nghiên cứu những nét nghĩa của động từ come trong tiếng anh với về trong tiếng việt từ góc độ tri nhận qua một vài tác phẩm văn học

7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract i
Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………… ii
Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………… iii
Lists of Tables and Figures…………………………………………………………………iv
Table of
Contents……………………………………………………………………………….v
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 1
3. Hypotheses 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Method of the study 2
6. Design of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Introduction 4
1.2. Definitions of terms 4
1.2.1. Cognitive linguistics 4
1.2.2. Cognitive Semantics 5
1.3. Talmy’s theory of lexicalization patterns 5
1.3.1. Preliminaries 5
1.3.2. The Motion Event 6
1.3.3. The three-way typology: the verb root 6
1.3.3.1. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Co-event 7
1.3.3.3. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Path 7
1.3.3.4. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Figure…………………………………… 8
1.3.4. The two-way typology: Path of motion 9

1.4. Image Schema 10
1.5. Summary 10

CHAPTER II: DEICTIC MOTION VERBS 12
2.1. Deictic motion verbs in English 12
2.2. Deictic motion verbs in Vietnamese 13
CHAPTER 3: APPLYING COGNITIVE SEMANTICS TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE
MEANINGS OF THE ENGLISH VERB ‘COME’ AND VIETNAMESE VERB ‘VỀ’ 16
3.1. Syntactic features 16
3.2. Semantic features 17
3.2.1. Semantic features of Come 17
3.2.2. Semantic features of Về 19
3.3. Image schema of come and về 21
3.4. Typology for deictic motion verb come and về: A comparison 22
3.4.1. Motion plus Path 23
3.4.2. Motion plus Figure 26
3.4.3. Other conflations 28
CHAPTER 4: THE STUDY 28
4.1. Introduction 28
4.2. Hypotheses 28
4.3. Data collection 28
4.4. Data analysis 28
4.5. Results and Discussion 30
4.5.1. Hypothesis I 30
4.5.2. Hypothesis II 34
4.6. Concluding remarks 37
PART III: CONCLUSION 38
1. Recapitulation 38
2. Implications for linguistic research, English language teaching and translation 39

3. Limitations 40
4. Recommendations for further research 40
REFERENCES
APPENDIXES
5

ABBREVIATIONS



M Motion
P Path
F Figure
G Ground
HF Human Figure
NHF Non-human Figure
AM Agentive motion
NAM Non-agentive motion
Acc. Accumulation

6

List of Tables and Figures

List of Tables

Table 1.
Distribution of the equivalent and non-equivalent meanings of come and về………… 32

List of Figures
Figure 1. The percentage of the occurrence frequency of come and về…………………30
Figure 2. The percentage of the equivalent meanings of come and về………………… 32
Figure 3. The percentage of the conflation of Motion and Path…………………………33
Figure 4. The percentage of the non-equivalent meanings of come and về…………… 34
Figure 5. The percentage of the conflation of Motion and Figure……………………….36

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Cognitive linguistics has emerged in the last twenty-five years as a powerful approach to
the study of language, conceptual systems, human cognition, and general meaning
construction (Fauconnier, 2006). The use of cognitive linguistics in investigating verbs in
general and motion verbs in particular is frequently examined in linguistic and
psycholinguistics studies because of their syntactic and semantic complexity. They enter into
complex relationships with other words in the sentence: each verb requires or permits the
presence of other words called arguments. Thus, it might be said that a verb determines the
number and type of arguments within a verb phrase. Additionally, verbs can have multiple
meanings which are very often marked by a different argument realization:
(a) Mary came home.
(b) The trees are coming into leaf.
(c) John comes to work by bus.
In the examples above, the verb „to come‟ has different meanings: the transition in space
(a), the unfolding of an event (b) and the attendance (c). The question is whether a separate
lexical representation is necessary for each meaning. In linguistics, to avoid the confusion, a
dichotomy of verb meaning was suggested proposing that the overall meaning of a verb is
composed from its basic meaning (i.e. verb root) and syntactic frame (Levin & Hovav, 2005). It
is necessary to look mainly at the verb root alone and the kinds of lexicalization involving a
single morpheme when studying a verb (Talmy, 2000). Naturally, the investigation of verbs in
English and Vietnamese indicated that there are similarities and differences in the meanings and
use between the two languages.
Up to now, there has been a vast amount of research on the linguistic expression of
motion events in English and Spanish or Japanese, and of the claims about the semantics of their
manner verbs. In Vietnam, it seems that there hardly be any research on a particular verb and its
Vietnamese equivalent from cognitive perspective. Therefore, this thesis aims at filling this gap.
Hopefully, examining English verbs and its equivalents in Vietnamese is supposed to help
language teaching or translation more effectively.
From the above reason, I have decided to choose this topic for my thesis. It is my

assumption that this research can partly facilitate translators, teachers, students and linguists to
be more aware of the meanings of come and về in vocabulary acquisition.


