4.1. Syntactic features of “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese
4.1.3. A comparison between “go” in English and “đi” in Vietnamese in terms of syntactic features
4.1.3.1. Syntactic features found in both languages
In both English and Vietnamese, go and đi may be lexical verbs.
Verb phrases containing go and đi can occur as:
predicate: He went out with us yesterday.
[Anh ấy đi chơi với chúng tôi ngày hôm qua.]
subject: Going for a walk is one of my hobbies.
[Đi dạo là một trong những sở thích của tôi.]
object: She wants to go out with the children.
[Cô ấy muốn đi chơi với bọn trẻ.]
adverbial: He went to the park to go for a walk.
[Anh ấy đến công viên để đi dạo.]
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or appositive: I agree with your idea that going out at night is very dangerous.
[Tôi tán thành quan điểm của anh là đi chơi vào ban đêm rất nguy hiểm.]
Before the verbs go and đi, there may be a modal verb or an adverb:
I can go fishing.
[Tôi có thể đi câu.]
4.1.3.2. Syntactic features unique to English
In terms of verbal forms, go is a lexical verb which has five forms: the BASE, the S-FORM, the PAST, the -ING PARTICIPLE, and the PAST PARTICIPLE. Verb phrases containing go can occur as:
subject complement: My hobby is going for a walk.
object complement: I found him going out with some strange men.
adjectival complement: She is busy going to market.
or prepositional complement: She is interested in going dancing.
Before the verb go, there can be a primary auxiliary verb. There are some lexical verbs followed by go with the -ing or to-infinitive forms. In some cases, to go can be used after a clause functioning as an adverbial of purpose. 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
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concession, clauses of reason or cause, clauses of circumstance, clauses of purpose, clauses of result).
The noun “go” can function as:
subject: A smart go made him win this game.
object: The game of chess has a considerable go.
complement: His final go is decisive.
complement in prepositional phrases: She is full of go.
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”.
4.1.3.3. Syntactic features unique to Vietnamese
In terms of verbal forms, đi has the same verb form in any case. The notions of the past and the future are encoded implicitly in 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, đang is added before the verb. The past simple and future tenses are expressed by prefixing verbs with đã and sẽ, respectively. Rồi, được…can be used for the present perfect or past perfect tenses: Họ (đã) đi rồi [They have already gone]; Tôi đi được hai km [I have walked two kilometers]… The use of đã and sẽ 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 can be a lexical verb (lại, xuống, lên, tập, chạy…). There are some adjectives such as nhanh, chậm, từ từ, vội, etc which
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are used after the verb đi. In fact, the verb đi can be followed by a verb of activity (bơi, kiện, chơi, câu, đái, tiểu, hát, nhảy, vệ sinh, ngủ, học, tắm, ôn…), a verb of direction (qua, về, vào, ra, sang, lên, xuống, lại, đến…), or a preposition (quanh, sát, dưới (lòng), dọc (theo), tới, với, trên, giữa, thông…).
The verb đi can be used with a lot of verbs at the same time. In addition, the verb đi is usually followed by a noun or a noun phrase: đi công viên, đi siêu thị, đi chợ… The combination of đi and a noun can make a phrasal verb: đi bộ, đi gái, đi tàu nhanh, đi tiền…
When functioning as a particle, đi is used after a verb and has got modal meanings. When đi is used as particle, two positions never refer to points in space. In this case, đi calls an intersubjective framework and two positions refer respectly to two ways of consideration (validation or not validation) of the event or the fact. These two states (validation or not validation) can, depending on each context, correspond to two subjective positions. Đi in an imparative has two positions: initial position and final position.
Being as an auxiliary, đi can be used with a verb, an adjective, or another auxiliary:
Nó về hồi tháng hai, tính đến nay là đi mười tháng.
[He came home in February, so far it has been ten months]