Syntactic features of english noun phrases with reference to their vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH NOUN
PHRASES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TIẾNG ANH
TRONG LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)

TRẦN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG

Hanoi, 2016

①


Front hard cover
Back hard cover

TRẦN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

(2014 – 2016)

②


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

SYNTACTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH NOUN
PHRASES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP CỦA CỤM DANH TỪ TIẾNG ANH
TRONG LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG DƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT)

TRẦN THỊ MAI HƯƠNG

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Quế

Hanoi, 2016

③


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report
entitle “Syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to their
Vietnamese equivalents” (Đặc điểm cú pháp của cụm danh từ Tiếng Anh
trong liên hệ tương đương với Tiếng Việt) submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language. Except
where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used
without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.

Hanoi, 2016

Trần Thị Mai Hương

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Văn Quế
Date:……………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and
support from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Van Que , my supervisor, who has patiently and
constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose
stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly
through my growth as an academic researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to all my lecturers at the Faculty of
Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures,
supports, encouragement and for inspiring me the love for English teaching
and doing scientific research.
Besides, the study could not have been prepared without the support
of the lecturers and students of tourism and foreign language department of
Sao Do university and many others, without whose support and
encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis
accomplished.

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for
the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

ii


ABSTRACT
This study describes the syntactic features of English noun phrases
with reference to Vietnamese equivalents. It aims to find out the similarities
and differences between syntactic functions of noun phrases in English and
Vietnamese and then analyzing noun phrases from some chapters of “Pride
and prejudice” by Jane Austen and the equivalents in the translated version
in Vietnamese. The research also aims at giving some suggestions for
translating and teaching noun phrases to Vietnamese learners.

iii


LIST OF ABBREVIATION
S:

Subject

O:

Object

Cs:

Subject complement

Co:

Object complement

Cprep:

Prepositional complement

Cadj:

Adjectival complement

App:

Appositive

A:

Adverbial

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 3.1. Information of the research participants

14

Table 4.1: The learners’ acquisition levels on the use of article in

67

English noun phrases
Table 4.2: The learners’ acquisition levels on syntactic function of
English noun phrases

67

Table 4.3: The learners’ acquisition levels on the use of word

67

order in English noun phrases
Table 4.4: The learners’ acquisition levels on the ability of

68

translating English noun phrases into Vietnamese

v


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality

I

Acknowledgements

Ii

Abstract

Iii

List of abbreviations

Iv

List of tables and figures

V

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1

1.1.

Rationale for the research

1

1.2.

Aims of the research

2

1.3.

Objectives of the research

2

1.4.

Scope of the research

3

1.5.

Significance of the research

3

1.6.

Structural organization of the thesis

3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

5

2.1.

5

Review of previous studies

2.1.1. Previous studies oversea

5

2.1.2. Previous studies in Vietnam

6

2.2.

7

Review of theoretical background

2.2.1. Noun phrases in English

7

2.2.2. Noun phrases in Vietnamese

10

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

13

3.1.

Research-governing orientations

13

3.1.1. Research questions

13

3.1.2. Research setting

13

3.1.3. Research approaches

13

3.1.4. Principles for intended data collection and data analysis

14

3.2.

15

Research methods

3.2.1. Major methods and supporting methods

15
vi


3.2.2. Data collection techniques

16

3.2.3. Data analysis technique

17

3.3.

18

Summary

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1.

English noun phrases

19
19

4.1.1. Structure of English noun phrases

19

4.1.2. Syntactic functions of English noun phrases

28

4.2.

30

Vietnamese noun phrases

4.2.1. Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases

30

4.2.2. Syntactic functions of Vietnamese noun phrases

41

4.3.

43

The similarities and differences between syntactic features of

English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases.
4.3.1. In terms of structure

43

4.3.2. In terms of function

52

4.4.

54

Implications in teaching and translating noun phrases

4.4.1. Noun phrases from some chapters of “Pride and Prejudice” 54
by Jane Austen and the translated version
4.4.2. Results of the survey

66

4.4.3. Mistakes of Vietnamese students when learning English

68

noun phrases
4.4.4. Suggestions for teaching and translating noun phrases

70

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION

73

5.1.

Recapitulation

73

5.2.

Concluding remarks

73

5.3.

Limitation of the research

74

5.4.

