SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF NEGATIVE STATEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THU HƯƠNG

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF NEGATIVE STATEMENTS IN ENGLISH
AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA
CỦA CÂU TRẦN THUẬT PHỦ ĐỊNH TRONG TIẾNG ANH
VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT

M.A THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2018
1


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS
SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES
OF NEGATIVE STATEMENTS IN ENGLISH
AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
ĐẶC ĐIỂM CẤU TRÚC VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA
CỦA CÂU TRẦN THUẬT PHỦ ĐỊNH TRONG TIẾNG ANH
VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT

Student‟s name : NGUYỄN THU HƯƠNG
Supervisor: Dr. ĐẶNG NGỌC HƯỚNG

Hanoi, 2018
2


CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the background of the study, reasons for choosing the
topic, statements of the problem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, and
outline of the study.
1.1 Rationale for the study
English is the powerful business language. It has become a necessity for people
tospeak English if they want to enter a global environment. Most of the information on
the internet is in English. Knowing English will allow people to access to an enormous
amount of information. We can see that English is also a valuable language to learn
and can create many opportunities. Most international events use English as their
official language. Learning English is essential if the job or hobby is to get involved in
such events. Not only it helps to understand the many activities in the event, but also
take advantage of opportunities to develop the career.
“Grammar has always been playing a role in foreign language teaching and
learning. This may probably be one of the reasons leading to the debates of teaching
grammar. The debates result in fresh cognition of grammar: it is very important in that
not only does it help improve learners writing, but also it helps learners do better in
reading comprehension and listening alike; more significantly, the problem of how to
teach grammar has been raised. The finding from the survey is that middle school
students from China believe that grammar is very important and necessary. There are
several reasons for its importance and necessity, one of which is that they have few
opportunities and little time to get enough input inside and outside the class.”

(Shengmei Wang, 2010).
This paper plans to show some differences and similarities of simple negative
statements in English and Vietnamese, improve Vietnamese English-as-foreignlanguage students‟ knowledge in English and Vietnamese negative phrases and make a
comparison between English and Vietnamese negative phrases.
To achieve the aim of the paper, the objectives are set: describing the structure
of negative phrases in Vietnamese and English sentences, contrasting to find out the

3


similarities and differences in the structure of negative forms in English and
Vietnamese sentences and drawing practical applications and conclusions of the study.
The study concentrates on simple negative sentences in English and
Vietnamese. However, this study just focuses on some conventional forms and
constructions of the negative forms of the two languages because of the restricted
scope. The study wishes to point out the language tools denoting negative in English
and the corresponding language tools denoting negative in Vietnamese. Base on that,
the study presents the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in
the simple sentences of negative forms.
The syntactic and semantic features of negative phrases will be referenced in the
bilingual book: “The World is flat” by Thomas L.Friedman, translated by Nguyen
Quan A, Nguyen Hong Quang, Vu Duy Thanh, La Viet Ha, Le Hong Van and Ha Thi
Thanh Huyen, published in 2010.
For the above mentioned reasons, the thesis has the title: NEGATIVE
STATEMENT IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS.
1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study
This thesis is aimed to analyzing of syntactic and semantic features of
English negative statements with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents and find
out the similarities and differences between them. Base on the result found, the author

will give the suggestions for teaching, learning English negative statements to
Vietnamese learners of intermediate level who can successfully using English on a day
to day basic at work and still want to advance their foreign language skill.
There are three main objectives in this study. The first objective is to identify
syntactic and semantic features of negative statements in English and their Vietnamese
equivalents. The second one is to find out the syntactic and semantic similarities and
differences between English negative statements and their Vietnamese equivalents.
And last but not least, it is to offer some implications for teaching and learning and
English negative statements.

4


1.3 Research questions
To achieve the aims and objectives of the thesis, the following research question
is put forward:
1. What are the syntactic and semantic features of the negative statements in
English and their Vietnamese equivalents?
2. What are the syntactic and semantic similarities and differences between
English negative statements and their Vietnamese equivalents?
3. What are the implications for teaching and learning English negative
statements?
1.4 Scope of the study
As the title indicates, the thesis focuses on the study of the syntactic and
semantic features of English negative sentences and their Vietnamese equivalents. The
research does not focus on negative phrases which appear in all types of sentence, but
only in English statements and their Vietnamese equivalents in novels and short stories.
Due to time, length limit of the thesis and the ability of the writer, the paper intends to
devote only to investigating the syntactic and semantic features of these negative
phrases. In other words,

- The thesis only focuses on the investigation of negative statements, not other
types of sentences (not questions and requests)
- The term negative in the thesis means the shortage or nonexistence of
something. This meaning is expressed either with such words as NO, NOT, NEVER,
etc. or with words that imply negative meaning such as hardly, few, etc. For this
reseaon, the negative statements investigated in the thesis will deal with those
sentences which have the meaning of the whole clause or parts of the clause.
- The thesis will not investigate negative meanings implied in other types of
sentences. That is why the sentences like I can‟t do it is the subject for investigation;
the sentences like *How can I do it alone is outside the scope of study.
- The thesis does not attempt to make comparison between English negative
sentences and Vietnamese ones since English and Vietnamese belong to different
linguistic typology; English grammar is not the same as Vietnamese grammar.

