SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH IDIOMS CONTAINING VERBS “GO” AND “COME” WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF ENGLISH IDIOMS CONTAINING VERBS
“GO” AND “COME” WITH REFERENCE TO
THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ
TIẾNG ANH CÓ ĐỘNG TỪ “GO” VÀ “COME” ĐỐI CHIẾU
VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)
NGUYỄN THỊ SEN

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Hanoi, 2017


NISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis
SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF ENGLISH IDIOMS CONTAINING VERBS
“GO” AND “COME” WITH REFERENCE TO
THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(ĐẶC ĐIỂM CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA THÀNH NGỮ
TIẾNG ANH CÓ ĐỘNG TỪ “GO” VÀ “COME” ĐỐI CHIẾU
VỚI TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TIẾNG VIỆT)
NGUYỄN THỊ SEN

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Dr. Phạm Thị Tuyết Hương

Hanoi, 2017


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
SYNTACTIC

AND

SEMANTIC

FEATURES

OF

ENGLISH

IDIOMS

CONTAINING VERBS “GO” AND “COME” WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 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, 2017

Nguyen Thi Sen

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Pham Thi Tuyet Huong
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 Dr. Pham Thi
Tuyet Huong, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through
the periods of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have
inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher.
My special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers at the Faculty of Post Graduate
Studies - Ha Noi Open University for their interesting lectures and useful advice. I
would also like to thank my colleagues and friends for idea sharing and
encouragement. It would never have been possible for me to have this thesis
accomplished without all of these valuable supports.
Last but not least, my thanks are also sent to my family for the sacrifice they have
devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.
To everyone, thank you so much.

ii

ABSTRACT
Idioms are widely used in English and Vietnamese both in daily conversations and
literary works. The differences between English and Vietnamese culture resulted in
many differences in their languages. One of the most effective ways to transfer culture
is the use of the idioms which, however, cause many troubles for English learners
because of their idiomatic meanings. In order to help learners to have a better
understanding of idioms, particularly idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”, this
study attempted to point out the syntactic and semantic features of English idioms
containing verbs “go” and “come”, then find out similarities and differences between
English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” and their Vietnamese equivalents.
Descriptive and contrastive methods are followed to achieve the set objectives. 225
examples of the idioms in English and Vietnamese have been analyzed cautiously by
applying qualitative and quantitative methods to find out common errors made by
learners in the usage of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”. In the
study, English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” is compared with the idioms
containing verbs “đi” and “đến” in Vietnamese in terms of their syntactic and semantic
features. In addition, the findings of the study also offer some implications which
could be beneficial for teaching and learning English idioms more effectively.

iii


LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1:

Syntactic features of English idioms containing the verb “go”

29

Table 2:

Syntactic features of English idioms containing the verb “come”

33

Table 3:

Semantic features of English idioms containing the verb “go”

36

Table 4:

Semantic features of English idioms containing the verb “come”

40

Table 5:

Percentages of functions of English idioms containing “go” “come”

43

and Vietnamese ones containing “đi” “đến”
Table 6:

Semantic features of Vietnamese idioms containing verbs “đi” and

46

“đến”
Table 7:

Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 1

51

Table 8:

Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 2

52

Table 9:

Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 3

52

Table 10:

Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 4

52

Table 11:

Percentages of the students’ incorrect answers in exercise 5

53

Figure:

Learners’ errors in using English idioms containing verbs “go” and

54

“come”

