Running head: THE STRUCTURE OF NOUN PHRASE IN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE

The Structure of Noun Phrase in English and Vietnamese

Student: Nguyen Kim Phung

Contrastive Analysis

Instructor: Nguyen Ngoc Vu

December 17, 2009

Noun Phrase 2

Abstract

Words do not simply get together at random to form a meaningful unit. That is to say

they should be combined systematically and grammatically into phrases, and then

into sentences. According to Wikipedia, “in grammar, a phrase is a group of words

functioning as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence” (“Phrase,” n.d.). For

example, the group of words “the girls in their summer dresses” is a phrase. In

English and Vietnamese, there are three kinds of phrases whose names are defined

on the basis of the classes of the word that is the chief word or head of the phrase

namely noun phrase, verb phrase, and adjective phrase. Among those phrases,

noun phrase proves to be an interesting case that needs closer attention. The goal of

this study is to understand the structure of noun phrase in English and Vietnamese.

Attention is also given to the comparison and contrast between the structure of

English noun phrase and Vietnamese noun phrase. Finally, some implications for

language teaching and language learning will be under discussion.

Noun Phrase 3

The structure of noun phrase in English:

George Yule (2006) defines a noun phrase as “a phrase in which the main

word is a noun and which is used as a subject or an object” (p.269). When analyzing

the structure of a noun phrase, Baker examines individual modifiers as well as

complements that can follow the main word, i.e., a noun (1995). For example, he

concerns about “elementary noun phrases introduced by quantity words”,

“elementary noun phrases introduced by a(n)”, etc. It means he just examines

modifiers separately rather than arranges them into an order. Jackson (1989),

however, suggests all the possible elements that can combine into a single noun

phrase. In this paper, I take Jackson’s viewpoint as a foundation. According to him,

an English noun phrase has the following formula:

Pre-modification + Head + Post-modification

As we can see, a noun phrase consists of three parts: pre-modification, head,

post-modification. In a noun phrase, the head is obligatory but the Pre-modification

and the Post-modification are optional. As their names have suggested, the function

of the pre-modification and post-modification is to elaborate or limit the head noun’s

meaning. Noun phrase gets its name from the head word. First, let’s have a look at

the head word.

Head

The word noun phrase is self-explanatory. It is obvious that the most common

kind of head word in a noun phrase is a noun. In some cases, a pronoun may also

act as the central part of a noun phrase. There are four kinds of pronouns functioning

as heads: personal pronoun, (a) indefinite pronoun (b), possessive pronoun (c), and

demonstrative pronoun (d). For example:

a. he in he is a doctor

Noun Phrase 4

b. someone in someone in the house

c. his in his is large.

d. this in this happens every two years.

Usually, when a pronoun takes the role of head in a noun phrase, it is not

preceded by pre-modification; however, it can be followed by post-modification, e.g.

he who hesitates.

Pre-modification:

The pre-modification of noun phrase can be demonstrated as the following:

Pre-determiner + identifier + numeral/quantifier + adjective + noun modifier

A noun phrase can be introduced by a pre-determiner. The most common

pre-determiners are all, both, half, and fractions. For example, in the noun phrase all

the students, all functions as a pre-determiner.

What comes after a pre-determiner is the class of identifiers. Identifiers

include articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those) and possessives

(my, your, his, her, its, our, their), only one of which can occur in a noun phrase. It

means that they are “mutually exclusive in English”. One thing special about noun

phrase is that the article “the” can go with any head be it singular or plural (a). In

contrast, demonstratives must “agree in number with the common noun phrase”

(Baker, 1995, p. 153) (b). For example:

(a) the book, the books

(b) this book, that book but these books, those books

The identifier can be followed by a numeral/quantifier. Unlike the identifier,

the numeral/quantifier can have more than one component. In general, this

constituent of noun phrase may have the three favorite sequences:

(a) ordinal numeral + indefinite quantifier, e.g. the first few guests

Noun Phrase 5

(b) ordinal numeral + cardinal numeral, e.g. the first two guests

(c) indefinite quantifier + cardinal numeral, e.g. several thousand guests

The groups of words coming after a numeral/quantifier are called adjectives.

More than one adjective can co-occur in a noun phrase. In this case, adjectives are

arranged in a rather fixed order. Jackson has suggested an ordering for adjectives

with an example: a charming small round old brown French oaken writing desk. In

this example, the adjectives appear in an order basing on a principle: 1. epithet

(charming) 2. size (small) 3. shape (round) 4. age (old) 5. color (brown) 6. origin

(French) 7. substance (oaken) 8. present participle (writing). However, it is

necessary to bear in mind that there is no fixed formula for a sequence of adjective.