5


Therefore, the thesis will compare negative sentences in English with their translated
versions especially in terms of word order in the sentencee.
1.5 Significance of the study.
Theoretical significance:
Theoretically, the study will provide a full description of syntactic and semantic
features of howEnglishnegative statementsareclassified, whatthecommonlyused English
negative statementsand their Vietnamese equivalents are and how these kinds negative
statements are used in different types of discourses. From this, the thesis analyzes the
syntactic and semantic features of the English negative statements at phrase level and
their Vietnamese equivalents.
Practical significance
In practice, the study aims to offer implications to language teaching and
language learning of the English negative statements. The practical information is

hoped to raise the language users‟ awareness of the differences between the two
languages in terms of negative statements from phrase point of view so that they can
effectively apply in English communication.
1.6 Design of the study
The thesis is divided into five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: The Introduction, which includes the rationale, aims and objectives of the
study, research questions, scope of the study, significance and organization of the
study.
Chapter 2: The Literature Review review of related literature and the theoretical
backgrounds of the study, in which theories of negative statements are discussed.
Negative statements will be also identified in terms of grammatical characteristics in
structures at phrase level. Also, this chapter presents and describes concrete cases of
English negative statements with its Vietnamese equivalents in corresponding
contexts.
Chapter 3: The Methodology, presents the research governing orientations and the
research methods used in implementing and developing the study. This chapter focuses
on research questions, research setting, approaches to investigate the research problem,
6


the principles, techniques to collect and analyze data, etc.
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion, introduces the results of the survey which
syntactic and semantic features of the English negative statements appear in the
documentary book “The world is flat”. Several similarities and differences of the
negative statements are illustrated. The research recommendations for learning English
as a foreign language can be found as the last part of this chapter.
Chapter 5: Conclusion, provides concluding remarks. Summarizes major findings of
the study, points out the limitations and proposes some suggestion for further research.

7

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Previous studies
There are many articles and papers researching on negation in the sentence, both
overseas and in Vietnam.
2.1.1. Previous studies overseas
There are some researches found considered relevant references:
“Expression and Interpretation of Negation” (Henriëtte Swart,2010), often cited
by many reseach papers as Negation in a Cross-Linguistic Perspective. It explores
the territory where logic, natural language and typology meet. She in favour of the idea
that: meaning of negation is not conveyed only through the expression of negatives, but
also their interpretation. De Swart deploys the framework of bi-directional Optimality
Theory to develop a typology of the relationship between syntax and semantics in
negation markers and negative indefinites. In this model, syntactic and semantic
constraints act in concert to define the grammar of a language. Some languages are
„double negative‟, some „negative concord‟, and others belong to subclasses identified
by „strict negative concord‟ „nonstrict negative concord‟ or „negative spread‟. In
addition the author analyses intermediate cases, and examines complex instances of
double negation occurring in negative concord languages. Her OT analysis of the
Jespersen cycle brings together typological and diachronic variation. This book‟s
unique combination of theoretical precision and wide empirical coverage make it
essential reading for any researcher approaching semantic typology from a logical,
linguistic or cognitive perspective.
“Contrastive Analysis of Negation in Language and Its Implications for
Mwaghavul and English” in Journal of language in India authored by Judith Makse
Patrick, Nanbam Yuwana Ojo, Professor Mingcai Sui and Banenat Didampublished in
2014. This paper compared the negation in the language of two languages at the
syntactic and lexical verb levels. Besides, it was an effort to contribute to the field of