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality

i

Acknowledgements

ii

Abstract

iii

List of tables and figures

iv

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1

1.1 Rationale for the study

1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

2

1.3. Research questions

2

1.4 Methods of the study

3

1.5 Scope of the study

3

1.6 Significance of the study

4

1.7 Design of the study

4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Previous studies

6

2.2 Overview of theory of syntax and semantics

8

2.2.1 Theory of syntax

8

2.2.2 Theory of semantics

9

2.3 Overview of English verbs

10

2.3.1 Verbs

10

2.3.2 Verb phrase

11

2.4 An overview of English idioms

12

2.4.1 Definition of idioms

12

2.4.2 Features of idioms

13

2.4.2.1 Syntactic features of idioms

14

v


2.4.2.2 Semantic features of idioms

17

2.4.3 Classification of idioms

18

2.4.4 Idioms and other similar language units

19

2.4.4.1 Idioms and metaphor

19

2.4.4.2 Idioms and phrases

19

2.4.4.3 Idioms and proverbs

20

2.4.4.4 The relationship between idioms and culture

21

2.5 English idioms containing the verbs “go” and “come”

22

2.5.1 The verbs “go” and “come” in English and Vietnamese

22

2.5.1.1 The verbs “go” and “come” in English

22

2.5.1.2 The verbs “go” and “come” in Vietnamese

23

2.5.2 English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”

25

2.6 Theory of errors

25

2.7 Summary

27

Chapter 3: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH
IDIOMS CONTAINING VERBS “GO” AND “COME” WITH REFERENCE
TO THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
3.1 Syntactic features of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”

28

3.1.1 Syntactic features of English idioms containing verb “go”

28

3.1.2 Syntactic features of English idioms containing verb “come”

33

3.2 Semantic features of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”

36

3.2.1 Semantic features of English idioms containing verb “go”

36

3.2.2 Semantic features of English idioms containing verb “come”

40

3.3 Comparison between English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” and their
Vietnamese equivalents

42

3.3.1 In terms of syntactic features of English idioms containing verbs “go” and
“come”

43
vi


3.3.2 In terms of semantic features of English idioms containing verbs “go” and
“come”

46

Chapter 4: COMMON ERRORS MADE BY LEARNERS WHEN USING

ENGLISH IDIOMS CONTAINING “GO” AND “COME”

AND THEIR

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
4.1 Survey questionnaires

48

4.1.1 Subject

48

4.1.2 Questionnaires

48

4.1.3 Procedure

49

4.2 Common errors made by learners when using English idioms containing “go” and
“come” and their Vietnamese equivalents
4.2.1 Common errors made by learners of English

50

4.2.2 Causes of committing errors

54

4.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning English idioms containing “go” and “come”
and their Vietnamese equivalents

55

4.3.1 Suggestions for teaching English idioms containing “go” and “come” and their
Vietnamese equivalents

55

4.3.2 Suggestions for learning English idioms containing “go” and “come” and their
Vietnamese equivalents

58

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION
5.1 Concluding remarks

60

5.2 Limitation of the study

61

5.3 Suggestions for further study

61

REFERENCES

62

APPENDICES

66

vii


Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
In daily communication, sometimes learners come across some expressions that
they cannot understand although they can comprehend the meaning of every single
word in the expressions. The main reason why learners fail to understand what these
sentences are all about lies in the low level of linguistic competence of English idioms.
Idiom is often defined as “a group of words which have a different meaning when used
together from the one it would have if the meaning of each word was taken
individually”. In fact, idioms are frequently heard and read in everyday speech and in
literature thanks to their succinctness, vividness and especially quintessence in every
language. Idioms in this way bear the cultural features of a country in which they are
used. In order to understand as well as translate idioms from a language into another
one, knowledge of not only linguistic aspects but also of cultural reality has to be
involved.
In translation, learners often encounter English idioms, especially idioms
containing the verbs “go” and “come” which make it difficult to translate from English
into Vietnamese. Due to the specific features of each language, idioms in this language
do not always have an exact translation in the other. In addition, there are many ways
to explain the meaning of an idiom. It depends on where, when, why and who uses it.

It means that when the cultural knowledge of speakers and listeners is different, the
idioms will have a variety of meanings. Moreover, in the huge idiomatic treasure, the
way people use idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” to satisfy their own need in
daily communication is paid much attention. Absolutely, the common
verbs “go” and “come” are often confusing. Some reasons why this happens are
that “go” and “come” have the same basic meaning, but are used in different structures
and for different directions. Therefore, foreign learners meet many difficulties in
learning idioms in general and idioms containing “go” and “come” in particular.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms (1994) states in its introduction that the
“accurate and appropriate use of English expressions which are in the broadest
idiomatic sense is one distinguishing mark of a native command of the language and a
1


reliable measure of the proficiency of foreign learners". These strong properties of
idioms have posed a serious challenge for several four studies among linguists for the
last decades such as Collins, V. H.(1960), Cruse, D. A. (1987) or Mc Carthy, M. and
O'Dell, F (2010). There have been so far studies on idioms containing such terms as
colors, animals, plants and so on. However, none of them researched into the idioms
related to verbs “go” and “come” in English and their Vietnamese equivalents.
From the mentioned – above reasons, the difficulties that Vietnamese learners may
meet are not only in syntactic form but in semantic form as well. Moreover, English
idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” occur frequently. Thus, a study on
“syntactic and semantic features of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”
with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents” is chosen to help learners use English
idioms effectively.
1.2 Aims and objectives of the study
1.2.1 Aims of the study
The study aims at investigating syntactic and semantic features of English idioms
containing verbs “go” and “come” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents in