Suggestions for further study

74

REFERENCES

75

APPENDICES

79

vii


Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1.

Rationale for the research
English is the most popular language in the world. It plays an important

role in our social-economic life of human beings. Indeed, in the minds of
many people, there is no longer an issue. They argue that English has
already become a world knowledge by virtue of the political and economic
progress made by English speaking nations in the past 200 years. It is now
the main language of books, newspapers, airports, international business and
academic conferences, science technology, medicine, diplomacy, sports,
international competition, pop music and advertising. In order to speed up
the country’s economy, and to improve living standards as soon as possible,
it is very necessary for scientists, technicians and engineers to learn and
acquire English so as to keep up date with the latest developments in
technology taking place in the world. Learning and teaching English,
reading with comprehension or translating material from English into
Vietnamese or vice versa, always create difficulties for learners particularly
because of the differences between English and Vietnamese.
There are differences in phonology, vocabulary and grammar. In order
to help learners acquire a better knowledge of English, it is of great
importance to predict difficulties arising from the differences between the
two languages and solve them. In English grammar, word combination in
phrase is considered to be one of the most difficult phenomena.
Among the five different types of phrases in English (namely noun

phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional
phrases), noun phrases are the most common playing various syntactic
1


functions in the sentence and clause structure: subject, object and
complement (of various kinds), apposition and attribute. Without knowledge
of noun phrases in English, learners could not produce comprehensible
sentences. Noun phrases seem to cause great deal of trouble when
translating noun phrases from English into Vietnamese. English noun
phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases have both similarities and differences.
In order to find out this issue, in this graduation thesis, I have decided to
choose the topic “Syntactic features of English noun phrases with
reference to their Vietnamese equivalents”.
We hope that this study will contribute a small part in teaching and
translating noun phrases to Vietnamese learners.
1.2.

Aims of the research
This research aims to find out the similarities and differences between

syntactic features of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese and then
analyzing noun phrases from chapter seven of “Pride and prejudice” by Jane
Austen and the equivalents in the translated version in Vietnamese. The
research also aims at giving some suggestions for teaching and translating
noun phrases to Vietnamese learners.
1.3.

Objectives of the research
This research pursues the following objectives:

- Describing the syntactic features of English noun phrases with
reference to their Vietnamese equivalents.
- Finding out the similarities and differences about syntactic features
between English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases.
- Giving out some suggestions for teaching and translating noun
phrases.

2


1.4.

Scope of the research
Noun phrase is an important and complicated part of English

grammar in English. However, due to constraints as well as the framework
of a graduation thesis, it is impossible to touch all the differences and
similarities in syntactic features of noun phrases of all schools. In this
research, I only mention some common syntactic features of English noun
phrases from perspective of traditional grammar and Vietnamese noun
phrases and then find out the similarities and differences between noun
phrases in English and Vietnamese. The research is focused only on noun
phrases in some selected chapters rather than in the whole novel of the
source language text and the translated version. The sources of data are
typical written examples from the collected materials or extracts from
“Pride and Prejudice” in the source language text and its translated version.
1.5.

Significance of the research

The study explores the syntactic functions of English noun phrases

and its equivalents in Vietnamese. It is hoped that the results of the study
will partly contribute to the research of noun phrases. In addition, the study
will bring in practical benefits to language teachers, translators, learners and
people who are in favor of it.
1.6.

Structural organization of the thesis
This graduation thesis is designed with 5 chapters.

Chapter 1 (Introduction) states clearly the reasons for doing the research and
the objectives of the thesis as well as the scope and significance of the
research.
Chapter 2 (Literature review) gives a critical review of the previous studies
relating to the research problem under investigation and presents the
3


theoretical background employed as tools for conducting the whole
research.
Chapter 3 (Methodology) provides the information by which the research is
conducted with a method section answering two main questions: How the
data was collected or generated and how it was analyzed.
Chapter 4 (Findings and discussions) describes what can be learned during
the research and interpreting the results.
Chapter 5 (Conclusion) restates the aims and summarizes how to conduct
the research to the objectives.

4

Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.

