Syntactic and semantic features of “go” in english and “đi” in vietnamese

2018 - 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY ENGLISH LANGUAGE M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF “GO” IN ENGLISH AND “ĐI” IN VIETNAMESE (Đặc điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa từ “go” tiếng Anh “đi” tiếng Việt) VŨ HẢI ANH VŨ HẢI ANH Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 HANOI, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF “GO” IN ENGLISH AND “ĐI” IN VIETNAMESE (Đặc điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa từ “go” tiếng Anh “đi” tiếng Việt) VŨ HẢI ANH Field: English Language Code: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D HANOI, 2020 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “Syntactic and Sematic Features of “Go” in English and “Đi” in Vietnamese” 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 acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2020 Vũ Hải Anh Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:……………………… i due ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Mr Đặng Nguyên Giang, Ph.D, for his continuous support during the completion of my thesis, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge His guidance helped me in all the time of the research I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my master study Besides my supervisor, I would like to thank all my lecturers at Hanoi Open University for their enthusiasm and tremendous knowledge, and also for their insightful comments and encouragement My sincere thanks are also for all of my friends and especially my beloved parents for their unconditional loves and support during my study at Hanoi Open University ii ABSTRACT An investigation of go in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features is carried out in the present study Description and contrastive analysis are regarded as the main methods used in the thesis The findings of the study are concerned with the similarities and differences between go in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features In order to collect the data, a hand search approach of the dictionaries in both languages has been conducted, which helps to establish the number of meanings of each word In the present study, the theoretical fameworks (theory of contrastive analysis; theory of syntax and semantics) are applied to both English and Vietnamese Additionally, an overview of some theoretical background dealing with the general concepts of syntax, semantics, words, polysemy of words and word classification is presented for the background of analyzing the syntactic and semantic features of the two words go in English and in Vietnamese Our investigation reveals that go in English and in Vietnamese may function as verbs The biggest difference between go in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features lies in the verbal forms and the coordinate possibility of each in the clauses In terms of semantic features, the findings of the study reveals that there are main meanings in common conveyed by the two verbs, go in English and in Vietnamese When working as a verb, in Vietnamese has more meanings than go in English There are 10 meanings conveyed by đi, unique to Vietnamese whereas go has meanings which are unique to English Go in English may be a noun which has five main meanings, and in Vietnamese can function as a particle and iii an auxiliary which has meanings The thesis also presents the implications for English teaching and learning as well as translation iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Research methods 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Structure of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of the previous studies 2.2 Words and word classes 2.2.1 Polysemy of words 2.2.2 Word classes 2.3 Summary 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 14 3.1 Data collection 14 3.2 Research Methods 15 3.3 Underlying theoretical frameworks 15 3.3.1 Theory of contrastive analysis 15 3.3.2 Theory of syntax and semantics 18 3.4 Summary 22 v CHAPTER 4: A COMPARISON BETWEEN “GO” IN ENGLISH AND “ĐI” IN VIETNAMESE IN TERMS OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES 24 4.1 Syntactic features of “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese 24 4.1.1 Syntactic features of “go” in English 4.1.1.1 “Go” as a verb 24 4.1.1.2 “Go” as a noun 34 4.1.2 Syntactic features of “đi” in Vietnamese 34 4.1.2.1 “Đi” as a verb 34 4.1.2.2 “Đi” as a particle 37 4.1.2.3 “Đi” as an auxiliary 38 4.1.3 A comparison between “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features 38 4.1.3.1 Syntactic features found in both languages 38 4.1.3.2 Syntactic features unique to English 39 4.1.3.3 Syntactic features unique to Vietnamese 40 4.2 Semantic features of “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese 42 4.2.1 Semantic features of “go” in English 4.2.1.1 “Go” as a verb 42 4.2.1.2 “Go” as a noun 46 4.2.2 Semantic features of “đi” in Vietnamese 47 4.2.2.1 “Đi” as a verb 48 4.2.2.2 “Đi” as a particle 51 4.2.2.3 “Đi” as an auxiliary 52 vi 4.2.3 A comparison between “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese in terms of semantic features 52 