Placed between adjectives and a head noun is a noun modifier. A noun

modifier is a noun that is placed immediately before a head noun to modify the head

noun. For example, in a country garden, the village policeman, and the news

agency, country, village and news are noun modifiers. Jackson also points out that

“it is unusual for more than one noun modifier to occur in a noun phrase” and that

“noun modifier + head noun constructions are often the first stage in the formation of

compound nouns”.

Post-modification

After the head noun, there appears post-modification. Post-modifications can

be a word such as an adjective, an adverb or a phrase such as prepositional phrase

or a clause such as relative clause, non-finite clause.

Usually, when people need an adjective to modify the head noun, they place

it in the pre-modification position. However, in some cases, an adjective can go after

the head noun, especially in some few set phrases like blood royal, heir apparent.

Noun Phrase 6

In addition, in comparison with adjectives, adverbs are more frequently found

in the position of post-modification and they can be regarded as reductions of a

prepositional phrase. For example, the time before can be understood as the time

before this one.

A relative clause is a clause composed of a relative pronoun as a head

which refers back to the head noun of the noun phrase. The relative pronoun “who”

and “whom” refer to people. The relative pronoun “which” is used for plants and

animals. If the relative pronoun is an index of an object, it can be omitted. For

example: in the noun phrase the girl whom I met yesterday, “whom” is optional.

A Non-finite clause can also function as post-modification. There are three

kinds of non-finite clauses according to the verb that introduces them: Infinitive

Clause (a), Present Participle Clause (b) and Past Participle Clause (c). For

example:

(a) a movie to see

(b) the man talking to the teacher

(c) the movie chosen by the teacher

An infinitive clause is introduced by a to-infinitive. Likewise, a present

participle and a past participle clause are introduced by a present participle and a

past participle respectively. Non-finite clauses can be reconstructed into full relative

clauses. For example:

(a) movie to see a movie that we should see

(b) the man talking to the teacher the man who is talking to the teacher

(c) the movie chosen by the teacher the movie that is chosen by the teacher

A prepositional phrase is form by a preposition + a noun phrase, e.g. in the

corner. Prepositional phrases are said to be the most frequent kind of post-modifiers

Noun Phrase 7

in noun phrases. For example: the man in the corner. A prepositional phrase can

also be rebuilt into a relative clause, e.g. the man who is in the corner.

In conclusion, we can have a brief summary of English noun phrase:

Table 1: The structure of Noun Phrase in English

Pre-modificationHead

Noun

Post-

modification

Pre-

determiner

Identifier Numeral/

Indefinite

quantifier

Adjective Noun

modifier

Adjective/adverb

Relative clause

Non-finite clause

Prepositional

phrase

Noun Phrase 8

The structure of noun phrase in Vietnamese

Vietnamese have an old saying “Qua bao phong ba bão táp không bằng ngữ

pháp Việt Nam”, which means Vietnamese grammar is very complicated. The fact is

Vietnamese linguists cannot reach a consensus on some grammatical issues. With

no exception, noun phrase has been at the center of debate for long. Now I’d like to

present the viewpoint of some established figures in this field.

In the book Vietnamese grammar (Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt), Nguyễn Tài Cẩn

points out that Vietnamese noun phrases have two parts: the head and the

modification composed of the pre-modification and post-modification. What special

about his finding is the head noun. He claims that if the noun is preceded by a

classifier, both the noun and the classifier form the head. So the head is the

combination of T1 and T2. For example:

Pre-modificationHead

Post-modificationT1 (classifier) T2 (noun)

một đoàn sinh viên khoa Văn

một cuốn sách này

According to Diệp Quang Ban, a noun phrase consists of three constituents:

pre-modification, the head, post-modification. In the pre-modification, all the

modifiers add more information in terms of quantity. In contrast, all the elements of

post-modification give more information about quality. The head of a noun phrase

can be a word or a group of words in which a classifier is followed by a noun, a verb,

or an adjective. For instance:

Pre-modification Head Post-modification

Tất cả những cái con mèo đen ấy

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2

Noun Phrase 9

Basing on the analysis of those linguists together with Mai Ngoc Chu, Vu Duc

Nghieu, and Hoang Trong Phien, this paper will discuss in detail the structure of