Review of previous studies

2.1.1. Previous studies oversea
There were many works overseas related to noun phrase such as
Keizer, E. (2007). The English Noun Phrase: The Nature of Linguistic
Categorization, Studies in English Language (series). Cambridge:CUP .
Quirk, Greenbaum et al (1972) in the book “A comprehensive
grammar of the English language” studied the structure and syntactic
functions of English noun phrases.
Fromkin et al (1990) considers "a noun phrase could be an article
followed by a noun (the car,...). A noun phrase could also be made of a head
and a prepositional phrase as its modifier such as (a man in a uniform). A
noun phrase could also contain an adjective phrase as the modifier in the
head.”
According to Paul Robert (1964), "all sentences contain two main
parts, a noun phrase and a verb phrase".
There were also many other studies related to noun phrases such as
Xiao Li, (2010). Understanding the Semantic Structure of Noun Phrase
Queries. Microsoft Research. Association for Computational Linguistics;
Nulty, Paul (2007) Semantic classification of noun phrases. Optimization
Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis or Lita Taylor, Claire
Grover, Ted Briscoe. The syntactic regularity of English noun phrases.
Department of Linguistics University of Lancaster.
5

2.1.2. Previous studies in Vietnam
There were also many studies related to noun phrases in Viet Nam.
Doctor Đặng Ngọc Hướng had the dissertation “Danh ngữ Tiếng Anh trong
sự đối chiếu với Tiếng Việt” which was done in 2009.
The scientific report of Nguyen Thi Van Lam (2007). The structure
of English noun phrase. Scientific magazine. This article aimed at
discussing the structure of English noun phrases both basic and complex.
In his book "An outline of syntax", Mr. Nguyen Hoa Lac - lecturer in
English states that a noun phrase is a group of words with a noun or pronoun
as the main part (the head). The noun phrase may consist of only one word
as in this case "Tom arrived yesterday" or it may be long and complex.
There were also many thesis of noun phrase in Vietnam, for example,
the thesis of Trinh Thi Vinh (2009). A contrastive .analysis of
premodification of noun phrases in English and Vietnamese. This study
aims to discuss the premodification of noun phrases in English and in
Vietnamese and their impact upon teaching and learning English in the
Vietnamese situation. Attempts have been to state the similarities and
differences in premodification of noun phrases – in the two languages and
raise and solve some difficulties and problems arising particularly from
differences between English and Vietnamese.
Besides, the master thesis of Nguyen Thi Hong Phuong (2013). Word
order in English noun phrases in comparison with Vietnamese was also a
contribution to the noun phrases. The study aims at analyzing word order in
English and Vietnamese noun phrases to show the basic word orders and the
changes of word order in English and Vietnamese noun phrases and find out

6

some similarities and differences between word order in English and
Vietnamese.
Moreover, the thesis of Nguyen Anh Thi (2007), Reflections on the
application of noun phrases in English – Vietnamese translation aimed at
finding out whether there is a correlation between the comprehension of
English noun phrases and the translation performance.
These previous works studied about some issues of noun phrases but
the research on the syntactic features of English noun phrase with reference
to their Vietnamese equivalents haven’t been paid much attention. So I
decide to do this research.
2.2.

Review of theoretical background

2.2.1. Noun phrases in English
2.2.1.1. Definitions of English noun phrases
By traditional, grammar is usually used to refer to the grammar
written by classical Greek scholars, the Roman grammars largely derived
from the Greek tradition, the speculative work of the medieval and the
prescriptive approach in the 18th century. The noun phrase can be defined in
many ways; however, most scholar of traditional grammar agree on the
following definition which is quoted from A comprehensive grammar of the
English language (Quirk and Greenbaum, 1972): “The noun phrase
typically functions as subject, object, complement of the sentence and
complement of the preposition phrase”. It can be inferred from the
definition that the functions of noun phrases bring about the recognition of
noun phrase. For example:
Sarah has written fifty books for children.