2. Aims of the study

Each study has its own objectives. This paper investigates possible meanings of the English
verb come and Vietnamese verb về from cognitive perspectives. Therefore, it is aimed at:
 Giving an overview of the concepts of cognitive linguistics, cognitive semantics, Talmy‟s
theory about lexicalization patterns and their roles in this study.
 Investigating possible meanings of come and về, examining their typological conflations of
lexicalization patterns such as Motion plus Path, Motion plus Figure.
 Checking the occurrence frequency and the use of the English verb come and Vietnamese
verb về through some prewar literary works, and then finding out the similarities as well as
differences of these two verbs.
 Giving some suggestions for ELT, translation and for further research.
3. Hypotheses
The study attempts to find out possible meanings of the English verb come and Vietnamese
verb về from cognitive perspective. Therefore, the hypotheses that the study will investigate will
be as follows:
Hypothesis I: The English verb come is used more frequently than the Vietnamese verb về from
cognitive perspective.
Hypothesis II: The meanings of the English verb come are equivalent to the meanings of the
Vietnamese verb về.
4. Scope of the study
This study deals with exploring possible meanings of the English verb come and Vietnamese
verb về. Due to the limit time, knowledge and resources, the thesis only examines these two
verbs based on Talmy‟s framework. The reason the author chooses Talmy‟s theory is that it
helps the author find out the similarities and differences of two languages by analyzing the
lexicalization patterns which may be compared across language with very different word

structure. Additionally, the author does not try to propose all the meanings of come and về but
presents their typical meanings by analyzing the main conflations of semantic components.
5. Method of the study
In order to accomplish the thesis, the corpus-based study is used since the role of the corpus
is not only to provide a limited and representative data-based for statistical analysis, but also to
provide an authentic and realistic data (Mair, 1991:77). In this study, the corpus is over 50,000
words per language collected from some prewar literary works written by famous writers. The
English and Vietnamese literary works are chosen at random. The number of the works, the year
of the works written, the length and the structure of each work are not considered. The researcher
will use Wordsmith Tool version 5.0 which provides a concordance list and Wordlist expert.

According to Oakes (1998:149), a concordance is a list, arranged in an order specified by the
user, such as the order of appearance, of the occurrences of items in a source text, where each
occurrence is surrounded by an appropriate portion of its original context. “The frequency list is
very useful as a means of isolating words from the surrounding detail of the text so that they can
be surveyed in this way, but the lack of this detail also prevents us from seeing precisely how
these potential labels are actually used (Barnbrook, 1996:65-66).
Therefore, concordance and wordlist can combine well in this study in order to check the
occurrence frequency of the English verb come and Vietnamese verb về. From a concordance
list, the author will examine whether the meanings of come is equivalent to the meanings of về.
6. Design of the study
The study is divided into three parts:
Part I INTRODUCTION introduces the background, the aims, the scope, the method
and the organization of the study.
Part II DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW provides an overview of the theoretical background of
the study. It deals with the concepts of cognitive linguistics, cognitive semantics,
Talmy‟s theory about lexicalization patterns, image schema as well as their roles
in this study.
Chapter 2 DEICTIC MOTION VERBS presents English and Vietnamese verbs of deictic

motion based theories of Levin (1993), Lai, Nguyen (1992) and Hoa, Nguyen
(1996).
Chapter 3 INVESTIGATION discusses the lexical meaning, image schema as well as
typological conflations of the English verb come and Vietnamese verb về based
on Talmy‟s framework.
Chapter 4 METHODOLOGY deals with the hypotheses, data collection instruments and
examines the high and low frequency of the English verb come and Vietnamese
verb về through prewar literary works and find out the similarities and differences
between two verbs.
Part III CONCLUSION summarizes what has been done, limitations of the study,
accompanied by suggestions for language teaching and further study.







PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Introduction
Cognitive linguistics is one of the most interesting branches in the present–day linguistic
field. To have basic comprehension of this field: the notions of cognitive linguistics in general
and cognitive semantics in particular that are theoretical background for this study will be briefly
mentioned. From these reasons, the author provides basic concepts to the readers in order to have
better understanding of this branch.
1.2. Definitions of terms
To provide a brief of key terms related to the issues of this study, definitions of cognitive
linguistics and cognitive semantics will be presented in turn in this section. This will help the
readers understand clearly about the issues that are dealing with.

1.2.1. Cognitive linguistics
Cognitive Linguistics is an important interdisciplinary branch of cognitive science, and is
closely related to cognitive psychology and linguistics. It is a new approach to the study of
language which views linguistic knowledge as part of general cognition, studies the meaning and
thinking. According to Ungerer & Schmid (1996), cognitive linguistics is an approach to
language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize
it.
Gilles Fauconnier (2006) describes cognitive linguistics as follows: „Cognitive linguistics
goes beyond the visible structure of language and investigates the considerably more complex
backstage operations of cognition that create grammar, conceptualization, discourse, and thought
itself. The theoretical insights of cognitive linguistics are based on extensive empirical
observation in multiple contexts, and on experimental work in psychology and neuroscience.
Results of cognitive linguistics, especially from metaphor theory and conceptual integration
theory, have been applied to wide ranges of nonlinguistic phenomena.‟
Taylor (2002) argues that cognitive Linguistics (with a capital „C‟) approaches the
relation between language and cognition rather differently than the Chomskyan tradition (with a
small „c‟) which describes the rules of a formalized grammar as generation of the well-formed
sentences of a language. Language is best regarded as an integral part of cognition and that it
will be insightful to study language in the light of what is known about the mind, whether this is
from experimentation, introspection, or even common-sense observation.
1.2.2. Cognitive Semantics
Apparently, cognitive semantics is a branch of cognitive linguistics. Like cognitive
linguistics, cognitive semantics is not a single unified theory. It studies language as a container

and an organizer (or as a gateway to knowledge, provided by Langacker [1]:58) of knowledge
within the human mind.
According to Vyvyan Evans (2006:156), cognitive semantics sees linguistic meaning as a
manifestation of conceptual structure: the nature and organization of mental representation in all
its richness and diversity, and this is what makes it a distinctive approach to linguistic meaning.
However, Talmy (2000:4) describes cognitive semantics and the main methodology as follows:

„Research on cognitive semantics is research on conceptual content and its organization in
language and hence, on the nature of conceptual content and organization in general‟.
In summary, cognitive semantics is concerned with the relationship between experience,
embodied cognition and language, with the result that it explores the connections between
human bodily experience, the conceptual system and the semantic structure encoded by
language.
1.3. Talmy’s theory of lexicalization patterns
1.3.1. Preliminaries
In volume II of Toward a Cognitive Semantics (2000), Talmy explores the systematic
relations in language between meaning and surface expression which means overt linguistic
forms, not derivational theory. He describes lexicalization in the following words: “lexicalization
is involved where a particular meaning component is found to be in regular association with a
particular morpheme” (Talmy, 2000:24).
Under his basic assumption, it is possible for linguists to isolate elements separately
within the domain of meaning and within the domain of surface expression. He also emphasized
that this relationship is not one-to-one because a combination of semantic elements may be
expressed by a single surface element, or a single semantic element may be expressed by a
combination of surface elements. In addition, different types of semantic elements may be
expressed by the same type of surface element, and the same type of semantic elements may be
expressed by several different surface elements.
In general, Talmy‟s particular concern is to understand how such patterns compare across
languages. For a particular semantic domain, language exhibits a wide variety of patterns, a
small number of patterns (defined as a typology), or a single pattern (a universal). One of the
domains which Talmy concerned is the semantic domain of Motion, a dynamic domain of
experience and entails the movement of an entity through space. In volume II of Toward a
Cognitive Semantics (2000), he examines the conceptual structure of motion events as well as
typological patterns. Exploring these notions will be theoretical background for using semantic
components of Motion Event such as Figure, Ground, Path and Motion to study the typology of
Motion Verbs come in English and về in Vietnamese in Chapter 3. Language differs in their
linguistic expressions; using Talmy‟s framework will identify and compare the elements of the

meaning of the deictic motion verb „Come‟ and „Ve‟ as well as the conflations of semantic
components in English and Vietnamese.
1.3.2. The Motion Event
The motion event which is described clearly in volume II of Toward a Cognitive
Semantics is one of the most important concerns of Talmy. Motion is defined as a dynamic
domain of experience and entails the movement of an entity through space. An event is a portion
of reality which has been delimited or bounded by the human mind (Talmy, 2000).
Talmy (2000:25) claims that a situation containing motion and the continuation of a
stationary location alike are treated as a Motion Event (with a capital M). A motion event,
therefore, is an event where an entity moves from place to place or is identified as located at a
particular place. It is basically composed of four semantic components such as the Figure, i.e. the
object that is in movement or that is located with respect to another object; the Path, i.e. the path
followed or site occupied by the Figure object with respect to the Ground object; a Ground, i.e.
the reference object with respect to which the Path is characterized; the Motion, i.e. the
occurrence of motion or location per se. For example:
(1) The napkin blew off the table.
Figure Motion Path Ground
Nonetheless, Talmy (1972) also gives a distinct semantic interpretation of the terms
Figure and Ground compared to ones taken from Gestalt psychology: “The Figure is a moving or
conceptually movable object whose path or site is at issue. The Ground is a reference frame, or a
reference object stationary within a reference frame with respect to which the Figure‟s path or
site is characterized” (Talmy, 2000: 26).
In sum, the sketch of a Motion event has been presented in this part. Definitions of
Motion, Event as well as Motion events have been offered and the semantic components of
motion events have been examined as well. In addition, manner verbs and causative verbs also
are defined and the relation between the Co-event and Motion event is explored.
1.3.3. The three-way typology: the verb root
According to Talmy (2000), when studying the verb, it is necessary to look mainly at the
verb root alone and the kinds of lexicalization involving a single morpheme. Therefore,

lexicalization patterns may be compared across language with very different word structure.
Languages are categorized by the characteristic lexicalization pattern they exhibit. However, in
most cases, a language uses only one of three types for the verb in its most characteristic
expression of Motion (icid:,27).
1.3.3.1. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Co-event
In the first typological pattern for the expression of Motion, the verb expresses both the
fact of Motion and a Co-event, usually either the manner or the cause of the Motion.

 English expressions of Motion with conflated Manner or Cause (Talmy 2000:28)
MOVE + Manner MOVE + Cause
Non-agentive Non-agentive
The rock rolled down the hill The napkin blew off the table.
Agentive Agentive
I slid the keg into the storeroom. I kicked the keg into the storeroom.
Let‟s look at the following Vietnamese examples that also exemplify this type of conflation:
MOVE + Manner MOVE + Cause
Non-agentive Non-agentive
Cánh cửa sắt khép lại. (Anh Đức) Những cơn mưa đến như gột sạch bầu trời. (Nguyễn
Đình Thi)
Agentive Agentive
Chị Dậu đặt cái Tỉu ở cạnh chồng. Anh ta sút một quả bong vào gôn.
(Ngô Tất Tố)
From the examples above, non-agentive motion and agentive motion can be understood
as follows: non-agentive motion refers to situations which entities are incapable of motion on
their own; agentive motion means that the motion is caused by the agent but the verb expresses
its Cause or the Manner in which the Figure moves.
1.3.3.2. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Path
In the second typological pattern for the expression of Motion, the verb root expresses
both the fact of Motion and the Path (Talmy, 2000:49). Languages such as Romance, Semitic,
Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Tamil, Polynesian, Nez Perce, and Caddo are of this type. Spanish,