Vietnamese noun phrases. A noun phrase is treated as a grammatical unit

composed of three parts: pre-modification, head, post-modification. In this part, I will

take “tất cả những cái con mèo đen ấy” as an example to analyse the structure of

Vietnamese noun phrase. The structure of Vietnamese noun phrase can be

summarized in the following table:

Table 2: The Structure of Noun Phrase in Vietnamese

Pre-modification Head Post-modification

Totality

(thành tố

phụ chỉ

tổng

lượng)

Numeral/

Quantifier

(thành tố

phụ chỉ số

lượng)

Focus

marker

“cái”

(“cái”

chỉ

xuất)

Classifier

(T1)

(loại từ)

Noun

(T2)

Attributive

modifier

(thành tố

phụ nêu đặc

trưng miêu

tả)

Demonstrativ

e

(thành tố phụ

chỉ định)

Tất cả những cái con mèo đen ấy

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2

Head

The head of a noun phrase can be a single noun (e.g.: mèo) or a classifier + a

noun (e.g.: con mèo). Classifiers are words such as cái, con, người. There are sharp

distinctions between these classifiers. “Cái” usually combines with inanimate objects,

e.g.: cái chén. In contrast, “con” is likely to be accompanied by animate objects, e.g.:

con rùa. “Người” is used for human being, e.g.: người lính. It is worth noticing that

although người refers to human being, we say “con” người.

Noun Phrase 10

When there is a classifier + an attributive modifier (danh từ chỉ loại + tổ hợp từ

tự do miêu tả), the head is the classifier, eg: hai người đang ngồi đọc sách đằng kia,

những việc nói hôm nọ.

If two or more coordinate nouns go together in a noun phrase, they together

constitute the head, eg: toàn thể cán bộ, giáo viên, công chức

In some special noun phrases such as ba sôi, hai lạnh, hai đen (ba phần

nước sôi, hai phần nước lạnh, hai cốc cà phê đen), the heads are the

representatives (sôi, lạnh, đen) of the absent nouns (phần, cốc)

Pre-modification

The focus marker “cái” (“cái” chỉ xuất) is used to emphasize the noun

mentioned in the head. Sometime it is used to express hatred toward someone. In

addition, the focus marker ‘cái” is usually accompanied by a demonstrative that

appears after the head noun. For example: cái con người bạc ác ấy. It is advisable

that we distinguish the focus marker “cái” (“cái” chỉ xuất) from the classifier “cái”

(“cái” loại từ). The focus marker “cái” can go with any T2, whereas the classifier “cái”

can only go with T2 which are inanimate objects.

A Numeral or an indefinite quantifier is distributed in position (-2).

Numerals are một (one), hai (two), ba (three), etc. Indefinite quantifiers are vài, dăm

ba, mọi, những, tất cả, các, mấy, etc. Here are some points about numerals/

quantifiers that should be taken into consideration:

Firstly, the focus marker “cái” does not co-occur with mỗi, từng, mọi, or các.

For example, it is ungrammatical to say mỗi cái con mèo, các cái con mèo.

Secondly, a numeral does not go immediately before collective nouns, except

when the collective nouns refer to the members of a family. For example, we can say

Noun Phrase 11

hai vợ chồng, bốn anh chị em, but we do not say năm trâu bò, mười quần áo. We

should say năm đàn trâu bò, mười bộ quần áo instead.

Thirdly, it is necessary to insert a classifier between an indefinite quantifier

(except for những, các) and a collective noun, eg dăm cái quần áo, mấy con gà vịt.

The position (-3) can be occupied by the following words: hết thảy, tất thảy,

tất cả, etc. They express totality. The word totality is ambiguous in the sense that it

can refer to the collection of many things (plural) (a) or the collection of many parts of

a single object (singular) (b). For example:

(a) Anh ta làm tất cả mọi việc.

(b) Anh ta ăn cả một con gà.

Post-modification

Unlike pre-modification in which all the positions are relatively stable, post-

modification is more complicated. Before investigating post-modification, we should

bear in mind that there is no rigid formula for the post-modification.

The attributive modifiers can be a noun phrase (a), a verb phrase (b), an

adjective phrase (c), a prepositional phrase (d), or a pronoun (e). Its function is to

describe the head noun. For example:

(a) phòng tạp chí , vườn cau

(b) cái nhà xây năm ngoái

(c) chiếc áo đẹp, khu vườn xanh tốt. It is noticeable that an adjective phrase

may be preceded by the intensifier “rất”, e.g. chiếc áo rất đẹp, khu vườn rất

xanh tốt.

