A tagmemic comparison of the structure of English and Vietnamese sentences

232 Pages·1971·20.323 MB·English

by  Du'o'ng Thanh Binh

A TAGMEMIC COMPARISON OF THE STRUCTURE
OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SENTENCES
JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curat
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
SERIES PRACTICA
110
1971
MOUTON
THE HAGUE · PARIS
A TAGMEMIC COMPARISON
OF THE STRUCTURE
OF ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE SENTENCES
by
DU'tfNG THANH BIN H
1971
MOUTON
THE HAGUE · PARIS
© Copyright 1971 in The Netherlands. '
Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 74-123126
Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The completion of this project was made possible by the kindness and assistance of
several persons. It is difficult for me to express my profound sense of obligation to
these persons in only a few lines.
I wish to express my grateful appreciation to Professors Virginia F. Allen and
Louis Forsdale for their initial encouragement and kind interest in the early stages
of the project.
To all my friends at Teachers College I am indebted for their kind concern and
encouragement throughout the study. I wish to thank especially Miss Vivian Horn
for her untiring effort and unfailing patience in reading through the manuscript,
Miss Jane Meyer for her helpful suggestions and comments, and Miss Gladys Burk-
hart for her help with the typing.
To my Vietnamese friends, Nguyen Bich Lan, Nguyen Ngçc Bich, Hàng My Hoa,
and especially Dào Thi Hç?i, I am grateful for their delightful and helpful discussions,
concern, and encouragement.
My sincere thanks go to the members of the examining committee — Professors
Robert L. Allen, Gerald Dykstra, Daniel P. Girard, Milton A. Kaplan, and Walter
H. MacGinitie — for their valuable criticism and helpful suggestions for the im-
provement of this study. Particularly to Professor Allen, my major adviser, I wish to
express my deep gratitude for his generosity in letting me use his studies as the basis
for my project, for his kind and understanding guidance throughout the period of
my work, and for his untiring efforts in helping to bring about the completion of this
project.
For the scholarship grant which made it possible for me to come to the United
States to study, I am indebted to the Vietnamese Department of National Education ;
to the United States Operations Mission in Saigon ; to the Agency for International
Development in Washington; and, through these agencies, to the American Govern-
ment and the American people.
Finally, I wish to express my loving appreciation to my parents, sisters and brothers
who have shared all my problems and who have given me constant moral support
and encouragement throughout the critical period of this study.
D.T.B.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments 5
Vietnamese Orthography 11
Introduction 13
1. Review of other Studies of Vietnamese Grammar 17
1.1. Review of Vietnamese Grammars Written in Vietnamese 17
1.2. Review of Vietnamese Grammars Written in French 31
1.3. Review of Vietnamese Grammars Written in English 36
2. Review and Summary of A Modem Grammar of Written English 48
3. A Grammar of Present-Day written Vietnamese: The Sectors on the Sentence
Level . 66
3.1. The Sentence 66
3.2. The Sectors in the Vietnamese Sentence 67
3.3. Lexemes 70
3.4. Lexeme Classes 74
3.5. The Y Sector 75
3.6. The Ζ Sector 75
3.7. The L Sector 76
3.8. The F and E Sectors 77
3.8.1. Adverbial Noun Clusters 77
3.8.2. Adverbial Phrases 81
3.8.3. Adverbial Included Clausids 84
3.8.4. Adverbial Predicatids 88
3.8.5. Adverbials of Time and Place 89
3.8.6. Adverbial Questions 90
3.8.7. The F and E sectors in Vietnamese as contrasted with the F and
E sectors in English 92
3.9. Compound Sentences 92
8 TABLE OF CONTENTS
4. A Grammar of Present-Day Written Vietnamese : The Sectors on the Trunk
Level 96
4.1. The I Sector 96
4.1.1. Interrogative expressions with SAO and GÌ 96
4.1.2. Introducers 97
4.1.3. The I Sector in Vietnamese as contrasted with the I Sector in
English 101
4.2. The Subject Sector 102
4.3. Substitutes 104
4.3.1. Primary Substitutes 108
4.3.2. Secondary Substitutes 110
4.3.3. Differences between the uses of substitutes in English and
Vietnamese ; 111
4.4. Noun Clusters 112
4.4.1. Plural Particles and Cardinal Numerals 113
4.4.2. Pre-determiners 115
4.4.3. The Identifier CÀI 117
4.4.4. The Nucleus Noun 122
4.4.5. Adjunct Position . 122
4.4.6. Modifiers 125
4.4.7. Ordinal Numeral Clusters 129
4.4.8. Prepositional Phrases, Possessives, Included Clausids 130
4.4.9. Post-determiners 135
4.4.10. Construction Modifiers 138
4.4.11. Differences between noun clusters in English and Vietnamese . 139
4.5. Constructions in the Subject Sector 140
4.5.1. Noun Clusters 140
4.5.2. Substitutes 141
4.5.3. Predicatids 141
4.5.4. Non-Introduced Clausids 142
4.5.5. Question Words 142
4.5.6. Omission of the Subject 145
4.5.7. Differences between fillers of the Subject position in English
and Vietnamese 146
5. A Grammar of Present-Day Written Vietnamese : The Sectors on the Predica-
tid Levels 148
5.1. The M, M , and D Sectors 148
t 2
5.1.1. The Mj Sector 148
5.1.2. The M Sector 150
2
5.1.3. The D Sector 152
5.1.4. Similarities and Differences between the D and M sectors in
English and Vietnamese 156
TABLE OF CONTENTS 9
5.2. The Verbal Sector 157
5.2.1. Similarities and Differences between verb(id)-clusters in English
and Vietnamese . 162
5.3. The 'TR' Sector, the 'Neg.' Sector, and the 'Pass.' Sector 162
5.3.1. The'TR'Sector 162
5.3.2. The 'Neg.' Sector 164
5.3.3. The 'Pass.' Sector 168
5.3.4. Similarities and Differences between the X Sector in English and
the 'TR', 'Neg.', and 'Pass.' Sectors in Vietnamese 172
5.4. The Ό' Sector 173
5.4.1. Similarities and differences between objects in English and
Vietnamese 181
5.5. The C and Shifted C Sectors 182
5.5.1. Similarities and differences between complements in English
and Vietnamese 197
5.6. The Β and Shifted Β Sectors 198
5.6.1. Similarities and differences between the use of the Β sector in
English and Vietnamese 201
6. A Grammar of Present-Day Written Vietnamese: The Q and 'Em.' Sectors,
and Minor Sentences 203
6.1. The Q Sector 203
6.1.1. The question word chäng 203
6.1.2. The question word không 204
6.1.3. The question word à 207
6.1.4. The question words chit·, nhé, nhl, u, and há (ha, hü·) . . .. 207
6.1.5. Tag questions 209
6.1.6. The Interrogative Coordinator Hay 210
6.1.7. Similarities and differences between the use of question words
in English and Vietnamese 211
6.2. The'Em.'Sector 212
6.2.1. Similarities and differences between the expression of emphasis
in English and Vietnamese 216
6.3. Minor Sentences 217
7. Conclusion 221
7.1. Recapitulation 221
7.2. Suggestions for Further Studies 223
7.3. Suggestions for Teaching and for the Preparation of Materials . . .. 223
Bibliography 225
1. Books and Articles on Language and Linguistics 225
2. Books, Other Studies, and Articles on English 227
10 TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. Books and Articles on Vietnamese 230
4. Books on the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language 230
5. Textbooks for Teaching English as a Foreign Language 231
6. Other Materials Consulted 232