contrastive analysis of the Mwaghavul-English language. The scope of this study

8


focused on the six personal pronouns in the sentence context presented in English and
Mwaghavul in the present simple, simple past and future simple negative tenses.
2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam
Nguyen Thi Luong in “Câu tiếng Việt” (2006) mentioned a negative sentence is
a sentence that uses negative words to confirm that there are no certain things,
characteristics, properties and relationships or negate an opinion and a comment. From
this perspective, negative statements not only perform the ability to describe as
definition of Diep Quang Ban but also able to perform the function of negating an idea.
“The negative statements correct a mistaken idea, such as the idea that the monster was
called Frankenstein. In general, we use negative statements to inform someone that
what they might think or expect is “not” so.” (Eastwood, 1994)
“Phân tích đối chiếu câu phủ định tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt trên bình diện cấu
trúc – ngữ nghĩa” (Tran, 2000). This study established the concept of the structure, the
semantics of negative statement, analyzed the description, classified of negative
statement models in English and similarities or differences in Vietnamese negative
models, analyzed and contrasted the semantics structure expressed through grammar or
vocabulary in two languages.
―An investigation into negative sentences in English and Vietnamese: A word
grammar perspective‖, M.A. thesis in the English language at Da Nang University
authored by Nguyen Vu Phong Van in 2012, under the guidance of Tran Quang Hai,
analyzed the structures of sentences containing negative words extracting from
Vietnamese and English works. In addition, this paper identified negative devices in
English and Vietnamese, the similarities and differences between English and
Vietnamese when using negative sentences; determined the aims of using negative
sentences and found out the functions of negative sentences in context. The aim of the

study was to investigate the negative sentences in English and Vietnamese.
Based on the negative structure andthe negative words in Chinese and
Vietnamese, “Câu phủ định tiếng Hántrong sự đối chiếu với tiếng Việt‖, M.A. thesis in
the linguistics, written by Ly Bao My in 2015 at Ha Noi National University showed
the comparison of the negative structure between the two languages tofind out the

9


differences between the two languages and to summarize the different elements about
how to use negative in Chinese and Vietnamese sentences.
―Câu phủ định tiếng Nga trong sự đốichiếu với tiếng Việt‖, M.A. thesis in the
linguistics, Academy of social sciences, authored by Nguyen Thi Thanh Hien in 2016
presented the similarities and differences on negative sentences of two languages. As a
result, it helped to image to read the specified type of the language type over the
negative sentence. This paper showed generalization of some research achievements on
negative sentences in Russian and Vietnamese and the theoretical issues related to the
thesis topic, performance the means of expressing negative in the negative sentences in
Russian and Vietnamese, comparison of expressing negative meanings in Russian
and Vietnamese to indicate the differences and similarities of negative sentences
between the two languages. The description method and the comparison method were
used to conduct this study.
“A contrastive analysis of simple negative sentences in English and
Vietnamese” (Chau, 2017). This research paper was issued in Magazine of Van Hien
University, Volume 5, No.2, published in 2017. This is an application-oriented work
into the similarities and differences in the formulation of negative sentences in English
and Vietnamese based on the commonly used terms in these two languages. The author
in favour of Diep Quang Ban‟s view “The way to express the negation in both of
languages is to use negative words. Vietnamese has negative words like ―không‖,
―chẳng‖, ―chưa‖, ―chả‖, especially the word ―chả‖ is commonlyused in speaking”

(Diep,2005).
2.2 Theoretical background
2.2.1 Theory of Syntax
The study of syntax has had a chequered career. In the heyday of IndoEuropean studies in the latter half of the 19th century syntax was neglected as linguists
were mainly concerned with phonology and morphology. With the advent of
structuralism the situation looked better, particularly with the Prague school of
linguistics in the 1920s, because syntagmatic relationships in language were discussed.
However, American structuralism in the inter-war years did not devote its attention to
syntax chiefly because Leonard Bloomfield – the main figure in linguistics at the time
10


– was concerned with matters of phonology and morphology; there was a neglect of
both syntax and semantics. It was not until the 1950s with the reaction to classical
structuralism that syntax came into its own as an autonomous level of linguistics.
As far as how syntax is defined, it is common knowledge that syntax is the study of
structure of language. In other words, syntax aims to study a series of rules, principles,
and processes that govern the ways of using basic lexical units to form bigger units to
construct sentences in a given language. To this end, the goal of many syntacticians is
to discover the syntactic rules common to all languages. This type of grammar is so
called universal grammar. They are to dictate how words from different parts of speech
are put together to convey a complete thought.
Syntax is also considered a form of grammar and it is concerned primarily
with word order in a sentence and with the agreement of words when they are used
simultaneously. Every language has a limited number of syntactic relations. However,
subject and object are probably universal of syntactic relations which apply to every
language. Because languages are different from each other, the criteria for classifying
word classes may differ from language to language, so do the ways in which syntactic
relations are marked. It is also true that every language has developed a specific
mechanism that is similar to syntax to make a boundless number of sentences. This is a

common feature that can be found in all languages.
In the past, syntactic clues have sometimes been utilized in lexicography as
an aid to establishing polysemy. In theoretically oriented linguistic literature, too, the
claim had often been made that a difference in meaning. In the present work, however,
a stronger claim has been tried to explore that a syntactic similarity is likely to reflect a
similarity in meaning, so that shared syntactic patterns are likely to reflect shared
semantic components. To the extent to which this claim is validated, shared syntactic
properties can be seen as evidence for postulated semantic structures.
As has been discussed above, syntax refers to the rules that govern the ways in
which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Therefore, studying the
syntactic features means studying the properties of words and their relationships when
they combine together in specific patterns of arrangement in a sentence.