in addition, is a prototypical example of this type.
 Spanish expressions of Motion (non-agentive) with conflation of Path
(2) La botella entró a la cueva (flotando)
The bottle MOVED-in to the cave (floating)
„Cái chai trôi vào trong động‟
CL bottle to float to enter in cave
“The bottle floated into the cave”
 Spanish expressions of Motion (agentive) with conflation of Path
(3) Metí el barril a la bodega rodándolo
I-
A
MOVED-in the keg to the storeroom rolling-it
„Tôi lăn cái thùng vào trong kho‟
I to roll CL keg to enter in storeroom.
„I rolled the keg into the storeroom‟

As can be seen from the above examples, both Spanish non-agentive motion and agentive
motion show the same pattern of conflating Path in the verb. On the contrary, both Vietnamese
ones perform the different pattern of Path conflation in the verb because of showing Manner of
Motion verb trôi „to float‟ and a prototypical Path of Motion verb, vào „to enter‟. Talmy
(2000:49) defines that “a Co-event of Manner or Cause is expressed in the same sentence; it
must be as independent, usually adverbial or gerundive type constituent. In many languages like
Spanish, such a constituent can be awkward, so that information about Manner or Cause is often
either established in the surrounding discourse or omitted altogether. […] languages of this type
have a whole series of surface verbs that express motion along various paths”. Nevertheless,
Talmy also claims that English has a number of verbs that incorporate Path, as in the Spanish
case such as enter, exit, ascend, descend, cross, pass, circle, ect. These verbs require a type of
sentence similar to the Spanish type, with manner or cause expresses in a separate constituent as
in The rock passed by our tent (in sliding). In addition, he points out that these verbs are not the
most typical in English and that most of them but the last four words listed are borrowings from

Romance language.
1.3.3.3. Lexicalization pattern: Motion + Figure
In the third major typological pattern for the expression of Motion, the verb expresses the
fact of Motion together with the Figure. Languages of this type are Atsugewi (a Hokan language
of northern California). English has a few forms to confirm it. The nonagentive verb (to) rain
refers to rain moving, and the agentive verb (to) spit refers to causing spit to move:
(4) It rained in through the bedroom window. Non-agentive
(5) I spat into the cuspidor. Agentive
In sum, languages with this type as their characteristic pattern have a whole series of
surface verbs that express various kinds of objects or materials as moving or located. (Talmy,
2000:57). Language, therefore, can sometimes incorporate the same kind of semantic distinctions
but in a very distinctive ways.
1.3.4. The two-way typology: Path of motion
In the previous parts, a connected set of semantic categories that appear lexicalized in an
open-class type of surface element, the verb root has been examined. But lexicalized in a closed-
class type of surface element will be examined in this section. Thus, this leads to the typological
distinction between verb-framed and satellite-frame languages. Satellite, abbreviated, is the
grammatical category of any constituent other than a noun phrase or prepositional-phrase
complement that is in a sister relation to the verb root (Talmy, 2000:102). A verb root together
with its satellites forms a constituent in its own right, called the verb complex. The following
examples taken from Toward a Cognitive Semantic (Talmy, 2000:103) illustrate the satellite in
English:

a. Satellite over mis-
b. Verb complex start over fire mis-
c. Example sentence The record started The engine misfired.
over.
 Satellite-framed languages, e.g. English
(6) The bottle floated into/out of the cave.
Verb-framed languages, on the other hand, such as Spanish, express Path which appears

in the verb root. They have a number of verbs of inherent motion such as entrar, i.e enter, or
salir, i.e exit.
 Verb-framed languages, e.g. Spanish
(7) La botella flotó a la cueva.
The bottle floated to the cave.
“The bottle floated to the cave.
It is different from English and Spanish, Vietnamese has motion verbs that seem to act
both as verb-framed and as satellite-framed. Vietnamese can show both Manner of Motion verbs
and Path of Motion verbs in the same sentence. Path of Motion verbs in Vietnamese can function
as prepositions or directional adverbs in English such as up, down, etc.
(8) „Cái chai trôi vào trong động‟
CL bottle to float to enter in cave
“The bottle floated into the cave”
Nagawa (2008) claims that the sentence above shows both a prototypical Manner of
Motion verb, „trôi‟,(to float) and a prototypical Path of Motion verb, vào (to enter).
Thus, it is ambiguous to define whether Vietnamese is a verb-framed or satellite-framed
language. As many Vietnamese sentences have more than one lexical main verb in the encoding
of motion verbs, it seems that Talmy‟s theory is not appropriate for serial verb languages such as
Vietnamese or Cantonese…
(9) Cô ấy bước vào trong một ngôi nhà nhỏ.
She that step enter inside a CL house small.
“She entered into a small house”.
However, by attempting to analyze Manner of Vietnamese motion verbs (coverbs)
Cassandra Pace (2009) argues that Vietnamese fits typologically with a satellite-framed language
instead of a verb-framed language. Perhaps, the reason is that Vietnamese is a part of the Austro-
asiatic language family; much Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese. There is
also some influence from Frech because of the French invasion. According to Talmy (2000),
French, English or other languages belong to Indo-European languages. This reason can be taken
as explanation that Vietnamese can be considered as satellite – typed language.