(d) cái võng ở sau vườn

(e) phòng (của) chúng tôi.

Noun Phrase 12

A relative clause can also serve as an attributive modifier. In this case, the

relative pronoun is “mà”. The word “mà” is optional as illustrated in cuốn sách (mà)

tôi rất thích, sách báo (mà) thư viện đặt mua.

When more than one attributive modifier co-occurs, the common sequences

are:

(a) adjective phrase + prepositional phrase, e.g.: một cái võng đắt tiền ở sau

vườn

(b) adjective phrase + relative clause, e.g.: cuốn sách mới mà tôi rất thích.

(c) the smaller unit + the larger unit, e.g.: vấn đề cấp bách / số một/ về sản

xuất hàng tiêu dùng.

Demonstratives are considered to be the rightmost post-modifiers. They are

ấy, nọ, kia, này, ấy, etc. Usually, demonstratives can follow any of the attributive

modifiers, e.g.: hoàn cảnh (của) chị ấy, những cái con mèo đen ấy.

Noun Phrase 13

After considering carefully the structure of noun phrase in English and

Vietnamese, I will juxtapose the structure of English noun phrases and Vietnamese

noun phrases in order to compare and contrast them.

Table 1: The Structure of Noun Phrase in English

Pre-modificationHead

Noun

Post-

modification

Pre-

determiner

Identifier Numeral/

Indefinite

quantifier

Adjective Noun

modifier

Adjective/adverb

Relative clause

Non-finite clause

Prepositional

phrase

Table 2: The Structure of Noun Phrase in Vietnamese

Pre-modification Head Post-modification

Totality

(thành tố

phụ chỉ

tổng

lượng)

Numeral/

Quantifier

(thành tố

phụ chỉ số

lượng)

Focus

marker

“cái”

(“cái”

chỉ

xuất)

Classifier

(T1)

(loại từ)

Noun

(T2)

Attributive

modifier

(thành tố

phụ nêu

đặc trưng

miêu tả)

Demonstrative

(thành tố phụ

chỉ định)

Tất cả những cái con mèo đen ấy

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2

Although English belongs to the Indo-European language family, and the

Vietnamese language belongs to the Austro-Asiatic family (Lan, n.d.), the two

Noun Phrase 14

languages’ noun phrases have many things in common. First, both are endocentric

structures (cấu trúc hướng tâm), which means they both have a head noun. Second,

in both languages, the head noun can have pre-modification to the left and post-

modification to the right. Let’s consider the following examples:

a. a house on the hill (English)

b. một ngôi nhà ở trên đồi (Vietnamese)

In the two examples, the heads are house and ngôi nhà. House is preceded

by a pre-modifier (an article “a”) and followed by a post-modifier (a prepositional

phrase “on the hill”). In the same pattern, ngôi nhà is placed between a pre-

modification (numeral “một) and a post-modification (a prepositional phrase “ở trên

đồi”).

The difference in language family also accounts for the differences between

English and Vietnamese noun phrases.

The first distinct feature that makes Vietnamese noun phrases different from

the English noun phrases is the head noun itself. As we all agree, Vietnamese nouns

cannot indicate number. That is to say while English needs the morpheme “-s” or “-

es” to indicate the plural form of a noun, a Vietnamese noun does not change the

form whether it is singular or plural. This is well-demonstrated in this example: một

con mèo (one cat), hai con mèo (two cats). However, it does not mean that we

cannot differentiate a singular noun from a plural noun in Vietnamese. The numeral

and the classifier are responsible for this function. For example:

(a) một con mèo = one cat

(b) những con mèo = many cats

(c) con mèo = one cat

(d) đàn mèo = many cats (more than one cats)

Noun Phrase 15

In (a) the numeral “một” (one) precedes a singular noun while in (b), the plural

marker “những” (many) signals the appearance of a plural noun. In (c) and (d), the

classifier “con” and “đàn” also give us a hint about plurality.