11


2.2.2 Theory of Semantics
So far there have been a great number of concepts of semantics. Semantics is a
branch of linguistics, which deals with meaning or the content of communication.
However, the meaning of words cannot be derived from their physical properties, it
cannot be reduced to the real-world objects or their perception, and it cannot be
reduced to the particular image in human minds The meaning of words is to be derived
from the relations between words, concepts and things in the real world.
Jack Richards, John Platt, Heidi Weber (1987:172) state that “the study of
meaning is semantics. Semantics is usually concerned with the analysis of the meaning
of words, phrases, or sentences and sometimes with the meaning of utterances in
discourse or the meaning of a whole text.”
Hurford and Heasley (1983:14) further explain that the study of semantics is largely a
matter of conceptuality 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.
David Crystal (1992:347) 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 antonym. 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. The theory of semantic
fields views vocabulary as organized into areas, within which words (lexical items)
interrelate and define each other.
Semantics is usually connected with pragmatics. Carnap (Lyons, 1977:116)
says that descriptive semantics (i.e. the investigation of the meaning of expressions in
“historically given natural language”), may be regarded as part of pragmatics. The
reason why descriptive semantics is part of pragmatics seems to have been that he
believed that differences in the use of particular expressions were not only inevitable in
language - behavior, but must be taken account of in the description of context. Smith,
as quoted by Lyons (1977:116) states that semantics studies how these signs are related
to things. And pragmatics studied how they are related to people. According to Leech

12


(1983:5) in practice, the problem of distinguishing language and language use has
centred on a boundary dispute between semantics and pragmatics.
Additionally, there is one idea regarded as the most important subject in
contemporary semantics, pointing out that meaningful units could combine with each
other to form larger meaningful units and that understanding the meaning of the whole
sentences is an appropriate method to work out these combinations. Researchers,
therefore, are to look for general rules to indicate the relationships between forms or
arrangements of words in sentences and meanings. It is not an easy job as these
relationships are often very complex.

In short, meanings could be distinguished, according to how they deal with
the relation between words, concepts and things in the world, and the conventions that
are constitutive of this relation. The main types that dominate the linguistic field today
can be split into such large classes as: referential, cognitive semantic theories,
propositional and foundational theories of meaning:
As for the referential, the theory is concerned with the relation between
expressions and the external world. The referential theory is used to explain our
knowledge of linguistic meaning, but makes no claim about how we actually know
how linguistic expressions acquire meaning. In other words, it makes no psychological
claims. A referential theory of semantics assumes that meaning is reference to facts or
objects in the world. In these theories, the denotation relation constitutes the most
fundamental semantic relation. The same paradigm can be extended to kinds of
expressions other than proper names, to expressions of any kind. The meaning of the
word, for example, house (syntactic category: common noun) is what the word refers
to, points out, in the world. The denotation of the word house right now is the set of all
houses that there are right now in the world. If the relevant world, or domain of
reference, were this classroom, then the meaning of the word house would be an empty
set: common noun: house --> set of houses. As for the verb phrase in the sentence, for
example: John is walking , The verb walk as an intransitive verb, a syntactical
term,which isone-place predicate (semantic term),: walk denotes or refers a certain set
or collection of individuals--the set of walkers (John is in the set of walkers).
As for the cognitive, the cognitive theory of meaning refers to the fact that if
a sentence like John walked is seen or heard, the experience with how human beings
13


typically move is perceived. It is sensed that walking is slower than running, how it
relates to other ways in which humans move: jumping, hopping, etc. From these two
theories of meaning, for example, John kissed Mary, the reference of kiss as a
transitive verb (syntax) or a two-place predicate (semantics) kiss is the set of ordered

pairs of individuals where the first individual stands in a kissing relation to the second.
John kissed Mary will be true just in case the pair John and Mary are in the set of
ordered pairs of individuals where the first individual kisses the second one.
Propositional semantic theories answer the question, „What is the meaning
of this or that expression?‟ The relationship between content and reference, character
and content, context and circumstance and Foundational theory of meaning tries to
explain what about some person or group gives the symbols of their language the
meanings that they have. Mentalists aim to explain the nature of meaning in terms of
the mental states of language users, mentalist theories may be divided according to
which mental states they take to be relevant to the determination of meaning. Utterance
is in an important respect very typical: usually the propositions which speakers mean to
convey by their utterances include the propositions expressed by the sentences they
use, but also include other propositions. When we ask „What did you mean by that?‟
we are usually not only asking for the lexical but pragmatic meaning of the sentence
uttered.
In conclusion, syntax deals with the formation of sentences, how words are
combined to larger units than words, to phrases and sentences whereas semantics is the
study of meaning expressed by elements of a language, characterizable as a symbolic
system. In other words, syntax is defined as the sequencing of language elements in
time; semantics is defined as the selection from among the contrasting elements of a
given syntactic and/or pragmatic type ranging from the atoms to the molecules of
language structure. These dimensions, however, are by no means independent.
Syntactic units constitute semantic units in that they embody implicit exclusions. When
a syntactic unit of a given type is semantically selected, all others of the same type are
implicitly excluded. This is to say that any meaningful use of language involves
simultaneous implementation of syntax, semantics. These two aspects of language do
not exist independently and can only be understood in terms of their inter-relationships.
When a language is viewed as a medium for communication, the implicit error of
14