7


S

O

C of prepositional phrase

Systemic functional grammar was originally articulated by M.A.K
Halliday in the 1960s and has now come to be recognized as a major force
in linguistics. According to M.A.K Halliday, a nominal group (noun phrase)
contains the head noun and followed by various other items all of them in
some way characterizing the noun. These occur in a certain sequence and
the sequence is largely fixed although some variation is possible. It can be
described as follow:
Premodifier

+

Head (thing)

+ postmodifier

What’s more, there are more definitions about noun phrases from other
grammarians such as: According to Jacobs (1995), noun phrases are word
phrases which are used to refer to things people want to talk about.
Referring is important, speakers need to refer to people, objects, concepts,
processes, and all kinds of entities, and noun phrases serve this function.
And Schmidt (1999) said that: A noun phrase is one or more words which

we use in a sentence as subject, direct, indirect object, complement or as
prepositional complement. In addition to, In Quirk and Greenbaum’
viewpoint (1973), the complex noun phrases consist of three components:
the head, the premodification, and the postmodification.
We see that there are many different attitudes about noun phrases
because this is studied from different aspects like: the function of noun
phrases, role of noun phrases, or components of noun phrases. However, all
definitions include some common features such as components and their
relationships of noun phrases.
2.2.1.2. Structure of English noun phrases
Basic noun phrases
8


Structurally speaking, in the first place, basic noun phrases consists
of pronouns, numerals or nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or
nouns with other closed – system items that occur before the noun head
including pre – determiners, determiners and post – determiners. Many
linguists argue that pronouns are a special class of noun. According to
Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1972), the implication of the name
as pronouns is that they replace nouns or rather whole noun phrases, since
they cannot normally occur with determiners. For example, personal
pronouns have two sets of case forms: subjective and objective: “I” / “me”,
“We” / “us”, … Subjective personal pronouns functions as subject and
sometimes as subject complement while objective personal pronouns as
object, prepositional complement and sometimes as subject complement.
These can be illustrated by;
He is happy.
I saw him at the station.
Like personal pronouns, other types of pronouns including reflexive,

possessive, relative, demonstrative, interrogative, universal, assertive, non –
assertive and negative pronouns are all basic noun phrases.
Not only can basic noun phrases consists of pronouns or numerals,
but they can also comprise a head noun with determiners or determiners
modified by pre-determiners and / or post – determiners. The head noun of a
noun phrase is the central element and decisive factor in performing the
syntactic functions of the whole noun phrase. It can be singular count noun
such as “book”, plural noun “books” or mass noun like “ink”.
Complex noun phrases
Complex noun phrases contain three components: pre – modification,
head noun and post – modification.
Head noun

9


As in the basic noun phrase, the head noun, first of all is the central
element and core component of the complex noun phrase. It may be count
or mass noun which dictates concord and (for the most part) other kinds of
congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the noun phrase.
Pre – modification
The second component of a complex noun phrase is pre-modification,
also called pre – modifiers, including modifiers that stand before the head
noun. Pre – modifiers can be closed – system and / or open – class items.
Closed – system pre – modifiers are optional in the complex noun phrases.
Meanwhile, open – class pre – modifiers come after the closed – system
ones and precede the head noun
Post – modification
The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post –
modification, called post – modifiers, comprising all the items placed after

the head. These post – modifiers are mainly realized by prepositional
phrases, finite clause (or relative clauses), non finite clauses, adjective
phrases, noun phrases or adverbial phrases:
2.2.2.

Noun phrases in Vietnamese

2.2.2.1. Definitions of Vietnamese noun phrases
Noun phrases in Vietnamese, like that of English, play a very
important role in sentences. As was stated earlier, in European languages,
especially those inflectional languages, there is a system of grammatical
categories in nouns, such as number, gender, and case. These are marked by
suffixes. English, although being a little inflectional language, has this
grammatical phenomenon, especially in number. Vietnamese is an un –
inflectional and isolating language and the word order in the language is of
special importance, relating to the word order in the noun phrase.
Vietnamese linguist focus on the combination between Vietnamese nouns

10


and other modifications as well as the combination among modifications in
the relationship with nouns.
In Vietnamese, when a noun is used to perform some functions in a
sentence, some modification is often added to form a phrase. Such phrases
in which there is a noun acting as a head are called noun phrases.
To make more clearly, we give more definitions from Vietnamese
grammarians: According to Đỗ Thị Kim Liên: “A noun phrase is
combination of words in which the noun is a central element and it has one
or more subordinate elements around to supplement grammatical meanings

to itself.” And in Lê Dũng’s viewpoint (2002), “A noun phrase is a group of
words which the beginning is a noun and its function is appositive.
2.2.2.2. Structure of Vietnamese noun phrases
In general, a noun phrase is Vietnamese may have two parts, they are:
(i)

the head taken by noun, in the middle of the phrase

(ii)

modification is divided into two parts: pre modification and
postmodification

The order of modification is never free in Vietnamese noun phrases,
occurring either as premodification or postmodification. The order of a noun
phrase may be exemplified as follow:
Premodification