The second distinct property of Vietnamese noun phrases is the participation

of the focus marker “cái”. From the two tables above, we can see that there is no

element called focus marker “cái” in the English language. However, the focus

marker “cái” of Vietnamese language is commonly attached to demonstratives ấy,

nọ, kia, này, ấy which have the equivalent in English (this, that, these, those)

This brings me to the next point. The difference between English and

Vietnamese noun phrases also lies in the order of the constituents of noun phrases,

i.e. demonstratives and adjectives. In an English noun phrase, the demonstrative

and adjective(s) usually occur to the left of the head noun (a). Meanwhile, in a

Vietnamese noun phrase, adjective(s) and the demonstrative occur to the right of the

head noun (b) as in the following examples:

(a) this black cat

(b) con mèo đen này

this black cat

demonstrative adjective head

con mèo đen này

head adjective demonstrative

Noun Phrase 16

All the analysis and comparison is futile unless it serves a meaningful

purpose. The intensive study of the structure of English and Vietnamese noun

phrase provides us with food for thought in terms of implications for language

teaching and language learning.

Firstly, Vietnamese nouns do not have the same mechanism with English

nouns when it comes to the plural form, so Vietnamese tend to “forget” the

morphemes “-s” or “-es” after a plural noun. For example, they may say two book

instead of two books because in their mother tongue they can safely say một

quyển sách (singular) and hai quyển sách, những quyển sách, các quyển sách

(plural). The instance indicates that Vietnamese nouns remain unchanged despite

the change in the plurality and that Vietnamese people use the plural markers

“những”, “các” to convey plurality. That’s why they may produce ungrammatical

English phrases. Moreover, Vietnamese people are very unfamiliar with the concept

of countable and uncountable nouns. Consequently, they may overgeneralize the

rule and not be aware that we cannot add “-s” or “-es” to an uncountable noun. For

example they may use an advice/ advices and an information/ informations

without knowing that advice and information are uncountable nouns; therefore, we

cannot add “-s” or “-es” to advice and information. This raises a problem to

Vietnamese because in our language, we say một/ nhiều lời khuyên, một/ nhiều

thông tin. These examples show clearly how the mother tongue can interfere in the

process of learning English. Therefore, teachers should draw students’ attention to

the issue of singular/ plural nouns and countable/ uncountable nouns.

Secondly, Vietnamese people find it difficult to recognize the head noun in

long and complicated noun phrases such as a beautiful young girl who is standing by

the window. It’s a fatal weakness if students cannot point out the head noun.

Noun Phrase 17

Because an English noun phrase can function as a subject of a sentence, it is vital

that English learners can identify the head noun and match it with the main verb. It is

obvious that subjects and verbs are the fundamental elements of a sentence.

Therefore, unless students can make subjects accord with main verbs, they cannot

produce correct sentences. In order for students to deal with this problem, teachers

should guide them through the process of describing the organization of English

noun phrases. If students can successfully identify the head noun, they will not make

subject-verb agreement mistakes.

Thirdly, adjectives are very important in modifying head nouns. In terms of

English structure, they usually come before head nouns. That is something I have

presented above. The problem here is sometimes we need more than one adjective

to describe the head noun. In such an occasion, English learners are often confused

because they do not know how to put a string of adjectives into a right order. While

native speakers can use many adjectives to describe things without difficulty, English

learners find this a real challenge. For example, English people can say a long series

of adjective with ease: a charming small round old brown French oaken writing desk.

Fortunately, Jackson has suggested a rule: 1. epithet (charming) 2. size (small) 3.

shape (round) 4. age (old) 5. color (brown) 6. origin (French) 7. substance (oaken) 8.

present participle (writing) (Jackson, 1982, p.13). I have to admit that we do not have

many sequences of adjectives like this in real life. However, these are very common

in writing and knowing how to arrange adjectives in a natural order is an advantage.

As a result, teachers should remind students of how to use adjectives to make their

description as detail and correct as possible, especially in writing.

Noun Phrase 18

Conclusion

In conclusion, the minimum requirement of a noun phrase both in English and

Vietnamese is a head noun. If we want to add more color to a noun phrase, we can

make use of pre-modification and post-modification. A contrastive analysis view of

the structure of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese gives us an insight into the

similarities and differences between the two equivalent linguistic units in the two

languages. It also helps us to draw out some implications for language teaching and

language learning. I hope that this paper in some way can be useful for ESL and

EFL teachers and students. What I want to suggest more is that new researches

focus on the function of noun phrases because a thorough understanding of the

function of noun phrases can give learners more confidence in their language

competence.

Noun Phrase 19

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Jackson, H. (1982). Analysing English: An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics,

Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Mai Ngọc Chừ, Vũ Trọng Nghiệu & Hoàng Trọng Phiến. (2007). Cơ sở ngôn ngữ học

và tiếng Việt. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản giáo dục.

Nguyễn Tài Cẩn. (2004). Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản đại học quốc

gia Hà Nội.

Phrase. (n.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2009, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrase

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