order to provide learners with a better understanding of English idioms.
1.2.2 Objectives of the study
With a view to achieving the mentioned-above aims, some specific objectives
have been put forward as follows:
1. To point out syntactic and semantic features of English idioms containing verbs
“go” and “come” and their Vietnamese equivalents.
2. To find out the similarities and differences of English idioms containing verbs “go”
and “come” and their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic
features.
3. To suggest some implications to help Vietnamese students to use appropriate
English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”.
1.3 Research questions
The study is conducted to find out the answers of the following questions:
1. What are the syntactic and semantic features of English idioms containing verbs
“go” and “come” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents?

2


2. What are similarities and differences between English idioms containing “go” and
“come” and their Vietnamese equivalents?
3. What are common errors and possible solutions in teaching and learning English
idioms containing “go” and “come”?
1.4 Methods of the study
In order to complete this study, some different research methods will be applied.
Firstly, descriptive method is applied to describe in details syntactic and semantic
features of English idioms through examples of English idioms containing verbs “go”
and “come”.
Secondly, contrastive method is used to identify the similarities and differences
between English and Vietnamese idioms in terms of syntactic and semantic features of

English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”.
Thirdly, qualitative method is used to identify the relationship between the
syntactic and semantic features of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come”
with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents from different sources of selective
material with a view to design a survey questionnaire to find out the common errors
made by the third-year students at Hai Phong university when using idioms in general,
and translating English idioms containing “go” and “come” into Vietnamese.
Finally, quantitative method is used to collect and analyze the results taken from
the survey questionnaires, defining the common errors made by participants in order to
give some possible solutions for translating English idioms containing “go” and
“come” into Vietnamese in an effective way.
1.5 Scope of the study
This study is restricted to English idioms containing the verb “go” and the verb
“come” and their equivalent idioms containing the verb “đi” and the verb “đến” in
Vietnamese as a specifically characteristic trait of English language. A study shows
that there are a total of 225 idioms in Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial
Expressions (2006), American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2011),
Từ điển Thành ngữ Anh – Việt thông dụng (1995) and Tuyển tập Thành ngữ Tục ngữ
Ca dao Việt – Anh thông dụng (2007). Out of which as many as 100 English idioms
contain the verb “go”; 85 ones contain the verbs “come” and 40 Vietnamese idioms
contain the verbs “đi” and “đến”. The research focuses mainly on syntactic and
3


semantic features of English idioms containing the verb “go” and the verb “come”
with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents to find out the similarities and
differences in comparison with their Vietnamese equivalents.
1.6 Significance of the study
Theoretically, it is hoped that the study will give English learners a full
description of syntactic and semantic features of English idioms containing verbs “go”

and “come”; from this, the study will figure out some basic similarities and differences
of idioms with these verbs between English and Vietnamese languages. Thus, other
researchers and linguistics could take it as a reliable reference to make further studies
in this field.
Practically, the results of this study can be applied to assist English learners
know how to use English idioms properly in daily communication and especially avoid
confusing interferences in translating English idioms containing verbs “go” and
“come” into Vietnamese. This study can also help learners realize that features of
English idioms containing verb “go” and “come” with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents is a useful reference resource for learning and teaching English.
1.7 Design of the study
This thesis consists of five chapters: Introduction, Literature Review, English
idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents, Common errors made by learners when using English idioms containing
verbs “go” and “come” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents and
Conclusion.
Chapter 1 – “Introduction” – presents a brief account of relevant information for
carrying out the study such as rationale for choosing the topic, aims and objectives,
scope, significance and structure of the thesis.
Chapter 2 – “Literature Review” – presents overview of previous researches
related to the thesis topic and covers a series of idioms – related concepts such as:
definition of verbs, definition of verb phrase; definition of idioms, features of idioms,
classification of idioms, the relationship between idioms and culture, English idioms
containing verbs “go” and “come” and theory of errors.
Chapter 3 – “English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” with reference to
their Vietnamese equivalents” – describes and analyses syntactic and semantic features
4


of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” with reference to their

Vietnamese equivalents to find out similarities and differences between two languages.
Chapter 4 – “Common errors made by learners when using English idioms
containing verbs “go” and “come” with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents” –
presents the major findings results from the survey, points out common errors made by
learners and proposes possible solutions for teaching and learning English idioms
containing verbs “go” and “come” effectively.
Chapter 5 – “Conclusion” – summaries the major findings above, presents
limitation of the study and provides some recommendations for further research on this
important subject.
References and Appendixes come at the end of the thesis.