1.3. Image Schema
The first pace in acquiring a category is forming a structural description of an entity that
consists of the most elementary properties of entities such as lines, surfaces, weight, vertical or
horizontal extension, roughness or softness, etc. When these experiences happen again and
again, specific schematic structures begin to emerge and get represented in the mind. Such
structures are called image schemas. “An image schema is a recurring dynamic pattern of our
perceptual interactions and motor program that gives coherence and structure to our
experience… „Experience‟… is to be understood in a very rich, broad sense as including basic
perceptual, motor-program, emotional, historical, social and linguistics dimensions”. (Johnson
1987:xiv, xvi).
According to Vyvyan Evans (2006:178-179), the term „image‟ in „image schema‟ is
equivalent to the use of this term in psychology, where imagistic experience relates to and
derives from our experience of the external world. Another term for this type of experience is
sensory experience. The term „schema‟ in „image schema‟ means that image schema are not rich
or detailed concepts, but rather abstract concepts consisting of patterns emerging from repeated
instance of embodied experience. Image schemas provide the basis for more richly detailed
lexical concepts.
In short, image schemas play an important part of our knowledge of the world. It is difficult
to make sense of experience without accessing image schemas at our disposal. Therefore, an
image schema is a recurring structure of, or within, our cognitive processes establishing patterns
of understanding and reason. Image schemas emerge from our bodily interactions, linguistics
experience and historical context. They are considered embodied prelinguistic structure of
experience that motivates conceptual metaphor mappings.
1.4. Summary
The chapter has dealt with the key terms related to cognitive linguistics which serve as
fundamental understanding for this study. Cognitive linguistics is concerned with investigating
the relationship between human language, the mind and socio-physical experience. In cognitive
linguistics, language and cognition are embodied, i.e our linguistic and conceptual categories are
grounded in physical, social and cultural experiences. There are common structuring principles
across all language areas such as phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Cognitive semantics considers linguistics meaning as a manifestation of conceptual structure
which emerges from bodily experience. It is concerned with the relationship between experience,
cognition and language. As a result, it explores the connections between human bodily
experience, the conceptual system and the semantic structure expressed by language.
This chapter has also presented Talmy‟s theory of lexicalization patterns concerning the
systematic relations in language between meaning and surface expression that are fundamental

theory for the analysis of the study. One of the most important notions of this theory is Motion
Event which is composed of four basic semantic components: Figure, Ground, Path and Motion.
Moreover, it is my initial assumption that Vietnamese belonging to Austro-asiatic and
English belonging to Indo-European might be the same type of language: satellite-framed
language. It is necessary to conduct further research to define what type of language Vietnamese
belongs to.
Image schema is the last notion mentioned in this chapter. Image schemas are considered
structures between perception and conception. They are pervasive organizing structures in
human cognition which emerge from our bodily and social interaction with the environment at a
preconceptual level. They are also dynamic patterns which recur in everyday action and thought
and allow us to mentally structure our experiences and perceptions.

CHAPTER II: DEICTIC MOTION VERBS
In recent years, many researchers have been studied motion verbs in general and deictic
motion verbs in particular using Talmy‟s framework in various languages. The aim of this
chapter is to briefly define deictic motion verbs in English and Vietnamese from the differently
theoretical background that helps the author limit the scope of the study.
2.1. Deictic motion verbs in English
Talmy (2000:56) defines that deictic motion verbs are a kind of Path-conflating verbs with a
special choice of the Path and the Ground, and „the Deictic component of Path typically has only
the two member notions „toward the speaker‟ and „in a direction other than toward the speaker.
According to some authors, all verbs encoding the direction of movement (directed motion
verbs, cf Talmy 1975, 1985, 2000) are deictic in the sense that all of them imply to a particular
configuration of space (a particular path) such as up-down (go down, descend), inside-outside
enter, leave, run off).
In this study, I am interested in the contribution of Levin & Hovav (1999) and Levin (1993)
for classification of English motion verbs with regard to transitive and intransitive motion verbs.
They claim that some verb classes are only implied direction of motion if an explicit directional

phrase is presented. They identify motion verbs class based on their syntactic behaviour or the
close relation between their syntax and semantics. Levin & Hovav (1992: 252-253) proposes
motion direction class such as go, come, depart, arrive, return, ect. These verbs express inherent
direction as their meaning includes a specified direction of motion.
However, Beth Levin in her book, English Verb class and Alternations (1993: 263-270)
proposes some more verbs denoting inherently directed motion such as arrive, come, depart,
descend, ascend, enter, go, leave, return, exit, fall, advance, rise, tumble, and flee. She claims
that the meanings of these verbs include a specification of the direction of motion – that is Path,
even in the absence of a directional complement. None of these verbs specifies the Manner of
motion. Verbs differ as to how they can express the goal, source, or trajectory of motion. These
may be expressed in a prepositional phrase.
(10) The thief escaped from the police/ The thief escaped the police.
In addition, verbs of motion using a Vehicle like balloon, bike, bus, coach, cycle, etc or
that mean „go using the vehicle named by the noun‟ or non-using vehicle names such as fly,
drive, ride, etc. do not imply direction of motion unless there is an explicit directional phrase
present.
(11) He skated across the river.
(12) She drove over the bridge.