attempting to deal with linguistic units apart from meaning, or meaning apart from the
speaker's knowledge of the world becomes explicit. A brick wall does not exist apart
from the space-time relation between its bricks and mortar. Neither does a description
of bricks or of mortar constitute an explanation of a brick wall. As a complex means of
communication language can only be explained within the framework of the context of
communication and this can only be accomplished through an integrated theory of
syntax and semantics.
2.3 Theoretical framework
2.3.1 Definition of the sentence
2.3.1.1 The clause in English
So far there have been a variety of definitions about the clause in English
grammar. One definition is that a group of words containing a subject and a predicate
and forming part of a compound or complex sentence makes up a clause. In accordance
with Wikipedia, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete
proposition. A typical clause in English contains minimally a subject and a predicate.
In other languages, the subject is often omitted if it is retrievable from context. A
simple sentence usually consists of a single finite clause with a finite verb that is
independent. More complex sentences may contain multiple clauses. Main clause ( =
matrix clauses, independent clause) are those that could stand as a sentence by
themselves. Subordinate clauses ( = embedded clauses, dependent clauses) are those
that would be awkward or nonsensical if used alone. In this definition, the parts of a
clause contains: Subject (S): A person, animal, place, thing, or concept that does an
action. Determine the subject in a sentence by asking the question “Who or what?”
He reads many books. Verb (V): Expresses what the person, animal, place, thing, or
concept does. Determine the verb in a sentence by asking the question “What was the
action or what happened?”: He reads many books. In English, the be verb is also
sometimes referred to as a copula or a linking verb. It links the subject to the
complement or the predicate of the sentence: He is interested in reading books. Object
(O): A person, animal, place, thing, or concept that receives the action. Determine the

object in a sentence by asking the question “The subject did what?” or “To whom?/For
whom?”: He reads many books. And Adverbial (A): A phrase that modifies a verb,
15


an adjective or an adverb in the sentence functions as. An adverbial phrase can be
headed by a preposition (i.e., in, at for, behind, until, after, of, during) or an adverb
(slowly, late…), answering the questions about the verb “Where? When? In what
way?”: He is running slowly or He likes spaghetti for dinner.
Quirk et al. (1985) classifies clause structure in greater detail. They claim that a clause
can be structured by 1) SV(It can’t stop), 2) SVCs (She is tall), 3) SVO(He has
nothing to read)., 4) SVOiOd (He gave her a book)., 5) SVOCo(He always keeps his
books clean), 6) SVA(He is reading in the library). , 7) SVOA (He is reading books in
the library).
From what has been described about clause definition, the clause structure in
English may include the main parts as follows:
Table 2.1: English clause structure based on their syntactic function
Order

Parts of clause
structure

Basic function

Examples

1

Subject

Doer of action

-

He reads many books

2

Main verb

states what subject

-

Nam plays football well.

-

He has nothing to read.

does.
3

Complement

Completing
meaning
sentence units

of

-

She is American.

4

Object

Acted
verbs

by

-

I can’t see anything.

5

Adverbial

Modifying verbs,
adjectives,
adverbs or whole

-

The

-

veryslowly.
The weather is very hot.

sentence

-

upon

man

is

walking

Unluckily, she lost all the
money.

2.3.1.2 The Sentence
Sentence, which is usually considered the largest syntactical unit, is one of the
problems taking up a large portion of grammar books. It is quite easy to understand
16


why so much attention has been paid to the study of sentence. The term sentence is so
familiar to everyone, from a learner who has just started a language course to a linguist,
yet its definitions are far from homogeneous, they are even very confusing, instead.
In traditional grammars, sentences are simply defined as “ composed of

