SOME DIFFERENCES OF INVERSION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012 SOME DIFFERENCES OF INVERSION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Pham Thi Ha Quang Binh University Abstract: Inversion is one of the types of grammar used with the high probability in the process of learning, teaching a language as well as in daily communication Specially, inversion in questions is used very often and naturally in our daily life because it is the most useful sentence to make a request for information This writing hopes to give you a very brief overview on inversion and contributes to improve learning and teaching inversions more effectively INTRODUCTION Inversion is one of the important parts in English grammar The linguists suggested that inversion is a linguistic aspect, expressed by different types of sentences Inversion allows the subject to appear after the operator In a sentence containing a negative word or expression, that word or expression is sometimes placed at the beginning in formal English to give a more dramatic effect When we want to put some words or phrases at the beginning of the sentence to give emphasis or to be rhetorical in more formal situations, inversion is required However, inversion is a complex topic There are a lot of kinds of inversion and a lot of ways to use inversions It is rather difficult for teachers and students to teach and study inversions in English grammar Therefore, most of teachers and students have omitted this topic Some teachers and students in some schools have not been provided fully with necessary knowledge of inversion As a result, they are often confused when they use inversions in their writing In order to overcome this situation, students need to distinguish the differences of inversion between English and Vietnamese DIFFERENCES OF INVERSION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE In English, inversion is common and often required in some kinds of sentences because we use negative adverbs, adjectives or preposition phrases, etc to begin these sentences In Vietnamese, in contrast, inversion is rarely used in normal sentences, but it is often used in literature, especially in poems to give emphasis as a rhetorical method In English inversion, the main verb or the auxiliary verb or modal verb is often inverted to come before the subject There are usually three kinds of differences of inversion in English and Vietnamese 2.1 Statement inversion With both English and Vietnamese statements, we can use inversion in some certain cases We can see that inversion is often required when we use negative adverbs, TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012 adjectives or preposition phrases, etc to begin a sentence or when we want to emphasize an element of a sentence Ex: Little did he realize what was about to happen Inversion in English statement is very common However, inversion in Vietnamese statement is only used to give an emphasis or to be rhetorical in literature Ex: “Xiên ngang mặt đất rêu đám Đâm toạc chân mây đá hịn” (Tự tình - Hồ Xn Hương)  Ho Xuan Huong used inversion in both of these sentences to set off the indignation of stones, grasses and trees (cỏ cây) This is also the indignation of people The normal order of these sentences: “Từng đám rêu xiên ngang mặt đất Mấy đá đâm toạc chân mây” In this case, if we use the sentence with normal order, the poem is only a narrative, because it does not emphasize any meanings In Vietnamese statement, we often use inversion to give an emphasis or to be rhetorical in literature if there is an adjective or an adverb We invert that adjective/adverb to the beginning of the sentence Ex: “Thoảng thoảng nỗi buồn Quê nhà, cô gái nhà q Có cịn giữ vẹn sắc son Từ độ ta mùa Nhớ thương thương nhớ dệt vần thơ Nhớ ai, nhớ ân tình cũ?” (Nắng cực đá bèo - Trạng Quỳnh) Here, “Nhớ thương, thương nhớ” is a case of inversion because both “Nhớ thương” and “thương nhớ” have a meaning “Nhớ ai, nhớ” is also inversion, but they have different meanings “Nhớ ai” means a question: “who you miss?” “Ai nhớ” means “who misses you?” Trang Quynh used inversion to fit in poetry Ex: In the poem "Qua đèo Ngang" that is written by Ba huyen Thanh Quan, we have: " Lom khom núi tiều vài Lác đác bên sông, chợ nhà."  Normal grammatical order of these sentences is: “Vài tiều lom khom núi (or Dưới núi, vài tiều lom khom) Bên sông, chợ nhà lác đác” TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012 Here, the poet inverted the adjective "lom khom" to the beginning of the sentence to emphasize the stooping figure of the woodcutter, and inverted the adjective "lác đác" to the beginning of the sentence to emphasize sparseness of life in Ngang pass Moreover, the inversion is to rhyme for the line of verse/poetry 2.2 Negative inversion Inversion is sometimes required in some cases of English negative sentence to make exclamations or to form negative Yes/No question Ex: You aren’t a silly girl!  