5


Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Previous studies
Idioms are a broad and interesting phenomenon of every language. Idioms also
convey a large amount of nationally and culturally specific information. Thus, many
linguists especially lexicologists all over the world have paid much attention to them
in various fields such as syntax, semantics and translation, etc. There is no doubt that a
considerable number of books and dictionaries on idioms have brought learners with
great benefits.
One of the famous works done by Makkai (1972) was “Idiom structure in
English”. In this book, the concept of idiomatic areas is launched and the membership
of each is illustrated with a small number of typical examples. Each type of idiom in
the first idiomatic area (lexemic system) and the second idiomatic area (semantic
system) is described in terms of its internal structure and assigned a label. This
discussion of the idiomatic areas and their membership is integrated with a general
definition of the idiom in both lexicology and semiology. By describing these two

idiomatic areas, Makkai suggests a framework by which all types of English idioms
have been mentioned.
The research on “English idioms and how to use them” conducted by Seidl, J. and
McMordie, W. in 1978, presented idioms with various key words or key structures.
They gave some keywords with idiomatic uses in some parts of speech such as
adjectives, adverbs, nouns and miscellaneous in other chapters. They also presented
idioms with key structures in each individual part with some examples to illustrate
such as idioms with nouns and adjectives, idiomatic pairs, idioms with prepositions,
phrasal verbs, verbal idioms, idioms from special subjects and idioms with key words
from special categories and idioms with comparison.
Another study on “Idioms for everyday uses” was carried out by Broukal, M. in
1994. The research consisted of different related topics such as colors, food, animals,
numbers, parts of the body, etc. It was presented in form of reading comprehension
practice to help learners collecting the meaning for convenient reference.

6


In 2010, McCarthy, M. and O'Dell, F. carried out a research on “English idioms in
uses”, which consisted of six sections with practice exercises. In section one, key
aspects of what idioms are and how to use them were dealt with. In section two, the
authors presented specific individual types of idioms. In section three, the units were
organized around the topic or functional area where they are most likely to be used.
The section four focused on some of the written contexts where idioms are frequently
found. The ways in which idioms are typically used in spoken language were focused
on in the next section. The last section concentrated on one keyword which gave rise
to a particularly large number of English idioms.
In Vietnamese, idioms have been also an interesting field for linguists. They are:
“Idioms Dictionary English – Vetnamese” by Bùi Phụng (2000), “Thành ngữ tiếng
Việt” by Nguyễn Lực and Lương Văn Đang (2001) and so on. They wrote “Thành

ngữ tiếng Việt” which is a collection of Vietnamese idioms arranged in alphabetical
order with clear explanations and examples extracted from Vietnamese novels,
newspapers and magazines.
Moreover, in 2008, Nguyễn Trần Trụ who wrote “Thành ngữ tục ngữ lược giải”
explains meaning of the most common idioms and proverbs in such clear ways that
learners can use this book for consulting and reference purposes.
After that, it should be noticed the works of Đỗ Hữu Châu, who wrote “Từ vựng –
Ngữ nghĩa tiếng Việt” (1981). He analyzed Vietnamese idioms and showed their
semantic and syntactic features.
At Hanoi Open University, there are several research papers that have some
relationship with various aspects of idioms. “English idioms containing the word
“blood” or “bone” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents” by Phạm Thu Hằng
(2014), “A study on English idioms denoting food and drink with reference to the
Vietnamese equivalents by Nguyễn Song Anh (2015), “A study of English idioms
denoting “fear” with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents” by Nguyễn Thị Thanh
Mai (2015) and so on.
However, there have so far been no studies dealing with English idioms containing
verbs “go” and “come” in terms of syntactic and semantic features yet. Especially, the
equivalents between two languages, English and Vietnamese, have not been
implemented. As a result, this study is being carried out to identify the similarities and
7


