay at home today

Besides, complex prepositions may be subdivided according to which preposition functions as Prep1 and Prep2 such as:

in + noun + of: in view of, in search of, in place of, etc…

in + noun + with in line with, in comparison with, etc…

by + noun + of by virtue of, by dint of, etc…

on + noun + of on pain of, on the strength of, etc…

Table 2.2: Structure of prepositions

However, the boundary between simple and complex prepositions is not clear

- cut Many simple prepositions are derived from complex prepositions

In terms of meanings, prepositions are divided into five groups:

Prepositions of place, prepositions of time, prepositions of reason, prepositions of manner and concession are used to show several types of relations depending on the context because prepositions usually have more than one meaning

*Prepositions of place: in, at, on, behind, under, in front of, over, above, between,

A large flock of pigeons is perched on the tree

He works in London, but he lives in the country

She’s a student at Oxford University

The car is behind the bus

He lives under the bridge

The flag is in front of us

*Prepositions of time: in, at, on, for, since, during, by, before, after,

We stayed up during the night

I wrote my paper on Friday

I have to submit the paper by Monday

We took a swim before breakfast

We camped there until September

*Prepositions of reasons: because of, due to, out of, for, on account of

For example:

She has been promoted due to her work hard

Because of bed weather, I have to delay the departure time

The motor is run out of petrol

He was fined for drunken driving

On account of his wide experience, he was made chairman

*Prepositions of manner: like, as, with For example:

Life is like a dream

I respect him as writer and as a man

We were received with the utmost courtesy

*Prepositions of concession: in spite of, despite, in defiance of…

E.g.:

They had a wonderful holiday, despite the bad weather

They went out in spite of the rain

2.3.2.3 Position of English prepositions in sentences

The relative ordering of prepositions are important factors in sentence They

may appear in one of the following position in the sentence

In front of a noun, a pronoun, or a noun phrase For example:

She walked across the street

Tara is looking for you

He was surprised at her

I received letters from my grandmother yesterday

At the last position in wh-questions

When the question word is the object of a preposition, the preposition often comes at the end of the clause, especially in formal usage For example:

Where do you come from?

What do you look for?

*In Relative clauses

When relative pronoun is the object of a preposition, preposition often goes

at the end of the clause.They can appear either before or after the relative pronouns

For example:

This is the book that I came for

The engineer about whom you are speaking is a good specialist

*In passive sentences

In passive structures, prepositions go with their verbs

E.g.:

Everything he said was laughed at

He is a man whose word can be relied on

2.3.2.4 Syntactic features of English prepositions

English prepositions have some syntactic features as follow:

*As a post modifier in a noun phrase

E.g.:

The people on the bus were singing

* As verb phrase complement

A verb phrase complement is a word, phrase or clause that complete meaning of a verb phrase For example, the following italicized preposition phrases function as verb phrase complement For example:

We were looking at his awful painting

The book fell off the shelf

*As adjective phrase complement

E.g.:

He’s bad at games

I’m sorry for his parent

* As adjunct adverbial

An adjunct adverbial modifies an entire clause by providing additional information about time, place, manner, condition, purpose, reason, result, and concession For example:

The people were singing on the bus

In the afternoon, we went to Boston

The next one function is as subjunct adverbial.

E.g.:

From a personal point of view, I find this is a good solution to the problem

*As disjunct adverbial A disjunct adverbial provides additional information to frame an entire clause

E.g.: In all fairness, she did try to phone the police

*As conjunct adverbial

E.g.: On the contrast, he made no attempt to help her

2.3.2.5 Semantic features of English prepositions

As said above, a preposition expresses a relation between two entities, one being that represented by the preposition complement In the various types of relational meaning, those of time and space are popular and easiest to describe systematically, other relationships are difficult to describe systematically Following are some semantics features of English prepositions

*Prepositions denoting spatial relation

Prepositions express spatial relations are of two kinds: prepositions of location and prepositions of direction Both kinds are positive and negative Prepositions of location appear with verbs describing states or conditions, especially

be Prepositions of direction appear with verbs of motion

* Prepositions of location

- Positive position and destination: at, to, on, onto, in For example:

The city is situated on the coast

Don’t run into the school

The Smiths drove to Edinburgh

- Source or negative position: away from, off, out of For example:

Anna is away from home

The book is off the shelf

Tom is out of the water

- Relative positions: over, under, above, on top of, underneath, beneath,

The picture is above the mantelpiece

We place on the top of the car

- Space: by, beside, near, with, close to, between, among, around, round, etc

For example:

Beside Mary, there stood a young man

The house stands among the farms

The guests were standing around the room

* Prepositions of direction

Passages: with verbs of motion, prepositions may express the idea of passage

with prepositions such as over, under, behind, across, through, past, etc For

example: He jumped over a ditch

Movement with reference to a directional path: up, down, along, across

For example:

The ball rolled across the lawn

We walked up the hill and down the other side

*Prepositions denoting time

A prepositional phrase of time usually occurs as adjunct, postmodifier or predication Following are details about the meanings of these prepositions

*Time position: in, at, on, by

“in”, “at”, “on” as prepositions of ‘time position’ are to some extent parallel

to the same items as positive preposition of position At is used for points of time

(at 7.a.m, at noon, at five o’clock…), holiday periods (at Christmas, at East, at the

for periods that are longer or shorter than a day (in the morning, in 2000, in

By occurs in the idiom: by day, by night that replace during the day, during

For example: We preferred travelling by night

Measurement into the future: in To denote measurement from the present time, in is used for a span ahead into the future For example:

We will meet in three months’ time

Duration: for, during, over, through, throughout, from…to, until, up to, etc

For example:

We camped there for the summer

During our stay in Japan we met several old friends

We camped there through the summer

*Prepositions denoting the cause

At one end of the cause, we have prepositions expressing either material cause or the psychological cause for a happening Phrases of cause, reason, and

motive answer the question Why…? They include prepositions such as because of,

We had to drive slowly because of the heavy rain

On account of his wide experience, he was made chairman

*Prepositions denoting purpose: for

For is used to express purpose For example:

He’ll do anything for money

Everyone ran for shelter

* Prepositions denoting recipient, goal, target: for, to, at

When preposition for is followed by noun phrases denoting persons or

animals, the meaning is intended recipient For example: She made a beautiful doll

for her daughter

The preposition to expresses actual recipient For example:

She gave a beautiful doll to her daughter

In combinations such as aim at, at expresses intended goal or target

For example:

A vicious dog was snapping at her ankles

After aiming carefully at the bird, he missed it completely

*Prepositions denoting manner: in…manner, like, with

For example:

The job was done in a workmanlike manner

We were received with the utmost courtesy

For example:

*Prepositions denoting means and instrument: by, with, without

By expresses the meaning “by mean of”

For example:

I usually go to work by bus

On other hand, with expresses instrumental meaning

Someone had broken the window with a stone

Without expresses the equivalent negative meaning of with

I drew it without (using) a ruler

*Prepositions denoting support and opposition: for, with, against

For expresses the idea of support

With that of solidarity or movement in sympathy

For example:

Are you for or against the plan?

Remember that every one of us is with you?

Against conveys the idea of opposition

For example: My best friend agains for my plan

*Prepositions denoting the concession: in spite of, despite, for all, with all, etc

*Prepositions denoting the respect: with reference to, with regard to, as for, etc

Some of prepositions that express the respect are used in rather formal contexts, typically business letter

*Prepositions denoting the exception and addition

Some most prepositions denoting exception and addition include: except for,

For example:

We had a pleasant time, except for the weather

The worst period of my life, apart from the war, was when I was out of

work

2.3.3 Vietnamese prepositions

Like English prepositions, although Vietnamese preposition is only small

conversations They link nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in a sentence The words or phrases that preposition introduces are called the object of the preposition

2.3.3.1 Definitions

Like English, Vietnamese also has a category of word which is similar to preposition It is considered as an empty word called “hư từ” We may called this category Vietnamese equivalent of English preposition Although some linguists have claimed that prepositions do not exist in Vietnamese, according to Tuc (2003)

“although the distinction between prepositions and serial verbs in Vietnamese is not always clear-cut, Vietnamese prepositions do exist” In his book, he also gave many examples to prove his opinion Moreover, nowadays, in many books of teaching Vietnamese for foreigners, the name preposition is often used Therefore, to be convenient, the name Vietnamese preposition is used for equivalent of English preposition in Vietnamese in this thesis Nguyen Kim Than in “Viet Nam văn phạm”, defines prepositions as a category of word and that “prepositions, a kind of empty words, are used to connect to link the sub - word with the main word to show the relationship between the two words There is a small amount of prepositions in Vietnamese, but they are used frequently everyday and play an important role in organizing sentences

2.3.3.2 Types of prepositions

In terms of composition, Vietnamese prepositions are classified into two main groups: simple prepositions and compound prepositions

The first group:

‘cho’ (for), ‘dưới’ (under), ‘trên’ (on), ‘trong’ (in, inside), ‘ở’ (in, at, on),

‘tại’ (in, at), ‘lên’ (up, on), ‘ngoài’ (outside), ‘đến’ (to), ‘của’ (of), ‘với’ (with),

‘giữa’ (between), ‘về’ (toward, about), ‘bằng’ (by, of, with, in),’bởi’ (because of), etc

For example:

1 Cô ấy ngồi giữa Peter và tôi She sits between Peter and

me

2 Theo lời khuyên của anh ấy, tôi sửa

lại bài làm của tôi

According to his advice, I correct my assignment

3 Đơn này phải điền bằng bút mực This application must be filled

out in ink

4 Cái áo này may bằng lụa This dress is made of silk

6 Trong nhà thì nóng nhưng bên trong

thì lạnh

It’s hot inside the house, but it’s cold outside

The second group:

Compound prepositions which are comprised of a preposition and an adverb

The most commonly used compound prepositions are: ‘kể cả’ (including), ‘khác

hẳn’ (different from), ‘mãi đến khi’ (not until), ‘ngoài ra’ (beside), ‘đến tận’ (till),

‘chính giữa’ (middle), ‘cho đến (even), ‘không kể’ (excluding), ‘trái với’ (against, in contrary,), ‘trong số’ (among), etc…

For example:

1 Hồ Hoàn Kiếm nằm ở giữa thủ đô

4 Ý kiến của anh ấy luôn ngược lại

với ý kiến của tập thể

His ideas are always against the

class’ ideas

In terms of meaning, there are two main types of prepositions in Vietnamese: prepositions of location and prepositions of time In addition, there are some other prepositions called miscellaneous ones Prepositions of location like

left), trên (on, above, over), cạnh (next to), etc Prepositions of times: cho tới khi (until), sau (after), trước (before), kể từ khi (since), vào (in, at, on), trong suốt (during) Miscellaneous prepositions conclude cho (for), bởi (by), nhờ (thank to), về

(about), ‘bên phải’ (on the right), ‘bên trái’ (on the left), bên trên (above,on), etc

Trong bữa tiệc cô ấy không nói gì cả She said nothing during the party

Tôi thường dậy vào sáu giờ sáng I usually get up at six am

Viện bảo tàng nằm ở bên phải tiệm

sách cũ

The museum is located on the right of the

used-bookstore

Nhớ mua hoa cho tôi nhé Remember to buy flowers for me, OK?

Đối với tôi, chuyện đó không quan

trọng

That issue doesn’t matter to me

2.3.3.3 Position of Vietnamese prepositions in sentences

In Vietnamese, prepositions have some positions in sentence as follow:

1 In front of noun/pronoun Tôi ăn không cần dao ( I eat without a knife.)

Bạn có thể cùng đi với tôi không?

(Can you come with me?)

Bà ta đến cùng với con chó nhỏ của mình

(She came with her small dog.)

2 They appear after verb Chúng tôi sống gần công viên

(We live near the park.)

3 After an adjective Mẹ tôi cao hơn bố tôi

(My mother is taller than my father.)

2.4 Overview of errors and error corrections

The terms ‘error’ is used in a variety of ways in linguistics and language teaching theory In the early 1970s, research into ‘error’ has demonstrated that learner errors indicate both the state of the learner’s knowledge and of the ways in which the second language is learned ‘Error’ in ELT is a mark of a learner’s transitional competence as distinct from ‘mistake’ or performance error (Corder 1967) In this way, errors arise because the correct form or use of a target item is not part of a speaker or writer’s competence, whereas mistakes arise (for reasons of fatigue, stress, inattention, etc.) even though the correct form or use is part of the user’s competence At the present level of the student subjects, the barrier between

‘error’ and ‘mistake’ is quite blur and considered similar in this research

* Different types of spoken errors (which may be caused by the interference of the L1, an incomplete knowledge of the target language, the complexity of the target language, or fossilization) are categorized as follows:

- Errors of phonology: refer to the wrong ways of pronouncing a single word, of

using word stress, sentence intonation and other phonological matters such as linking, elision, assimilation, etc

- Errors of vocabulary: refer to the wrong ways of using words in their forms,

meaning, context and word collocation

- Errors of grammar: refer to the wrong ways of using tenses and different syntactic structures

- Errors of discourse: refer to the unsuitable ways of using the language in expressing ideas in particular contexts

* Different types of errors treatment are categorized as follows (Diane, 1998)

- Immediate correction: the teacher corrects the errors immediately after they are

made It falls into one of the following subcategories (The examples are transcribed from the audio recordings of the classroom observation):

- Delayed correction: The teacher take note about the errors and correct them when the students have finished their talk, at the end of the lesson or at some later time

- No correction: The teacher ignores all the errors the students make

2.5 Summary

Preposition is an interesting category in linguistics Many linguists have studied it However, sometimes learners feel confused about how to use prepositions correctly, especially when Vietnamese prepositions have something different from those in English That is the reason why learners often make mistakes when dealing with prepositions After having contrasted prepositions of place between two languages, we can see that English prepositions are more complex than Vietnamese prepositions