4.2.3.1 Semantic features found in both languages 52 4.2.3.2 Semantic features unique to English 54 4.2.3.3 Semantic features unique to Vietnamese 56 4.3 Summary 59 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 61 5.1 Recapitulation 61 5.2 Concluding remarks 64 5.3 Implications 65 5.3.1 For English teaching and learning 65 5.3.2 For translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa 66 5.4 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 66 5.4.1 Limitations 66 5.4.2 Suggestions for further studies 66 REFERENCES 67 vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 2.1 Word types in English Table 2.2 Word types in Vietnamese 11 Table 4.1 Forms and functions of the verb go (Adapted from Quirk & Greenbaum (1987)) 24 viii Eat less than 1,200 calories a day - the minimum amount most women need to keep all systems go - and you will likely burn lean muscle mass instead of fat As a verb, go in English may have main meanings which in Vietnamese may not In addition, go can be a noun whose meanings are unique to English As a noun, go has five main meanings Besides, go can be an adjective, and it is presented in the phrase “All systems go” 4.2.3.3 Semantic features unique to Vietnamese As a verb, in Vietnamese may has the following meanings that go in English may not: i) Indicate the direction of activity leading to a change of position Quay mặt [Turned away] Nhìn chỗ khác [Look away] ii) (Rarely used): disappear gradually, does not retain the original flavor Nồi cơm [The rice cooker has evaporated] iii) Move chess pieces’ position to create new position (in chess) Đi mã [Move the knight] iv) Perform and perform martial arts movements Đi vài đường kiếm [Give some techniques of the sword] v) Work in a certain direction 56 Đi chệch khỏi quỹ đạo [Deviate from the orbit] Đi sâu sát quần chúng [Understand the masses] vi) Toward a certain result Chẳng đến đâu [Have no results] Đi đến kết luận [To conclude] vii) Move on, enter another stage Đi vào đường tội lỗi [Lead to a sinful life] Công việc vào nếp [The work went into order] viii) (Informal) give someone something on the occasion of the New Year holidays, weddings or funerals Đi câu đối mừng thọ [Give someone a pair of parallel sentences on the occasion of longevity] Đi phong bì hai trăm nghìn đồng [Give someone an envelope containing two hundred thousand dong] ix) Wear it to your leg or arm for protection Đi găng tay [Wear gloves] x) Expel feces from the body (said off) Đau bụng, lỏng [Have stomachache, get diarrhea] It is revealed in our investigation that there are 10 meanings conveyed by the verb đi, unique to Vietnamese In addition, can be a particle or an auxiliary, which go cannot occur in English When working as a particle, it indicates command or suggestion, prompt Cút đi! 57 [Get out!] Im đi! [Shut up!] Chúng chơi đi! [Let's go out!] Tranh thủ nghỉ cho lại sức [Take advantage of resting to recover your health] When working as an auxiliary, has the following meanings: i) (Informal) express an emphasis on the anomalous or strange nature, the paradox of an event, to show disapproval or disbelief Đời mẹ lại ghét con! [I will never hate you] ii) Denote an emphasis on a very high level, as if that level is already the highest, can't be higher Buồn mất! [So sad] Rõ q rồi, cịn thắc mắc nữa! [ It's all too clear, what else is there!] iii) Denote an emphasis on specifically calculated results Nó hồi tháng hai, tính đến mười tháng [He came home in February, so far it has been ten months] iv) Denote an emphasis on the hypothesis just stated, to assert that even with that assumption, it does not change the statement stated later, to emphasize the definitive nature of this statement Cứ tính trịn nghìn rẻ [Rounding out to 5,000 is still cheap] 58 4.3 Summary From the result of the analysis of the last leaf deals with the strategies for the problems of syntactic and semantic features of "Go" in English and "Đi" in Vietnamese, some points can be drawn as follows Our investigation reveals that go in English and in Vietnamese can function as verbs When functioning as verbs, verb phrases containing go and can occur as predicate, subject, object, adverbial, or appositive The biggest difference between go in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features lies in the verbal forms and the co-ordinate possibility of each in the clauses Go in English is a lexical verb which has five forms whereas in Vietnamese has the same verb form in any case Go can be a noun functioning subject, object, complement, or complement in prepositional phrases, which is unique to English In Vietnamese, can be a particle or an auxiliary As above, we have endeavored to give a contrastive analysis of go in English and in Vietnamese in terms semantic features Firstly, all their senses of meaning are listed Then a serious effort has been made to analyze go and in their broadest sense to state the similarities and differences between the two words from semantic perspective Our investigation reveals that there are meanings in common conveyed by the two verbs, go in English and in Vietnamese When working as a verb, in Vietnamese has more meanings than go in English There are 10 meanings conveyed by đi, unique to Vietnamese whereas