differences of English idioms containing verbs “go” and “come” in both two languages
in terms of syntactic and semantic features, then on that basis propose some
implications for teaching and learning English idioms in general and English idioms
containing verbs “go” and “come” in particular.
2.2 Overview of theory of syntax and semantics
2.2.1 Theory of syntax
Syntax is a set of principles in language. It dictates how words from different parts

of speech are put together with the aim of conveying a complete thought. Dixon,
R.M.W (1991) states that syntax deals with the way in which words are combined
together. Syntax is considered to be the theory of the structure of sentence in a
language. This notion has its direct antecedents in the theory of immediate
constituents, in which the function of syntax is to mediate between the observed forms
of a sentence and its meaning. Verbs are different grammatical properties from
language to language but there is always a major class verb, which includes word
referring to motion, rest, notice, giving and speaking.
According to Bloomfield (1993), “we could not understand the form of a language
if we merely reduced all the complex forms to their ultimate constituents”. He pointed
that in order to account for the meaning of a sentence, it is necessary to recognize how
individual constituents such words and morphemes constitute more complex forms.
Syntax is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways in which
words are combined to form phrases, clauses and sentences in a language. Syntax,
which is a subfield of grammar, focuses on the word order of a language and
relationships between words. In other words, morphology deals with word formation
out of morphemes whereas syntax deals with phrase and sentence formation out of
words.
Syntax structures are analyzable into sequences of syntactic categories or syntactic
classes, these being established on the basic of the syntactic relationships and
linguistic items have with other items in a construction. Every language has a limited
number of syntactic relations. Subject and object are probably universal of syntactic
relations, which apply to every language. However, just as the criteria for the major
words class noun and verb differ from language to language, so do the ways in which
syntactic relations are marked.
8


2.2.2 Theory of semantics
Semantics is a branch of linguistics, which deals with meaning or the content of

communication. Hurford and Heasley (1983) state that “semantics is the study of
meaning in language.” Language is a means of communication and used to
communicate with others by making conversations, giving information and other
things to make social relationship. Human beings have been given the ability to talk, to
communicate with each other, to make meaningful utterances, so that they are
understood by other human beings. They communicate about the world in which they
live, about themselves, about their thought and feeling, about what has happened,
about what might happen or what they would like to happen and a lot more.
Hurford and Heasley describe “the giving of information is itself an act of
courtesy, performed to strengthen social relationships”. This is also part of
communication. There are some linguists that try to define semantics. Furthermore, as
quoted by Lyons (1977) at first refers to semantics as the study of the relations of signs
to the objects to which the signs are applicable. And then he amends his definition,
saying that, semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of
sign in all modes of signifying.
Semantics is usually connected with pragmatics Carnap (Lyons, 1977) says that
descriptive semantics (i.e. the investigation of the meaning of expressions in
“historically given natural language”), may be considered as part of pragmatics. The
reason why descriptive semantics is part of pragmatics seem to have been that he
believed that difference in the use of particular expressions were not only inevitable in
language – behavior, but must be taken account of in the description or context. Smith,
as quoted by Lyons (1977) mentions “semantics studies how these signs are related to
things. And pragmatics studied how they are related to people”. According to Leech
(1983) in practice, the problem of distinguishing language and language use has
centered on a boundary dispute between semantics and pragmatics. Hurford and
Heasley (1983) further explain that the study of semantics is largely a matter of
conceptually and exploring the nature of meaning in a careful and thoughtful way,
using a wide range of examples, many of which we can draw from our knowledge. But
Richards, J., Platt, J., Weber, H. (1987) point that “the study of meaning is semantics.
Semantics is usually concerned with the analysis of the meaning of words, phrases or

