SOME DIFFERENCES OF INVERSION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

TẠP CHÍ KH & CN, SỐ 1/2012

SOME DIFFERENCES OF INVERSION BETWEEN
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Pham Thi Ha
Quang Binh University
Abstract: Inversion is one of the types of grammar used with the high probability in the
process of learning, teaching a language as well as in daily communication. Specially, inversion
in questions is used very often and naturally in our daily life because it is the most useful sentence
to make a request for information. This writing hopes to give you a very brief overview on
inversion and contributes to improve learning and teaching inversions more effectively.

1. INTRODUCTION
Inversion is one of the important parts in English grammar. The linguists
suggested that inversion is a linguistic aspect, expressed by different types of sentences.
Inversion allows the subject to appear after the operator. In a sentence containing a
negative word or expression, that word or expression is sometimes placed at the beginning
in formal English to give a more dramatic effect. When we want to put some words or
phrases at the beginning of the sentence to give emphasis or to be rhetorical in more
formal situations, inversion is required.
However, inversion is a complex topic. There are a lot of kinds of inversion and
a lot of ways to use inversions. It is rather difficult for teachers and students to teach and
study inversions in English grammar. Therefore, most of teachers and students have
omitted this topic. Some teachers and students in some schools have not been provided
fully with necessary knowledge of inversion. As a result, they are often confused when
they use inversions in their writing. In order to overcome this situation, students need to
distinguish the differences of inversion between English and Vietnamese.
2. DIFFERENCES OF INVERSION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
In English, inversion is common and often required in some kinds of sentences
because we use negative adverbs, adjectives or preposition phrases, etc. to begin these
sentences. In Vietnamese, in contrast, inversion is rarely used in normal sentences, but it

is often used in literature, especially in poems to give emphasis as a rhetorical method. In
English inversion, the main verb or the auxiliary verb or modal verb is often inverted to
come before the subject. There are usually three kinds of differences of inversion in
English and Vietnamese.
2.1. Statement inversion
With both English and Vietnamese statements, we can use inversion in some
certain cases. We can see that inversion is often required when we use negative adverbs,

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adjectives or preposition phrases, etc. to begin a sentence or when we want to emphasize
an element of a sentence.
Ex:

Little did he realize what was about to happen.

Inversion in English statement is very common. However, inversion in
Vietnamese statement is only used to give an emphasis or to be rhetorical in literature.
Ex:

“Xiên ngang mặt đất rêu từng đám
Đâm toạc chân mây đá mấy hịn”
(Tự tình - Hồ Xuân Hương)

 Ho Xuan Huong used inversion in both of these sentences to set off the indignation of
stones, grasses and trees (cỏ cây). This is also the indignation of people. The normal order
of these sentences:

“Từng đám rêu xiên ngang mặt đất
Mấy hòn đá đâm toạc chân mây”
In this case, if we use the sentence with normal order, the poem is only a narrative,
because it does not emphasize any meanings.
In Vietnamese statement, we often use inversion to give an emphasis or to be
rhetorical in literature if there is an adjective or an adverb. We invert that adjective/adverb
to the beginning of the sentence.
Ex:
“Thoảng thoảng đâu đây một nỗi buồn Quê nhà, cơ gái nhà q ấy. Có cịn giữ
vẹn dạ sắc son. Từ độ ta đi đã mấy mùa. Nhớ thương thương nhớ dệt vần thơ. Nhớ ai, ai
nhớ ân tình cũ?” (Nắng cực đá bèo - Trạng Quỳnh)
Here, “Nhớ thương, thương nhớ” is a case of inversion because both “Nhớ
thương” and “thương nhớ” have a meaning. “Nhớ ai, ai nhớ” is also inversion, but they
have different meanings. “Nhớ ai” means a question: “who do you miss?”. “Ai nhớ”
means “who misses you?”. Trang Quynh used inversion to fit in poetry.
Ex:

In the poem "Qua đèo Ngang" that is written by Ba huyen Thanh Quan, we have:
" Lom khom dưới núi tiều vài chú
Lác đác bên sông, chợ mấy nhà."
 Normal grammatical order of these sentences is:
“Vài chú tiều lom khom dưới núi (or Dưới núi, vài chú tiều lom khom)
Bên sông, chợ mấy nhà lác đác”

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Here, the poet inverted the adjective "lom khom" to the beginning of the sentence

to emphasize the stooping figure of the woodcutter, and inverted the adjective "lác đác"
to the beginning of the sentence to emphasize sparseness of life in Ngang pass. Moreover,
the inversion is to rhyme for the line of verse/poetry.
2.2. Negative inversion
Inversion is sometimes required in some cases of English negative sentence to
make exclamations or to form negative Yes/No question.
Ex:

You aren’t a silly girl!
 Aren't you a silly girl! (Inversion to make an exclamation)
It isn’t nice today
 Isn’t it nice today? (Inversion to form question)
To Vietnamese negative sentence, we can also use inversion to give emphasis.