go has meanings which are unique to English Go in English may be a noun which has five main meanings, and in Vietnamese can function as an particle and indicates command or 59 suggestion, prompt When working as an auxiliary, has four meaning unique to Vietnamese CHAPTER CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation The main objective of the study is to uncover the similarities and differences between go in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features Our investigation reveals that go in English and in Vietnamese share some similar syntactic features Go and are lexical verbs in both languages Verb phrases containing go and can occur as predicate, subject, object, adverbial, or appositive Before the verbs go and đi, there may be a modal verb or an adverb After the verbs go and đi, there may be a noun or a noun phrase Alhough go and have some syntactic features in common, there are several differences between them 60 In terms of syntactic features, go in verbal forms is a lexical verb which has five forms: the BASE, the S-FORM, the PAST, the -ING PARTICIPLE, and the -ED PARTICIPLE Verb phrases containing go can occur as subject complement, object complement, adjectival complement, or prepositional complement There are some lexical verbs followed by go with the -ing or toinfinitive forms When go is used after a preposition, it stays in the -ing form After the verb go, there can be an adjective or a prepositional phrase The verb go is usually followed by a present participle, which produces fixed expressions with special meanings In addition, go can be used in nominal clauses (that clauses, wh-interrogative clauses, yes-no interrogative clauses, nominal relative clauses, To-infinitive nominal clauses, nominal -ing clauses), adverbial clauses (clauses of time, clauses of place, clauses of condition and concession, clauses of reason or cause, clauses of circumstance, clauses of purpose, clauses of result) Go in English may be a noun which combines the characteristics of count and non-count nouns When working as a regular count noun, play has two forms, singular and plural The singular form stays the same as go The plural form has -es suffix The noun go can function as subject, object, complement, or complement in prepositional phrases In the noun phrases, go usually works as a head The elements found in the noun phrases consist of pronouns and numerals, and of nouns with articles or other closed-system items that can occur before the noun head, such as predeterminers The adjective go can function as predicative properly in “all systems go” While the verb go in English has five forms, this isn't a feature of in Vietnamese In terms of verbal forms, has the same verb form in any case In Vietnamese, the notions of the past and the future are encoded implicitly in 61 dialogues' settings and not in verbs It's no surprise that the present tense is the one that would be encountered most frequently In order to express the present continuous, is added before the verb The past simple and future tenses are expressed by prefixing verbs with and sẽ, respectively Rồi, được…can be used for the present perfect or past perfect tenses The use of and are optional with regards to expressing time They are needed, however, if we want to put an emphasis on the time Before the verb đi, there may be a verb There are some adjectives which are used after the verb In some cases, the verb can be followed by a particle, adjectives, verb of activity, a verb of direction, a preposition, a noun and a noun phrase In addition, the verb can be used with a lot of verbs at the same time The combination of and a noun can make a phrasal verb When functioning as a particle, is used after a verb and has got modal meanings When functioning as an auxiliary, can be used with a verb, an adjective, or another auxiliary In terms of semantic features, it is revealed in our investigation that there are meanings conveyed by the two verbs, go in English and in Vietnamese: (i) Move from one place to another; travel; (ii) Leave; depart; die; (iii) (Be going to be/do something): intend or be likely or intended to be or something (used to express a future tense); (iv) Pass into or be in a specified state, especially an undesirable one; (v) Be harmonious, complementary, or matching; (vi) Contribute to or be put into (a whole); (vii) Be regularly kept or put in a particular place; (viii) Use a toilet; urinate or defecate As a verb, go in English may have meanings which in Vietnamese may not: (i) Pass into or be in a specified state, especially an undesirable one; 62 (ii) Proceed or turn out in a specified way; (iii) Function; (iv) Have a specified content or wording In addition, go can be a noun whose meanings are unique to English As a noun, go has five main meanings: (i) An attempt or trial at something; (ii) A person's turn to use or something; (iii) Spirit, animation, or energy; (iv) A state of affairs; (v) An enterprise which has been approved It is revealed in our investigation that there are 10 meanings conveyed by the verb đi, unique to Vietnamese: (i) Indicate the direction of activity leading to a change of position; (ii) Disappear gradually, does not retain the original flavor; (iii) Move