Finally, waltz verbs like dance, tango, cancan, tapdance, waltz, ect. that mean roughly
„perform the dance‟, there is no specific direction of motion implied unless there is an explicit
directional phrase present.
(13) They danced across the room.
So far, almost verbs are regarded as encoded motion in their meaning. There are many
verbs appearing with directional phrases, whose meanings are only indirectly connected to
movement. Some verb classes are not implied direction of motion unless an explicit directional
phrase is presented.
2.2. Deictic motion verbs in Vietnamese
As stated by Talmy (2002), motion verbs are categorized languages as either verb-framed
or satellite-framed depending on how the core schema „motion‟ is mapped onto an expression.

Vietnamese has motion verbs that appear to function both as verb-framed and as satellite-framed.
In this part, I am interested in the contribution of Lai, Nguyen (1992) and the study of Dinh -
Hoa Nguyen (1996) about verbs of motion direction in Vietnamese.
Lai, Nguyen (1992) proposes that words denoting a motion appear as a result of a
process of cognition of a form of motion in which the aim in space the speaker is moving to us
constantly in opposition (in some form or other) to the point departure.
As stated by Dinh-Hoa Nguyen (Speak Vietnamese, 1966), there is a group of important
verbs denoting motion in a given direction. Such verbs as vào „to enter‟, ra „to go out of‟, đi „to
go‟, lại „to come‟, lên „to go up‟, xuống „to go down‟ denote motion. The category of direction is
expressed by means of postverbs or coverbs, that is, verbs which occur following the main verb
and play a secondary role. They are reduced to the status of morphemes by the mere fact of
appearing after full verbs: đi will mean „off, away‟ when occurring after such a main verb of
motion as bay, „to fly‟ or chạy „to run‟.
(14) bay đi „to fly off/away‟ V + đi
(15) chạy đi „to run away‟ V + đi
Dinh-Hoa, Nguyen (1996) also claims that the pairs đi and lại are similar to the pairs of
verbs of motion such lên-xuống „to go up‟ and „to go down‟, ra-vào „to go out‟ and „to go in‟,
tới-lui „to move forward‟ and „to move backward‟ add the idea of a to-and-from movement:
(16) bay đi bay lại „to fly back and forth‟
(17) bay lên bay xuống „to fly up and down‟
The same verb đi expresses the idea of destruction, erasure, severance, or just wear and tear:
(18) bỏ đi „to abandon, leave out, discard‟
(19) cưa đi „to saw off, cut off, amputate‟
or a change for the worse:
(20) già đi „to age‟ Adj + đi

(21) gầy đi „to become thinner‟ Adj + đi
Besides, it means „to urge or induce‟:
(22) đánh đi „to strike + prostitute‟
The verb ra, which ordinarily indicates a movement „from the interior to the exterior,

from one state to another, from a void to existence‟, with the starting point comparatively less
spacious and less well lit then the area of destination, also denotes growth, expansion,
dismantling, separation or disentanglement. (Hoa, Nguyen, 1996:145, Vietnamese verbs)
(23) cởi ra „untie, take off (clothes)‟
or a movement from the seacoast to the ocean, from the shore to the water.
Furthermore, within the context of Vietnamese geography, „to go north‟ is đi ra bắc („go
+ exit + north) – from Hue. On the other hand, vào „to enter‟ is used when one moves from a
given location to another situated further south: vào Huế means „to go (south) to Hue – (from
Hanoi).
The postverb lên „to ascend‟ denoted an upward motion both literally and figuratively
speaking. The movement may indeed to toward a higher altitude (e.g. gửi lên Hà Nội, „to send up
to Hanoi), or toward a higher-ranking agency or official (e.g. trình lên Thủ tướng „to report to the
Premier‟).
According to Lai Nguyen (1992), Vietnamese verbs of motion cannot act as affixal
elements. He also concludes that the morphological identity between the stem and the affix, the
fusion between the motion factor and the direction factor from the semantical viewpoint are two
inseparable aspects determining the most basic characteristic of word groups denoting the
direction of motion Vietnamese.
In short, a brief overview of the above scholars‟ studies provides the researcher with clear
understanding into the semantic and syntactic nature of deictic motion verbs in terms of their
characteristics in general and the verbs English come and Vietnamese về in particular. More
specifically, when exploring the meanings of the verb về, it is necessary to examine the link
between the motion and verbs of motion acted as prepositional meanings. Thus, this proves that
both English and Vietnamese might be satellite – typed languages. From then, the scope of the
study is defined and the research will investigate all possible meanings of these two verbs.
Motion verbs in general and deictic motion verbs in particular have been the subject of a
great deal of studies from different theoretical frameworks because they present interesting
semantic and syntactic characteristics. This chapter reviews briefly deictic motion verbs in
English and Vietnamese. Section 2.2 reviewed Levin‟s framework of classification of motion
verbs that helps to define inherently directed motion verbs and some verbs classes can be implied

direction of motion only when they are combined with a directional phrase. Section 2.3.
presented Vietnamese verbs of directed motion basing on studies of Lai, Nguyen (1992) and

Hoa, Nguyen (1996). Vietnamese verbs of directed motion can be built when motion verbs are
combined with spatial motion. In some cases, motion direction is built combined with motion
verbs. However, these authors do not mention how cultural factor affects to Vietnamese people‟s
perception of these two verbs. Needless to say, an overview of deictic motion verbs is a basis for
studying the verb come and về in terms of syntactic and semantic structure. It seems that no
earlier contrastive study analyzes the meanings of deictic motion verbs in English and
Vietnamese from cognitive semantics. From this reason, the research conducts contrastive
analysis of two deictic motion verbs that will be discussed in the next chapter with aim to being a
fundamental study for further research.
16