9


sentences and sometimes with the meaning of utterances in discourse or the meaning
of a whole text.”
Crystal, D. (1992) defines that “semantics is the study of meaning in language.”
Structural semantics applied the principles of structural linguistics to the study of
meaning through the notion of semantic relations (also called sense relation), such as
synonymy and antonyms. In generative grammar, the semantic component is a major
area of the grammar’s organization, assigning a semantic representation to sentences,
and analyzing lexical terms of semantic features.
In brief, semantics is one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics. The
theory of semantic field includes the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted,
clarified, covered, illustrated, simplified, negotiated, contradicted and paraphrased.
Theory of syntax and semantics is carried out first with main purpose to decide the
theoretical framework of the study in the chapter three.
2.3 Overview of English verbs
2.3.1 Verbs
Verbs are parts of speech expressing existence, action, or occurrence in most
languages. Moreover, verbs are considered to be the king of all parts of speech in
English. At the heart of every sentence is a verb, an action word that is generally
indicates what someone or something is doing or perhaps simply indicates being.
According to Dixon, R.M.W. (1991), a verb is defined as “the center of a clause”.
A verb refers to some activity and there must be a number of participants who have
roles in that activity as: “Sinbad carried the old man”; or it may refer to a state, and
there must be a participant to experience the state as: “My leg aches”. A set of verbs is
grouped together as one semantic type partly because they involve the same set of
participant roles. For example, all giving verbs require a Donor, a Gift and a Recipient,
all attention verbs take a Perceiver and an Impression (that is seen or heard).
Affect verbs are likely to involve an Agent, a Target and something which is

manipulated by the Agent to come into contact with the target which I call manip. A
manip can always be stated, although it often does not have to be.
Alexander, L.G. (1983) states that a verb is a word or a phrase which expresses the
existence of a state or doing an action.

10


Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic (1998) points out a verb is a word or
phrase indicating an action, an event or state.
Borahash (1975) defines that the verb is a part of speech denoting an action or a
process.
According to Richards, J.C. & et al (1992), a word is a verb when it satisfies these
following criteria: occurs as a part of the predicate of a sentence; carries markers of
grammatical categories such as tense, aspect, person, number and mood; refers to an
action or state.
2.3.2 Verb phrase
There are many definitions of verb phrase in every aspect. Halliday defines the
verb phrase as a constituent that functions as “Finite plus Predicator” in the mood
structure (clause as exchange); and as Process in the transitivity structure (clause as
representation). Verb phrase refers to actions, events and states.
A verb phrase is the expansion of a verb and consists of a sequence of words of
the primary class of verb. The verb phrase can be expressed both as an experiential and
as a logical structure. Because there is very much less lexical material in the verb
phrase, only one lexical item, in fact, the experiential structure is extremely simple and
most of the semantic load is carry by the logical structure including the tense system.
Multi-word verbs lexical verbs followed by one or two particles which are
considered to be part of the verb and which are often equivalent to one lexical item.
They can be grouped into four main classes: phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs,
phrasal-prepositional verbs and prepositional verbs with two complements.

According to traditional grammar perspective, the structure of verb phrase may be
described in terms of auxiliaries and main verbs, the main verb normally being the sole
verb in cases where the verb phrase consists of one verb only. In other way, the
structure may be represented in terms of finite and non-finite verb words. On this
basis, a finite verb phrase is a verb phrase in which the first or only word is a finite
verb, the rest of the verb phrase (if any) consisting of non-finite verbs: on the other
hand, a non-finite verb phrase contains non-finite verb forms only.
According to Kies (2009), a verb phrase consists of a head verb, its functional
parts: the auxiliary verbs and the main verbs (lexical verbs). Firstly, the auxiliary verb
is the grammatical morpheme carrying information about mood, tense, modality and
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voice. Secondly, the main verb is a lexical morpheme carrying its lexical information
and usually an inflection. In English, the main verb includes five types: Intransitive
verb, Intensive verb, Monotransitive verb, Complex transitive verb and Distransitive
verb.
2.4 Overview of idioms
2.4.1 Definition of idioms
Language follows the rules but an idiom is one of the interesting things that are
abnormalities of language, mavericks of the linguistic world. There are a lot of
definitions of idioms introduced in a variety of English and Vietnamese materials.
In “English idioms in Use Advanced”, McCarthy, M. and O’Dell, F. are defined:
“Idioms are fixed combinations of words whose meaning is often difficult to guess
from the meaning of each individual word”. (2010)
Seidle and Mordie (1978) states that “an idiom is a number of words which, taken
together, mean something different from the individual words of the idiom when they
stand alone”. Palmer (1990) shares the similar viewpoint on idioms. He considers that
an idiom is an expression whose meaning cannot be inferred from the meanings of its
parts. It can be seen that there are two visible points in his statements. First, an idiom