words” and it is function of syntax to state what words can be combined with others to
form sentences and in what order.
In addition, a linguistic definition of the sentence must be in terms of its
internal structure. A sentence will be composed of certain specified elements in a
certain order, ultimately, of course, of word, or parts of word.
According to G. Leech and J. Svartvict (1992), “ Sentences are units made up by
one or more clauses. Sentence containing just one clause is called simple, and
sentences containing more than one clause are called complex”
A clause is normally understood as a group of words containing a subject and finite
verb, forming a sentence or part of sentence, and often doing the work of a noun,
adjective or adverb.
In the traditional view, clauses are sentences that are part of larger sentences.
That is to say, clauses are seen as the minimalsentences while the term sentence is used
for the larger or maximal sentence (Palmer (1994: 11))
To put it in another way, the “traditional” clause is a component of the
sentence. Though arbitrary, this conception has indicated what is meant and
illustrated a very important characteristic of natural language.
Quirk et al (1972: 42) give simple explanation, more structurally and formally
biased, of the clause. A clause is a unit that can be analyzed in to the elements: S, V, O,
C, and A (subject, verb, object, complement and adverb). Later Leech and Svartvick
(1992) modify this conception, proposing that clauses are the principal structures of
which sentence are composed. They also put forward three important ways in which
clauses may be described and classified.
+ In terms of clause elements (subject, verb. etc.) from which they are constructed and
the verb patterns which are formed from the elements.
+ In terms of the use in which a clause is made by verb phrase structure to help
distinguish between finite clauses, non-finite clauses, and verbless clauses.

17

+ In terms of clause function (the function of a clause performs in a sentence), such as
nominal clause, adverbial clause, etc. Thus, Later Leech and Svartvick work out some
criteria for their explanation of clause on the ground proposed by
In the view of speech function, Halliday‟s “clause” has a two-part structure
consisting of modal element and propositional elements. In whichever approach,
traditional, structural or functional, there is always a widespread agreement that a
clause typically consists of five elements: S, V, O, C and A.
Table 2.2: Classification of sentences based on form and function

Form

Function

Final
punctuation

Example
sentence (clause)

1 Declarative (SV)

Statement: It tells us
something

John likes Mary.

.

2 Interrogative (Op.

Question: It asks us

Does Mary like

?

something

John?

Command: It tells us
to do something

Stop!
Close the door.

! or .

Exclamation: It
expresses surprise

What a funny
story he told us!

!

SV)
3 Imperative

(V)

4 Exclamative (How /
What)

Simple sentences
A simple sentence has one clause:
All the girls are learning English
Compound sentences
A compound sentence has two or more clauses joined by coordinating conjunctions.
The common conjunctions are: and, but, or, nor, so, yet, for (FANBOYS), then.
(We stayed behind) and (finished the job), then (we went home).
18


Complex sentences
A complex sentence has a main clause and one ore more adverbial clauses.
The clauses of a complex sentence are joined by subordinating conjunctions such as:
when, after, since…
(Her father died) when (she was very young).
Subordinate clauses (adverbial clauses) usually come after the main clause as
above , bur some can come in front of the main clause:
Although a few snakes are dangerous most of them are quite harmless.
A sentence can contain both subordinate and coordinate clauses (Compoundcomplex sentences):
Although she has always lived in France, she speaks fluent English because her
mother was American and her father was Nigerian
2.3.2 Concepts of the phrase and classification of phrase
2.2.2.1. Phrases in English
According to ( Alexander 1998, 243 ), a phrase is a group of words acting as a
single part of speech and not containing both a subject and a verb. It is a part of a

sentence, and does not express a complete thought.
For example, the phrases in the first two sentences of this page are italicized. In
which the first sentence contains five phrases: “ of words”, “ acting as a single part of
speech,” “ as a single part of speech,” and “ not containing both a subject and a verb.
“ Except for the phrase beginning with as, all the phrases are acting as adjectives. The
phrase beginning with as is adverbial.
According to ., a phrase is a group of words
without a Subject and a Verb, which makes sense, but not complete sense.
Examples:
-

Lectures begin at nine
They bought me a box of chocolates.
I’m feeling cold.
They are behaving badly.

19


- Classification of phrase
In English grammar, grammarians divide phrases into an array of categories with
specific names based on the type of word that begins or governs; noun phrase, verb
phrase, prepositional phrase, infinitive phrase, participle phrase, gerund phrase, and
absolute phrase, to name but a few. However, the definition of phase should be
clarified to understand the diversity of those terms.
According to Sidney Greenbaum (1963:234), the five types of phrases are
named after the class of word that is the head of the phrase. The phrase types are
exemplified below :
1. Noun phrase
2. Verb phrase

3. Adjective phrase
4. Adverb phrase
5. Prepositional phrase

recent deluges of reports (head: deluges)
might have been accepted (head: accepted)
surprisingly normal (head: normal)
more closely (head: closely)
for a moment ( head: for)