Aren't you a silly girl! (Inversion to make an exclamation) It isn’t nice today  Isn’t it nice today? (Inversion to form question) To Vietnamese negative sentence, we can also use inversion to give emphasis Ex: Lan khơng nói ngồi buồn phịng nhỏ  Khơng nói Lan ngồi buồn phịng nhỏ Predicate S Here, the predicative phrase “khơng nói gì” (negative) is inverted to come before the subject “Lan” to emphasize Lan’s bad feeling 2.3 Question inversion We can see that English and Vietnamese questions are rather different in normal order To both of kinds of questions (yes/no question and Wh-question), inversion is always required to form an English question, while we not often use inversion in Vietnamese question Ex: English question: Did you your homework? (Inversion with auxiliary verb “did”) Vietnamese question: Em làm tập nhà chưa? (Not inversion) As we know, Vietnamese questions are like narrative sentences but at the same time they are often combined with modal particles à, hả, or some pairs of adverb có chưa, có khơng, có phải khơng to make yes/no questions or Ai, Cái gì, Để làm gì, Tại sao, Tại khơng, Ở đâu, Tới đâu, Cái to make Wh-questions In English, on the contrary, the question structure is inversion (Auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and be-verb are used before subject) Ex: TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012 English Vietnamese Did he cut himself? Ông bị đứt tay à? Is she successful in her life? Cơ có thành cơng sống không? Do the students military Sinh viên có phải làm nghĩa vụ qn khơng? service? Where are you working ? Anh làm việc đâu? When will you come back? Bao cậu nhà? Are you happy? Ba ̣n vui à? Have you assignment? finished Can you sing? your Ba ̣n đã làm xong bài tâ ̣p chưa vâ ̣y? Anh biế t hát không? Once again, looking back the table, we can see that most of the questions in English begin with a modal verb or an auxiliary or Wh – question `They are illustrated be the underlined words: did, is, do, have, can, where? When? They are called inversions in questions Meanwhile, Vietnamese questions often finish with modal particles or pairs of adverb like à, có không, ở đâu, chưa vâ ̣y we not need to invert the position of the words in the sentence but we have to add some of the modal particles or pairs of adverb to the sentences to make them questions CONCLUSION There are many kinds of inversion between English and Vietnamese However, statement inversion, negative inversion and question inversion are more popular Clearly, inversions in English are very available to speakers and writers Sometimes, if you change the order of words in a sentence, the functions and meanings of that sentence are changed as well In Vietnamese, inversions are very limited in usages They are used in the field of literature in order to emphasize the meanings of sentences In some cases, the forms of inversion are the same but the meanings of the sentence are different This usually happens in statement and question inversions Anyway, for Vietnamese question inversions, you have to add one or two elements of words like à, nhé, nha, ạ, hi, hư…Intonation of speech act also contributes to the changes of inversion sentences in both English and Vietnamese To sum up, the discussions of inversion are still going on to speakers and writers in English and in Vietnamese In the scope of this writing, I hope you will partly find out TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012 some differences of inversion between English and Vietnamese in terms of statement, question, and negative inversions The other kinds of inversion will be considered later references [1] BJ Birner (1996), The discourse function of Inversion English, Springer [2] PW Culicover, RD Levine (2001), Natural language & Lingustics, Springer [3] P Coopmans (1989), Locative inversion in English, JSTOR [4] J Penhallurick - Australian Journal of linguistics (1984), Full verb in Inversion English, informaworld,com [5] BJ Birner – Language (1994), Information status&word order: An analysis of English Inversion, JSTOR [6] B.Birner, SMahahootian - Language Sciences (1990), Functional constraints on Inversion in English, Elsevier [7] http://www.tailieu.vn.com PHÂN BIỆT SỰ KHÁC NHAU CỦA MỆNH ĐỀ ĐẢO NGỮ TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT Phạm Thị Hà Trường Đại học Quảng Bình Tóm tắt: Mệnh đề đảo ngữ điểm ngữ pháp sử dụng phổ biến trình dạy học Tiếng Anh trình giao tiếp hàng ngày Đặc biệt, đảo ngữ theo hình thức câu hỏi, chất vấn sử dụng thường xuyên sống thường ngày hình thức giao tiếp để thu nhận thông tin Bài viết hi vọng cung cấp cho bạn đọc cách nhìn tổng quan mệnh đề đảo ngữ góp phần nhằm cải thiện việc dạy học mệnh đề đảo ngữ hệ thống ngữ pháp Tiếng Anh hiệu ... speakers and writers in English and in Vietnamese In the scope of this writing, I hope you will partly find out TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012 some differences of inversion between English and Vietnamese. .. add some of the modal particles or pairs of adverb to the sentences to make them questions CONCLUSION There are many kinds of inversion between English and Vietnamese However, statement inversion, ... elements of words like à, nhé, nha, ạ, hi, hư…Intonation of speech act also contributes to the changes of inversion sentences in both English and Vietnamese To sum up, the discussions of inversion