is a phrase; second, its meaning is not simply the meanings of constituents making up
the phrase. Collin (1995) has the same idea but a different way to define idioms. He
shows that “an idiom is a special kind of phrase. It is a group of words which have a
different meaning when used together from the one it would have if the meaning of
each word were taken individually”. Crowth, J. (1995) regards an idiom as “a phrase
whose meaning is difficult or sometimes impossible to guess by looking at the
individual word it contains”.
In other words, an idiom is a multi-word construction that makes a complete
referential unit whose meaning is often impossible to deduce from its individual word.
For example, the common phrase “go fly a kite” means simply “to leave”. It has
nothing to do with either “fly” or “kite”. Those who know only the meaning of these
two words would be unable to presume the integrity meaning of the phrase. Thus,
idioms are non-literal expressions. They are also fixed expressions whose meaning
cannot be taken as a combination of the meanings of its component parts.

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In Vietnam, Hoang Phe in “Từ điển tiếng Việt” (1997) mentions the definition of
idioms. According to him, an idiom is “a set of expression whose meaning is generally
inexplicable simply through the meaning of individual word it contains”.
According to the book titled “Vấn đề cấu tạo từ trong tiếng Việt hiện đại” (2003),
Hồ Lê refers an idiom is a word combination which has stable structure and figurative
meaning and is used to describe an image, a phenomenon, a characteristic, or a state.
In “Ngữ nghĩa của thành ngữ, tục ngữ có thành tố chỉ động vật trong tiếng Anh”
(1996), Phan Van Que regarded idioms as “a group of words combined together to
express something whose meaning is different from its constituent.”
To sum up, there are different ways of defining an idiom, most of the linguists
share the same point that an idiom is a fixed expression whose meaning cannot be
worked out by looking at the individual meanings of the morphemes it comprises.

Besides, idioms may also convey a particular attitude of the person using them.
2.4.2 Features of idioms
The basic characteristic of idiomatic expressions is that the words are used
metaphorically. Thus, the surface structure has a little role to play in understanding the
meaning of the whole expression. Vinogradov (1977) compares the meaning of
idiomatic expressions with “the special chemical mixture” which is partially or
completely new compared with the meaning of all the components. Learners of
English cannot usually realize the meanings by looking up the individual words in a
dictionary when studying idioms; most of the idioms are metaphorical rather than
literal. For instance, in order to understand the idiom “come down in the world”, we
have to consider its meaning metaphorically as “to lose one’s social position or
financial standing”. Consequently, the first notice of English idioms is their semantic
opacity or their figurative sense and non-literalness by another term. Semantic opacity
means that idioms are often non-literal. For this reason, the individual words which
make up the idiom do not carry any meaning of their own. There is usually very little,
if any, connection between the literal meanings of the individual words and the
idiomatic meaning of the whole phrase (Fernando 1996). According to Makkai (1972),
the meaning of an idiom is not predictable from its component parts, because they are
used in a figurative, non-literal sense. The meaning of an idiom is therefore hardly
ever the sum of its individual parts. However, some idioms whose literal meaning and
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figurative one is almost identical so that readers or listeners can deduce the meaning.
For instance, the idiom “easy come, easy go” seems to make no difficulty for readers
or listeners to guess its meanings that “easily achieved, easily lost”.
A large number of idioms in English and probably all languages have both a literal
and an idiomatic meaning. Therefore, another feature of idioms which is mentioned
rather often in theoretical literature is ambiguity. Weinreich (1969) states that
ambiguity is one of the most fundamental features of idioms: this ambiguity arises