CHAPTER 3
APPLYING COGNITIVE SEMANTICS TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE MEANINGS
OF THE ENGLISH VERB ‘COME’ AND VIETNAMESE VERB ‘VỀ’

The aim of this chapter is an attempt to investigate and compare possible meanings of
deictic motion verbs come in English and về in Vietnamese using Talmy‟s framework. First,
the author will define syntactic features of come and về to realize the difference of
morphological features of these two verbs. And then, semantic features of these two verbs will
be explored. Image schema which plays an important role in defining their meanings also will
be discussed. The most important part in this chapter is a comparison of the lexicalization
patterns between come and về. More specifically, the mainly typological patterns of
lexicalization such as Motion plus Path and Motion plus Figure will be examined to compare
the similarities and differences between these two verbs.
3.1. Syntactic features
The verb come consists of one morpheme as a root. Like many other English verbs, it
has four actual forms: the –s form „comes‟, the past form „came‟, the past participle „come‟,

the –ing participle „coming‟. The base morpheme come designates a kind of activity and the
time at which the activity is instantiated is not specified. The past form came consists of the
base verb come plus the past-tense morpheme. The combined expression came designates a
past-time instance of the activity. It also can be combined with the agentive affix –er: comer.
This word is a noun, which designates a person who performs the activity designated by the
base verb. In addition, come combines with derivational prefixes „over‟ and „out‟: overcome
(v) – to succeed in dealing with or controlling a problem that has been preventing you from
achieving something, outcome (n) – the result or effect of an action or event.
(24) “Sometimes Mrs. St. John comes over and drops off a casserole or some cookies or
something.” (The Secret City by Chris Archer, p.69)
On the contrary, „Về‟ is a monosyllabic word like any other Vietnamese verbs. Is has
only one form in any mood, voices and tenses. It has no derivates. This means there is no
changes in the appearance of it in any statement or sentence. For example:
(25) Chị Thảo về rồi. (Bài học quét nhà, Nam Cao, p.1)
17

(Thao came home.)
(26) Lý Cường đã về! (Chí Phèo, Nam Cao)
(Ly Cuong is coming.)
As can be seen from the examples above, the motion verb came denotes the action
finished in sentence (25) whereas is coming is a signal link of the action in sentence (26).
However, the verb về still keeps one form even though the tense of these sentences is past or
future.
The verb về can combine with other words to create principle and accessory compound
words and jargons belonging to different parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, or adjectives:
(27) Ấy là một cái khăn tay Hàn đã đặt làm ngoài tỉnh, rưới vào mấy giọt nước hoa rồi gói
vào một mảnh giấy bóng, đem về tặng Tơ… (Nam Cao)
(That is a handkerchief which Han ordered in the provincial capital, sprinkled a few
drops of perfume, wrapped it in the polished paper and gave it to To…)
3.2. Semantic features

3.2.1. Semantic features of Come
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, come is a basic intransitive verb of
motion which expresses movement towards or so as to reach the speaker, or the person spoken
to. However, come has other meanings in accordance with different combinations. This issue
will be presented in turn in this chapter.
As mentioned in Chapter 2, the English verb come belongs to category of deictic
motion verb. Deictic motion verbs are a kind of Path-conflating verbs with a special choice of
the Path and the Ground, and „the Deictic component of Path typically has only the two
member notions, „toward the speaker‟ and „in a direction other than toward the speaker‟
(Talmy, 2000:56). Thus, the lexical meaning of come taken from Nakazawa (2006) may be
seen as conflated with the speaker or the addressee as the Ground as follows:
COME
MOVE TOWARD a point which is the location of the speaker or the address
[Motion] [Vector] [Conformation] [Ground]
[ Path ]
(28) Will you come to my house tomorrow?
18

(29) “Alright, Charlie. I‟m coming. Will you wait for a minute?”
(The summer of the swans by Betsy Byars, p.28)
MOVE is an abstract verb which represents motion in a Motion event, and TOWARD
is a component of the Path called Vector. The Vector is a component of the Path, and
expresses „the basic types of arrival, traversal and departure that a Figural schema can execute
with respect to a Ground schema‟ (Talmy, 2000:53). Typically, it is represented with regard to
abstract prepositions such as toward or to. The Conformation is another component of the Path
and specifies the spatial relation of the Path to the Ground. The Vector TOWARD and the
Ground „the speaker‟ express the Path information conflated within the semantics of deictic
motion verbs.
Fillmore (1975) proposes that the central meaning of come is basically that the speaker
or the addressee is at the goal of motion at utterance or at arrival time. In other words, the

lexical meaning of come is defined as „movement toward the speaker‟s location at coding
time, reference time‟; „movement toward the addressee at coding and reference time‟ and
movement toward any other goal distinct from the speaker and address. Take a look at the
following examples:
(30) "I have come to you for some information that's not in my line…”
(Coming, Aphrodite! by Willa Cather)
(31) “I think I will come to the village with you”.
(Lord Emsworth and the girl friend by P.G.Wodehouse et al, p.26)
In sentence (30), it can be assumed that the goal is the „expected‟ location of the
speaker/addressee at the time of arrival. In (31), the assumption is that the speaker or the
addressee is making the same journey.
On the other hand, come has other different meanings in accordance with different
combinations. The typical path conflated with come is to with the meaning of a movement.
However, it has other meanings like recovering consciousness or occurring to the mind, ect.
The following examples will illustrate the statement:
(32) The fainting victim came to.
(33) The truth suddenly came to me.
19

