A COMPARISION OF VERB PHRASE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Tuyet MinhGroup 4: Nguyen Thi Hoa Nguyen Thu Ha

Pham Thu Trang

Table of contents

I. IntroductionII. Literature reviewIII. The studyIV. Findings and discussionV. ConclusionReferences

I. Introduction

In order to have a general look about verb phrase of English as well as of Vietnamese and to understand the characteristics of verb phrase in English and in Vietnamese, our group choose the title:“A comparison of verb phrase between English and Vietnammese”.

II. Literature review

In our life, language is an important thing. It is used for communicated every day… Among the most important things verb phrase is also the powerful one.

According to many researches of this kind, there are some similarities or differences of verb phrase in English and Vietnamese.

III. The study

1. Definition of verb phrase:

- Verb phrase is a free word phrase having main - subordinate relation and containing a verb serve as the central element and many additive elements which modify the meanings for the central element.

2. Characteristics of verb phrase:

- Verb phrase always contains a verb as the central element. - The central element usually governs additive elements.

3. Verb phrase in English

- Verb phrase in English includes two main components: + auxiliary verbs or auxiliaries + main or lexical verbs

3.1 Auxiliary verb

- Auxiliaries are used to encode the following categories within the verb phrase:

*Aspect is expressed by using either the verb be and the present participle for the progressive aspect or the verb have with a past participle for the perfect aspect.

Formation: Progress: to be + V_ing

* Modality is expressed with the auxiliaries can, could, may,

might, must, will, would, shall, should, ought to, dare and

used to

Formation: modal + verb (bare infinitive)

Eg: He can sing.

* Passive voice is expressed by using the verb be and a main

verb in the past participle form.

Formation: to be + verb (past participle)

*Interrogative clauses are using by the auxiliary do/does/did before the subject and a main verb in the plain form.

Eg: Do you want that house? *Negation is expressed by using the

auxiliary don’t/doesn’t/didn’t and a main verb in the plain form

Eg: I don’t want that house.

3.2. Main verb

*Intransitive verb: come, go, move...Eg: He has just come.*Complex intransitive verb + complement/

adverb: to be, become...Eg: They became close friends three years

ago.*Transitive verb + object direct: buy, sell...Eg: They have just bought a new car.

* Complex transitive verb + object direct +complement/ adverb: paint, vote, appoint, elect...

Eg: He painted this door blue.

* Distransitive verb + object indirect + object direct: give, offer, bring...

Eg: He gave her a red rose on her birthday.

Distransitive verb: gave Object direct: her Object indirect: a red rose

4.Verb phrase in Vietnamese Verb phrase in Vietnamese

includes three elements: + pre-additive element + central element + post-additive element.

Pre-additive element We can divide pre-additive element into

the following groups:* Words with sense of continuing of

activity or state: đều, cũng, vẫn, cứ, lại, mãi, tiếp tục...

* Words indicate the time of action or state: từng, đã, vừa, mới, đang, sẽ...

* Words indicate the frequency: thường, hay,

năng, ít, đôi khi, thỉnh thoảng...

* Words indicate the negation or affirmation:

không, chưa, chẳng, chỉ...

* Words indicate the order: hãy, đừng, chớ...

* Words indicate the limitation: chỉ

5. The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese verb phrases In two aspects: form and meaning.

a, The similarities:Both English and Vietnamese verb phrases have three parts:

-the central element -the pre-additive element -the post-additive element

b, The differences * In English, the central element must be a verb

and it is obligatory while two parts of additive elements can be optional to go with the head verb. In contrast, Vietnamese verb phrases always keep the same form in every situation; instead Vietnamese uses subordinate words such as “đã, vừa, mới, đang, sẽ” to denote the time.For example:Tôi đang làm bài tập. (I’m doing my homework )

* Form of the English verb phrase changes in interrogative and negative sentences while Vietnamese also keeps the same form and adds subordinate words, For example:Tôi không nhìn thấy họ. I didn’t see them.

* In both languages, the central part must containhead verbs, some of which must be followed by objects and some of which may not. However, in English verb phrases, it contains only one head verb but not a series of verbs like in Vietnamese. In other words, unlike English,Vietnamese have form of one verb goes directly after another verb as a range.For example:They will go to the movie next Sunday

Chủ nhật tuần sau tụi nó đi coi phim. .

* The pre-element of the verb phrase can’t be an adjective in English but it can be in Vietnamese.

For example: nhanh khỏi, lâu mòn, khẽ kêu, nhẹ nhàng khuyên bảo

* In general, the verb phrase provides information about the subject of the sentence. The pre- additive element usually functions the grammar while the post-additive element functions the meaning. However, sometimes the same English verb can go with different prepositions to show different meanings, such as make up, make from, make of, make for, and make off. All of the have different meanings. In contrast, Vietnamese doesn’t have this term but they use subordinate words such as “nên, phải, cần…” to express those meanings.

IV. Findings and discussionThrough a contrastive view of English

and Vietnamese verb phrase, we would like to discuss some implications for language teaching at high school in our country:

Firstly, most of Vietnamese students have a tendency to translate word by word. Therefore, they should be teach how to translate Vietnamese verb phrases into English verb phrases.

IV. Findings and discussionSecondly, teachers should use

syntactic diagram tree to help students understand the structure of English verb phrases easily. As a result, they can know what is the main element or what is modifier, which is very useful for students to make sentences easily when they write.

IV. Findings and discussionFinally, teachers should

remember that verb phrase is very difficult for students at high school to understand easily, so it is necessary to give students more exercises to practice. In addition, teachers can introduce verb phrase when teaching verbs in vocabulary.

V. Conclusion Verb phrase is a part in the

structure of a sentence. A contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese is useful because it can help us understand the differences between verb phrase of two languages. Furthermore, some implications for teaching are discussed so that teachers can make the teaching easier.

REFERENCES Lê Cận, Phan Thiều, Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Văn Thung. (1983). Giáo

trình ngữ pháp Tiếng việt tập II (93-95). Ho Chi Minh City: Education Publishing House.

Lê Cận, Phan Thiều, Diệp Quang Ban, Hoàng Văn Thung. (1983). Giáo trình ngữ pháp Tiếng việt tập II (80). Ho Chi Minh City: Education Publishing House.

English verb phrases versus Vietnamese verb phrases. Dec 20, 2009, from http://docjax.cloudapp.net/document/view.shtml?id=796998&title=Some%20English%20verb%20phrases%20versus%20Vietnamese%20verb%20phrases%20Any%20...

The Verb Phrase. Dec 25, 2009, from http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/ph_verb.htm

Verb phrases. Dec 15, 2009, from http://www.latrobe.edu.au/linguistics/grammarpedia/verbphrase.htm

Trần Văn Điền. (1998). Văn Phạm Tiếng Anh Thực Hành. Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City.

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