chess pieces’ position to create new position (in chess); (iv) Perform and perform martial arts movements; (v) Work in a certain direction; (vi) Toward a certain result; (vii) Move on, enter another stage; (viii) Give someone something on the occasion of the New Year holidays, weddings or funerals, (ix) Wear it to your leg or arm for protection; (x) Expel feces from the body (said off) In addition, can be a particle or an auxiliary, which go cannot occur in English When working as a particle, it indicates command or suggestion, prompt When working as an auxiliary, has meanings: (i) (Informal) express an emphasis on the anomalous or strange nature, the paradox of an event, to show disapproval or disbelief; (ii) Denote an emphasis on a very high level, as if that level is already the highest, can't be higher; (iii) Denote an emphasis on specifically calculated results; (iv) Denote an emphasis on the hypothesis just stated, to assert that even with that assumption, it does not change the statement stated later, to emphasize the definitive nature of this statement 5.2 Concluding remarks Theoretically, the findings of the study reveal that the theoretical fameworks (theory of contrastive analysis; theory of syntax and semantics) 63 used in the present study are highly realiable and appropriate for investigating the syntactic and semantic features of individual words in different languages such as English and Vietnamese The results have also shown the relationship between the syntactic and semantic features of go in English and in Vietnamese These two words are described, analyzed and compared from syntactic and semantic perspectives Syntactically, the verbal forms of go in English are more complex than those of in Vietnamese Go is a lexical verb which has five forms whereas the form of stays the same in any case Go also has more syntactic functions in the clauses By this, I mean that go in English is more flexible in building clauses as well as sentences Therefore, the biggest difference between go in English and in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features lies in the verbal forms and the co-ordinate possibility of each in the clauses Aditionally, go can be a noun functioning as subject, object, or complement, which is unique to English Besides, go can be an adjective functioning as predicative and which is also unque to English In Vietnamese, can be an auxiliary and particle, which is unique to Vietnamese Semantically, although the verbs go and belong to different languages, they have meanings in common However, there are meanings conveyed by go unique to English whereas has 10 meanings unique to Vietnamese It means that the verb in Vietnamese is quite flexible and can take part in more situations of sense than go in English Go when working as a noun, go has five main meanings Go has meaning when working as adjective When is a particle, it indicates command or suggestion, prompt Đi has meanings when working as an auxiliary 64 5.3 Implications 5.3.1 For English teaching and learning We cannot deny the role of language, especially the English language, because it is popular and brings many benefits to people who use it However, language learning is considered quite difficult because it not only differs from words in the mother tongue, but also syntax and semantics are also a question Therefore, if learners recognize the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese, especially in terms of syntax and semantics, learners will optimize their learning and teaching through understand the language you have and the language you want to learn 5.3.2 For translation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa As mentioned above, go and have some similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and semantic features Therefore, when translating the word go, in particular or other words, in general, into Vietnamese or vice versa or, we should see the verbs in contexts and choose the most appropriate sense to avoid misunderstanding Hopefully, this study can help the translators about go and and their idioms to some extent 5.4 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 5.4.1 Limitations Although I tried to find many documents and analyzed carefully, it was difficult to avoid errors because there were many limitations when analyzing “Syntactic and semantic features of go in English and in Vietnamese” Firstly, syntax and semantics are analyzed for only go and Secondly, the comparison between English and Vietnamese is rather complex Lastly, the researcher’s knowledge makes it impossible to provide sufficiently and focus on the sensory verbs intensively 65 5.4.2 Suggestions for further studies It is true that the study has been merely concerned with syntactic and semantic features of go and basically and briefly There are still more aspects that should be also taken into consideration As a result, the author hopes that his suggestions below will be highly useful for other researchers 1) An investigation into go and its idioms; 2) An investigation into and its idioms 66 REFERENCES Foreign authors Asher, N (2011) Lexical Meaning in Context: A Web of Words Cambridge University Press: Cambridge Bloomfield, L (1994) Language America: Henry Hold and Company Brown, K., & Jim, M (1996) Concise Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theories New York: Elsevier Science ISBN 0-08-052711-1 Crystal, D (1992) Introducing Basic Linguistics London: Penguin Books Ltd Copestake, Ann., & Ted Briscoe 1995 ‘Semi-Productive Polysemy and Sense Extension’ Journal of Semantics 12, 15-67 Dixon, R, M, W (1991) A New Approach to English Grammar, on Semantic Principles England: Oxford University Press Evan and McDowell (1976) Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics Oxford University Press Falk, Y (1985) The English Auxiliary System: A Lexical-Functional Analysis Language, 60(4), 584-609 doi:10.2407/514988 Gass, S, M., & Selinker, L (2000) Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course (2nd ed.) London: Routledge 10 Graffi, G (2001) 200 Years of Syntax A Critical Survey Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 98 Amsterdam: Benjamins ISBN 90-2725687-8 11 James, C (1980) Contrastive Analysis London: Longman 12 James, P (1995) The Generative Lexicon MIT Press: Cambridge 67 13 James, C (1998) Errors in language learning and use: Exploring error analysis London, UK: New York: Longman 14 James, C (2005) Contrastive analysis and the language learner In Linguistics, language teaching and language learn-ing Basel, CH: Schwabe 15 Kibrik, A.E (2001) International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences Elsevier United States 16 Lyons, J (1977) Semantics England: Cambridge University Press 17 Langacker, R.W (1987) Foudations of Cogtive Grammar Vol Theoretical Prerequisites Canifornia: Stanford 18 Lyons, J (1995) Linguistic Semantics: An Introduction England: Cambridge University Press (1796) 19 Martin, J.R., Matthiessen, C.M.I.M & Painter, C (1997) Functional grammar NewYork: Oxford University Press Inc 20 Noam, C (1966) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax MIT Press 21 Nordquist, R (2019, September, 9) Polysemy (Words and Meanings) Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/polysemy-words-and-meanings1691642 22 Oxford Learner’s Dictionary (2019) go Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/go_1?q=go 23 Pierce, A, E (1992) Language Acquisition and Syntactic Theory In: Language Acquisition and Syntactic Theory Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 15 Springer, Dordrecht 24 Quirk et al (1987) A university grammar of English Longman Publishing Group 68 25 Richards, J., Platt, T, J., & Weber, H (1987) Longman dictionary of applied linguistics Harlow: Longman 26 Richards, Jack C & et al (1992) Longman Dictionarj' of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics, Longman 27 Skiba, R., & Dittmar, N (1992) Pragmatic, Semantic, and Syntactic Constraints and Grammaticalization: A Longitudinal Perspective Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 15(4), 424-459 doi:10.1017/S0272264100011151 28 Saeed J I (2006) Semantics (2nd edition) Cambridge: CUP 29 Santorini, B., & Anthon, K (2007) The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the Trees program Archived from: https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook 30 Thomas, L (1993) Beginning Syntax America: Wiley-Blackwel 31 Vicente, A & Falkum, I.L (2017) Polysemy In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics Ed Mark Aronoff New York: Oxford University Press Vietnamese authors Diệp Quang Ban (2010) Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt Nxb Giáo dục Hồng Bích Nhung (2015) Nghiên cứu điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa nhóm động từ Thinking tiếng anh tương đương tiếng Việt Luận văn thạc sĩ Đại học Mở Hà Nội Hà Thị Hồng (2010) Nghiên cứu đối chiếu động từ “go” tiếng Anh với động từ “đi” tiếng Việt: áp dụng tính thân Ngơn ngữ học Tri nhận”.Luận văn thạc sĩ Đại học Mở Hà Nội Hoàng Phê (chủ biên) (2006) Từ điển tiếng Việt Nxb Đà Nẵng – Trung tâm từ điển học 69 Lê Biên (1998) Từ loại tiếng Việt đại Nxb Giáo dục Ngô Thị Lan Anh (2018) Syntactic And Semantic Features Of The Sensory Verbs Group In English And Their Vietnamese Equivalents Luận văn thạc sĩ Đại học Mở Hà Nội Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (1981) Ngữ Pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội: Nxb Đại học Trung học chuyên nghiệp Quan Thị Thanh Huyền (2018) Đặc điểm cú pháp ngữ nghĩa nhóm động từ Giving Tiếng Anh tương đương Tiếng Việt Luận văn thạc sĩ Đại học Mở Hà Nội Vietgle Dictionary (2019) đi, Retrieved November 5, 2019, from http://tratu.coviet.vn/hoc-tieng-anh/tu-dien/lac-viet/V-V/%c4%91i.html 70 ... BETWEEN “GO” IN ENGLISH AND “ĐI” IN VIETNAMESE IN TERMS OF SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES 4.1 Syntactic features of “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese 4.1.1 Syntactic features of “go” in English. .. syntactic and semantic features of go in English and in Vietnamese For the above reasons, I decided to carry a study entitled ? ?Syntactic and semantic features of “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese? ??... 4.1 Syntactic features of “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese 24 4.1.1 Syntactic features of “go” in English 4.1.1.1 “Go” as a verb 24 4.1.1.2 “Go” as a noun 34 4.1.2 Syntactic features of “đi”