Additionally, come conflated with the path from has the meaning of being produced from a
particular thing or the result, ect. apart from the meaning of having as the place where
someone lives. For example:
(34) Understanding comes from experience.
(35) A cry came from the frightened child.
Come also can conflate with the adjectives that also make its meanings change:
(36) My fondest dreams have at last come true.
In sentence (36), come means becoming or happening as predicted while it means turning out
to be.
Similarly, come has the meaning of occurring in time or take place when it conflates with a
noun:

(37) The game will be played tomorrow, come rain or shine.
In sum, the core meaning of come is to denote a movement. However, it has different
meanings when it is conflated with different prepositions or Paths. This will be discussed in
section 3.4.1. In this study, to compare meanings of the English verb come and Vietnamese
verb về, the author will base on Talmy‟s framework (2000) instead of Fillmore‟s framework
(1975). As for Talmy‟s framework, it is possible to compare elements of meaning of the
deictic motion verbs such as Path, Vector or Conformation across different languages
(Nakazawa, 2009).
3.2.2. Semantic features of Về
As defined in the chapter 2, về belongs to the groups of deictic motion verbs. In other
words, về denotes motion in a given direction. In addition, one important matter Than, Nguyen
Kim (1999) defines that deictic motion verb về itself implies the meaning of direction. Về
indicates a movement from the starting point to the area of destination. It should not be
confused with về denoting possession. Take a look at the following example:
(38) Chính quyền sẽ về tay nhân dân.
(The Government will belong to people.)
(39) Bao nhiêu của nả sẽ về tôi.
(All the property will be mine)
20

Về is often used to denote motion when the destination is the speaker‟s homeland or
even not the starting point:
(40) „Lát nữa, để tôi cùng về bàn với bác trai giúp bác‟. (Ngô Tất Tố, 185)
(Later on, I will come to talk with him to help you).
From the sentence above, the speakers do not mention that they return to the starting
point because they are in another place. What is more, về in sentence (40) means „going to the
countryside‟.
„Về‟ also expresses motion to the place where someone feels like home or where he or she is
treated as a member of family or fellows:
(41) Tuy lần này về Bản Sing, ông chỉ có mục đích xem hội

(Sáu mạng người, Nguyễn Công Hoan)
(But come back to Sing at this time, his aim is to see festival…)
Về indicates a movement against the direction that someone leaves:
(42) Lúc trở về nhà, nó thấy bố và hai em đã dậy rồi. (Một đám cưới, Nam Cao)
(When coming home, she saw her dad and brothers getting up.)
In addition, Than, Nguyen Kim (1999) considers deictic motion verb về as not only
head verbs but also directional postverbs or coverbs to identify a verb of action (or functive
verb). The following example taken from Than, Nguyen Kim (1999) illustrates this case:
(43) Rồi hàng tháng, chị sẽ gửi tiền về cho các em tiêu. (Cô hàng xén, Thạch Lam)
(Monthly, I will send money to you)
Directional postverb về denotes motion directed to the starting point where village or
homeland is defined:
(44) Con là Bính, gửi vài hàng về kính chúc thầy mẹ. (Bỉ vỏ, Nguyên Hồng, 160)
(I‟m Binh, I‟m sending some … to you)
(45) Mẹ con mua ở Lầu Cai đem về cho con. (Tắt đèn, Ngô Tất Tố, 79)
(My mother bought them for me from Lao Cai)
Than, Nguyen Kim (1999) also mentions that về indicates motion toward the location
of the speaker and motion which is not toward the location of the speaker. Take a look at the
following examples:
(46) “À, Anh Sử đã về.” (Vùng Mỏ, Võ Huy Tâm)
21

(Ah, Su is coming home)
(47) “Tôi thế nào cũng phải về.” (Bước đường cùng, Nguyễn Công Hoan)
(Whatever it is, I have to come home.)
Apart from the meaning of a movement, về denotes the meaning of stative motion:
(48) Ông ấy về hưu cách đây 3 năm rồi.
(He retired 3 years ago)
By investigating the meanings of motion verb về, the author found out that về can act as an
adverb when accompanying with a verb.

(49) Hôm qua, em đi tỉnh về. (I came back from the provincial capital yesterday.)
(50) Đi đâu về thế con? (Where have you been?)
Or it can act as a preposition:
(51) Hàng ngày, anh đều nghĩ về em. (I think of you everday)
In sum, to some extent, the core lexical meaning of come is the same as that of về.
Both of them denote the destination where someone is directed to. However, về tends to
express motion toward the homeland or familiar places, come normally indicates motion
toward the place where someone is familiar to or not. The reason might be due to Vietnamese
society and history. In old society, most people came from the countryside. Today they still
consider it as their homeland even though they moved to other places. Moreover, both of come
and về express the meaning of change of state. One significant difference between two verbs is
that come only acts as a main verb whereas về can act as an directional postverb to support
head verbs, an adverb and a preposition. Therefore, in this study, the researcher explores the
meaning of về as a head verb, a directional postverb, an adverb and a preposition. This issue
will be discussed in the next sections.

3.3. Image schema of come and về
Langacker (1987) makes great use of the concepts Trajector and Landmark. To
characterize image schema of come and về, his concepts of Trajector, Landmark and domain
are used. A trajector is defined as the figure in a relational profile and Landmark functions as
grounds to the trajectory (Langacker 1987:217). In other words, trajector is someone or