Ex:

Lan khơng nói gì chỉ ngồi buồn một mình trong căn phịng nhỏ.
 Khơng nói gì Lan chỉ ngồi buồn một mình trong căn phịng nhỏ.
Predicate

S

Here, the predicative phrase “khơng nói gì” (negative) is inverted to come before
the subject “Lan” to emphasize Lan’s bad feeling.
2.3. Question inversion
We can see that English and Vietnamese questions are rather different in normal
order. To both of kinds of questions (yes/no question and Wh-question), inversion is
always required to form an English question, while we do not often use inversion in
Vietnamese question.
Ex:

English question: Did you do your homework? (Inversion with auxiliary verb “did”)
Vietnamese question: Em đã làm bài tập ở nhà chưa? (Not inversion)

As we know, Vietnamese questions are like narrative sentences but at the same
time they are often combined with modal particles à, hả, ạ... or some pairs of adverb có...
chưa, có... khơng, có phải...khơng to make yes/no questions or Ai, Cái gì, Để làm gì, Tại
sao, Tại sao khơng, Ở đâu, Tới đâu, Cái nào to make Wh-questions. In English, on the
contrary, the question structure is inversion (Auxiliary verbs, modal verbs and be-verb
are used before subject).
Ex:

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English

Vietnamese

Did he cut himself?

Ơng ấy bị đứt tay à?

Is she successful in her life?

Cô ấy có thành cơng trong cuộc sống khơng?

Do the students do military Sinh viên có phải làm nghĩa vụ quân sự không?

service?
Where are you working ?

Anh làm việc ở đâu?

When will you come back?

Bao giờ cậu về nhà?

Are you happy?

Ba ̣n đang vui à?

Have
you
assignment?

finished

Can you sing?

your Ba ̣n đã làm xong bài tâ ̣p chưa vâ ̣y?
Anh biế t hát không?

Once again, looking back the table, we can see that most of the questions in English begin
with a modal verb or an auxiliary or Wh – question. `They are illustrated be the underlined
words: did, is, do, have, can, where? When?.... They are called inversions in questions.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese questions often finish with modal particles or pairs of adverb
like à, có...không, ở đâu, chưa vâ ̣y... we do not need to invert the position of the words in
the sentence but we have to add some of the modal particles or pairs of adverb to the

sentences to make them questions.
3. CONCLUSION
There are many kinds of inversion between English and Vietnamese. However,
statement inversion, negative inversion and question inversion are more popular. Clearly,
inversions in English are very available to speakers and writers. Sometimes, if you change
the order of words in a sentence, the functions and meanings of that sentence are changed
as well. In Vietnamese, inversions are very limited in usages. They are used in the field
of literature in order to emphasize the meanings of sentences. In some cases, the forms of
inversion are the same but the meanings of the sentence are different. This usually
happens in statement and question inversions. Anyway, for Vietnamese question
inversions, you have to add one or two elements of words like à, nhé, nha, ạ, hi,
hư…Intonation of speech act also contributes to the changes of inversion sentences in
both English and Vietnamese.
To sum up, the discussions of inversion are still going on to speakers and writers
in English and in Vietnamese. In the scope of this writing, I hope you will partly find out

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some differences of inversion between English and Vietnamese in terms of statement,
question, and negative inversions. The other kinds of inversion will be considered later.
references
[1] BJ Birner (1996), The discourse function of Inversion English, Springer.
[2] PW Culicover, RD Levine (2001), Natural language & Lingustics, Springer
[3] P. Coopmans (1989), Locative inversion in English, JSTOR
[4] J. Penhallurick - Australian Journal of linguistics (1984), Full verb in Inversion English,
informaworld,com.
[5] BJ Birner – Language (1994), Information status&word order: An analysis of English Inversion,

JSTOR.
[6] B.Birner, SMahahootian - Language Sciences (1990), Functional constraints on Inversion in English,
Elsevier.
[7]

PHÂN BIỆT SỰ KHÁC NHAU CỦA MỆNH ĐỀ ĐẢO NGỮ
TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
Phạm Thị Hà
Trường Đại học Quảng Bình
Tóm tắt: Mệnh đề đảo ngữ là một trong những điểm ngữ pháp được sử dụng phổ biến
trong quá trình dạy và học Tiếng Anh cũng như trong quá trình giao tiếp hàng ngày. Đặc biệt,
đảo ngữ theo hình thức câu hỏi, chất vấn được sử dụng thường xuyên trong cuộc sống thường
ngày bởi vì đây chính là hình thức giao tiếp để thu nhận thông tin. Bài viết này hi vọng sẽ cung
cấp cho bạn đọc một cách nhìn tổng quan về mệnh đề đảo ngữ và góp phần nhằm cải thiện việc
dạy và học mệnh đề đảo ngữ trong hệ thống ngữ pháp Tiếng Anh hiệu quả hơn.

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