NOUN PHRASE
A noun phrase is a word or group of words that can function as the subject,
the object, or the complement in a sentence.
A noun phrase must always contain a noun or a pronoun. A noun phrase may
consist of only one word. That word will be either a noun or a pronoun. A noun phrase
may consist of more than one word. One of these words, a noun or a pronoun, is
the headword. The other words describe or modify the headword.
- Mary left late.
- The manager interviewed all the applicants on Tuesday.
Words that go before the headword are called pre-modification which include
determiners and pre-modifiers. Determiners can be The indefinite article, The definite
article, Demonstratives, Possessives, Quantifiers, Numbers, a student, three days, etc.
Pre-modifiers may include: adjectives, nouns or participles of a verb: a nice view, the
railway station buffet, an annoying habit, etc
Words that go after the headword are called post-modifiers. Post-modifiers of a
noun phrase can be a prepositional phrase, or a clause:
o Can you see the person in the corner.
o All the women who had gathered there finally went away.
20

VERB PHRASE
A verb phrase in the sentence can be a single verb or consists of an auxiliary, or
helping, verb and a main verb. The helping verb always precedes the main verb.
Helping verbs include forms of auxiliary verbs: be, have, do, and shall or will, forms of
modal verbs; can, may, and must.
Examples:
o He is a worker.
o He is working in the office.
o
o

He has got a good job.
He can earn a lot of money

ADVERB PHRASE
An adverb phrase consists of one or more words. The adverb is the head of the
phrase and can appear alone or it can be modified by other words. Adverbs are one of
the four major word classes, along with nouns, verbs and adjectives. An adverb phrase,
like an adverb, modifies a verb, an adjective, or an adverb by providing additional
details about it. For example, in the sentence She speaks English (very) fluently,
fluently is an adverb phrase and very fluently is also an adverb phrase; the former is a
one-word phrase and the latter a two-word phase with very as modifier.
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
A prepositional phrase is a group of words consisting of a preposition, and a
noun phrase. Most of the time, a prepositional phrase modifies a verb as an adverbial or
a noun as a post-modifier. These two kinds of prepositional phrases are called
adverbial phrases and adjectival phrases, respectively.
o The cat in the middle is the cutest.
- He arrived in time

21


Table 2.3:Classification of English phrases based on parts of speech
Order

Types of phrases

Examples

1

Noun phrase (NP)

2

Verb phrase (VP)

He speaks good English.

3

Adjective phrase (AdjP)

The film is very interesting.

4

Adverb (AdvP)

The car is running very slowly.

5

Prepositional phrase (PP)

She is cooking in the kitchen.

He is a good student.

2.4 Negation and negative statements
2.4.1 Concepts of negation
In English, an affirmative sentence such as John came to school can be denied
by sentential negation didn’t, as in John didn’t come to school; a predicate such as the
adjective mortal can be negated by attaching not or a negative affix to it as used in the
sentence: People believe that the soul is immortal. Negation is one of the distinctive
properties of human language (Horn, 2001). Every natural language includes at least
one device that can express the negation of an affirmative constituent. Even in
rudimentary linguistic systems such as home sign negation is one of the first structure
building operations to emerge during language creation (Franklin, Giannakidou, and
Goldin-Meadow 2011).
All else being equal, the semantic computation of negative sentences seems to
be more complex than that of their affirmative counterparts, since negative
statements involve an extra step of semantic processing, along with extra
morphological or syntactic structure. Moreover, negation presents challenges for
semantic and syntactic computation not only because it is an additional layer of
meaning and structure to process, but also because there are many different ways to
express negation. Not many students came to school is approximately synonymous
with Few students came to school. Likewise, John didn’t believe Mary would win

expresses a similar negative meaning to John doubted Mary would win. The necessity
of identifying different types of negative expressions, based on morphosyntactic,
semantic, or pragmatic cues, enhances the processing complexity of negation (see Horn
(2001) for a detailed and lucid discussion of the issues of complexity, or markedness,
of negation).
22


Negation is extremely common in everyday communication, since most of the above
mentioned research has focused on the negative form not, we know very little about
how other types of negation are processed. In my study, I make use of the negationproperty of phrases to investigate how negative meaning appear in English statement
and their Vietnamese equivalents. There are two general classes that we call explicit
(asserted) and implicit(non-asserted) negation.
2.4.2 Types of negation (explicit and implicit)
Natural language has a rich landscape of negative expressions. There are
numbers of dimensions we can use to classify negative expressions into groups. We
make a distinction between negation in the asserted meaning and negation in the nonasserted content (also see Horn (1996)); also following Clark (1976), we call the first
group explicit negation, and the second implicit negation. Under Clark‟s classification,
explicit negation in English includes expressions like scarcely, hardly, few, seldom,
little, and only, as well as more obviously negative expressions like no, not, and never.
Implicit negation, on the other hand, includes expressions like forget, fail, doubt, and
deny (see also Fodor, Fodor, and Garrett, (1975)).2 It is already clear from these
examples that explicit negation is not a label for morphologically explicit (or overt)
negation, though overt negation is indeed a core member of this category. Rather, the
contrast between explicit versus implicit negation relies on which level of semantic
representation, i.e., assertion or non-assertion, negation appears at, a distinction we
come to below. Any given utterance conveys an array of meanings. In the widely used
Gricean and neo-Gricean frameworks (Grice, 1975; Stalnaker, 1978, Horn 2001,
Geurts, 2010), assertion conveys the logical meaning of a sentence, and non-asserted
meaning is thought of as pragmatic meaning. Logical semantic meaning determines the