Head

Post modification

Những

sản phẩm

đó

(Phạm Công Sơn, Non nước Việt Nam, nhà xuất bản văn hóa thông tin,
2009, 85)

These noun phrases consist of three parts. In some cases, such phrases
can be seen to have only two parts:
11


a. Those with premodification and the head
Phần đầu

Phần trung tâm

Premodification

Head

b. Those with the head and postmodification
Phần trung tâm

Phần cuối

Head

Postmodification

12


Chapter 3
METHODOLOGY
3.1.

Research-governing orientations
This chapter describes the research methodology used for the whole

study. It comprises of 2 main parts: Research orientations and Research
methods. Relating to research orientation, there are 4 smaller parts:
Research questions, Research approaches, Research setting, Data-related
issues/criteria for intended data collection. And research method includes
major methods, supporting methods and data collection techniques
3.1.1. Research questions
In order to achieve the set aims of the study the research questions are as
follows:
- What are the syntactic features of English noun phrases and
Vietnamese noun phrases ?
- What are the similarities and differences about syntactic features
between English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases ?
- What are the implications for translating and teaching English noun
phrases ?
3.1.2. Research setting
This research design builds on the studies done into features of
English noun phrases such as “A comprehensive grammar of the English
language” by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum et al. The study also
analyzes noun phrases from chapter seven of “Pride and prejudice” by Jane
Austen and the equivalents in the translated version in Vietnamese.
3.1.3. Research approaches

13


This study is a quantitative and qualitative research. In the early
phases, Qualitative Research is used. It can involve collecting quantitative

information, involves gathering mass of raw data from different powerful
sources. In the last phases, Quantitative Research is used to count and
classify features and construct statistical models and figures to explain what
is observed on syntactic features of noun phrases in English and
Vietnamese.
3.1.4. Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis
3.1.4.1. Research participants
The 120 participants of this study were selected from second-year
learners (including males and females) at Tourism and Foreign language of
Red Star University. English is one of the compulsory subjects, but in fact a
certain numbers of learners are facing a big challenge in mastering English.
Therefore, those who were chosen for the investigation must be the
ones who have acquired certain English knowledge. They have already
finished two textbooks of Know How. They have basic sentence structures
and vocabulary. And they are required to complete some tasks dealing with
English noun phrases
Table 3.1: Information of the research participants
Gender of participants

Number of participants

Male

40

Female

80

To implement the survey, all the participant are required to complete

some tasks dealing with English noun phrases which were essential to find
out what difficulties they are facing so as to suggest possible implications
for translating noun phrases and teaching English noun phrases.
3.1.4.2. Data collection
The syntactic features of English noun phrases were taken from books
written

by contemporary influential

linguists

in

English

as

“A
14


comprehensive grammar of the English language” by Randolph Quirk,
Sidney Greenbaum et al (1972) and from some master thesis of Trinh Thi
Minh (2009). A contrastive analysis of premodification of noun phrases in
English and Vietnamese, the minor thesis of Cao Thi Thu Giang (2005).
Noun phrases from some selected chapters from “Pride and prejudice”by
Jane Austen and the equivalents in translated version in Vietnamese.
Besides, to give some suggestions for translating noun phrases, I have
chosen the novel “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen and the translated
version by Diep Minh Tam (2009) as reference books.

3.2.

Research methods

3.2.1. Major methods and supporting methods
3.2.1.1. Major methods
Descriptive research method and comparative method will be used in
the study. Firstly, the descriptive method is used in the first stage to give the
deep and detail description of syntactic features of English noun phrases
with reference to Vietnamese equivalents. Secondly, the comparative
method will be used to find out the similarities and differences between the
syntactic features of English noun phrases and Vietnamese noun phrases.
In this research method, survey questionnaires in form of a written
test is used as one of data collection methods to evaluate the participants’
ability in understanding English noun phrases and translating noun phrases
Then statistic method is applied to present quantitative descriptions in
manageable form to simplify large amounts of data in a sensible way.
3.2.1.2. Supporting methods
The analytical method is used to define elements to form an English
noun phrase and Vietnamese noun phrase. Moreover, this method also helps
to analyze syntactic features of English noun phrases with reference to
15