from the fact that the constituents of an idiom have literal equivalents in other
contexts. Additionally, in Makkai’s (1972) definition of an idiom this ambiguity is in
extremely central place. According to him, idioms are often subject to “a possible lack
of understanding despite familiarity with the meaning of the components”.
2.4.2.1 Syntactic features
An idiom is a fixed group of words. Each word is considered as a component of an
idiom and an idiom can consist of at least two components. In the book titled “In other
words”, Baker, M. (1992) describes idioms are frozen patterns of language which
allow little or no variation in form and often carry meanings which cannot be deduced
from their individual components. Idioms are structurally and lexically restricted;
hence, the components and grammatical structures of idioms cannot be changed,
added, omitted or replaced. They cannot be varied in the way literal expressions are
normally varied both in speech and writing. In both English and Vietnamese, the
stability in idioms is very high.
However, according to Fraser, B. (1970), there are specified idioms between those
which are able to undergo all the grammatical changes and those which are unable to
undergo the smallest grammar changes at all. Thus, there are some idioms which have
two or more alternative forms without losing their idiomatic meaning. These different
forms sometimes reflect differences between British and American English. For
examples, “go along for the ride” and “come along for the ride” have the same
meanings “to join in an activity without playing an important part in it”; or also, “go
for broke” and “go for it” share the same meanings “to try your best”. In many cases,
several verbs can be used in an idiom such as “Go/sell like hot cakes” (to be bought or
taken quickly because of being popular or cheap). In fact, idioms are only fixed in
some of their parts but not all. Idioms are expressions, not subjected to analysis, only
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some syntactic changes may be carried out in them. The idioms which can easily be
subjected to syntactic changes are more flexible. Tense changes within idioms can be

possible made in most of idioms, so they indicate the animation of the actions in
different tenses on the person’s mind, for example: “come in useful” => “came in
useful” (to be useful). In addition, some idioms can be broken or changed more or less
in their structures, for example, “easy come, easy go/ light come, light go”. In the
same way, prepositions can vary, for example, “come up/out smelling like a rose” (to
succeed; to do better than anyone else in some situations).
Moreover, each idiom has a stable structure and meaning; an idiom can have a
regular structure, an irregular or even a grammatical incorrect structure. Firstly, idioms
which have a regular structure have common forms but there is no combination
between the meaning of each component and that of the whole unit, for example,
“come a long way” (to make a lot of progress and improvement). Secondly, the idioms
can be groups of words which have unconventional forms but their meaning can be
worked out through the meaning of individual words such as “make your enemy your
friend”. In accordance with the rule of grammar, the structures of the verb “make” are
“make somebody do something” and “make somebody/something + Adjective”.
However, in this case, the idiom does not need to obey grammatical rule to make
sense, it can still be understood that “make your enemy become your friend”. Finally,
the idioms can be group of words which both are grammatically inaccurate and the
meaning is not precisely expressed by gathering the meaning of each member-word
such as: “Go over big (with someone)” (to be very much appreciated by someone). The
structure of the above idioms is written as “V + preposition + Adjective”. Although in
English grammar normally prepositions are never followed by adjectives; in this case,
the idiom is acceptable. It can be considered as an exception in language.
According to Bell, R.T (1974), some of structural features which are crucial in the
recognition of idioms are:
• Alteration of grammatical rules: The idiom is not always grammatical but it is
instituted, accepted and used by native speakers of the language with a fixed
structure and meaning. E.g: She had several goes at the high jump before he
succeeded in clearing it. (singular with a plural noun)

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• Conventional Phrases: The idiomatic expressions are special expressions which
are almost known and agreed by all the members of a particular community.
E.g: At one go. (at once)
• Alteration of word order: Idiomatic expressions in English usually do not
respect the English word order. E.g: Go as red as beet (normal word order) or
Go beet red. (probably)
• Figurativeness: The fundamental characteristic of idiomatic expressions is that
the words are used metaphorically. Therefore, the surface structure has a little
role to play in understanding the meaning of the whole expression. For
example, in the idiom “go to the dogs” (to become less successful or efficient
than before), the meanings of the words “to go” and “the dogs” are different
from the meaning of the whole expression.
• Phrasal verbs: There is the most common type of idioms in English. Many of
them carry idiomatic meanings that cannot be inferred from the form, unless the
phrase is already known. E.g: I will go along with you on that matter (to agree);
or The patient who’d been knocked out finally came around. (to regain
consciousness).
According to the authors of Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms such as Cowie,
A.P, Martin, R. and McCaig, I.R, there are enormous structural varieties of English
idioms, which can be classified under two general headings: Phrase idioms and clause
idioms. Besides these two main types, there is also another types of idioms, that is
sentence idioms.
• Clause idioms: Verb + Complement (Go berserk, come true), Verb + Direct
Object (Control one’s anger),Verb + Direct Object + Complement (Go beet
red), Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object (Go home to mama), Verb + Direct
Object + Adjunct (Go home in a box)
• Phrase idioms: Noun phrase (The shape of things to come), Adjective phrase

(Nearest and dearest), Prepositional phrase (With open arm) and Adverbial
phrase (At one go).

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