literal meaning of a sentence, i.e., the truth conditions and entailments of a sentence;
pragmatic meaning, on the other hand, includes inferences beyond entailments,
specifically presuppositions, conversational implicatures, and conventional
implicatures. For example, if I say Mary’s children are blond I am asserting that
Mary‟s children are blond, the sentence entails that Mary‟s children are blond, and it is
true if they are, and false if they are not. The sentence also conveys the information
that Mary has children, and this is, classically, a presupposition of the sentence, not an
23


entailment. A common diagnostic to distinguish presupposition from entailment is that
presupposition survives under negation, but entailment does not. For example, with a
negative sentence like Mary’s children are not blond, it is no longer entailed that
Mary‟s children are blond. But the presupposition that Mary has children remains
intact. The precise division of labor between asserted and non-asserted meaning is a
central issue in the study of linguistic meaning (for recent overviews, see Potts (2005,
2007), Tonhauser, Beaver, Roberts, and Simons, (2013)). We can define two classes of
negation based on their source of negative meaning. If negation is expressed as part of
the asserted meaning of an utterance, i.e., if it is an entailment, it is explicit negation; if
it belongs to the non-asserted meaning (i.e., presupposition or implicature), it is
implicit negation. Overt negation, such as no and not, mark grammatical negation and
obviously affect the assertion, as we just saw. They constitute explicit negation. But it
is important to note that explicit negation does not necessitate that negation is
morphologically overt. Expressions such as few, scarcely, hardly, seldom, and little,
although not morphologically realized as negative, behave nevertheless syntactically
and semantically negative under a number of well known, and by now classic,
diagnostics (Klima, 1964; Horn, 2001; Postal, 2005; etc.). For instance, few, scarcely,
hardly, seldom, and little can be followed by a conjunct modified by neither, but not by
so. Moreover, they may also co-occur in a conjunct with either, but not with too. Some
examples are given below:

o
o

I have little money, not enough to buy the ticket / * I can buy the ticket.
You have little money and I have little, either / *too.

2.4.3 Concepts of a negative statement
The concepts of a negative statement vary from one grammarian to another.
According to Macline (1992) a negative statement is built when the verb in the
sentence is negated. When the negative words such as not, no, neither, nothing… are
used in the sentences, they have negative effect. In addition, the word negative which
is defined in Longman Dictionary of Current English means that a negative sentence,
the opposite of affirmative contains one of the words: no, not, nothing, never etc (p.
1167):

24


According Wikipedia, Free encyclopedia, a negative sentence (or statement) states
that something is not true or incorrect.
One of the ways negating a sentence is the use of using negative adverb. A
negative adverb has to be added in order to negate or “cancel” the validity of the
sentence. This “negation” element is created according to the following general rule.
In English, in order to claim that something is not true, you form a negative
sentence by adding the word not after the first auxiliary verb in the positive sentence. If
there is no auxiliary verb in the positive sentence, as in the Present Simple and Past
Simple tenses, then you add one (in both these cases, the auxiliary verb do).
However, in reference to negation, Quirk et al. (1985) claims that negation of a
sentence could divide into three types; clause negation frequently followed by one
negative item, or one or more nonassertive items, through which the whole clause is

syntactically treated as negative; local negation in which one constituent (not
necessarily a clause) is negated; and predication negation, a minor type applying only
after certain auxiliary, in which the predication is negated (p.775).
Examples:
- I have not finished. (Clause negation)
o
o
o

Not many people came to the party. (Negation with a negative item)
Few people came to the party. (Negation with a nonassertive item)
They own two not very fierce dogs. (rather docile: Local negation)

I visit them not very often (Local negation)
o You can not obey the order. (Predication negation)
As has been noticed from above, negation can be explicitly or implicitly
expressed. The thesis adopts the concept that a negative sentence can be syntactically
or semantically structured.
o

2.5 Overview of Vietnamese negative sentences
Diep Quang Ban in his book “Ngữ pháp tiếng Việt” (2005) and later “Ngữ pháp
Việt Nam” (2009) define statement as sentencenes which functioning explaination,
experesstion of the speakers‟ belief, they are used to tell, describe an object, an event, a
phenomenon or to identify, verify during the brainstorming process. He also mentioned
to negative sentences from multiple aspects: negative sentence from syntactical point
25